APWU Wins Important Maintenance Subcontracting Grievance
APWU News
The union won a major victory against subcontracting Feb. 10, when Arbitrator Shyam Das directed the USPS to assign Maintenance Craft employees to maintain computers at approximately 8,000 of the nation’s largest associate offices. The arbitrator also instructed management and the union to discuss the possibility of assigning additional computer maintenance work at AOs to the Maintenance Craft. Read more
Columbus Ohio Motor Vehicle Services Unit Contracted Out
From Postal Reporter reader:
I was just letting you know that Columbus Ohio was just informed that we are Mode Converted and are all being moved into Mailhandler,Carrier , and custodial jobs. Bob Pritchard and Mike Foster are keeping everything quiet, not passing info out to let everyone know.
Bill to Limit Postal Subcontracting Introduced in House
APWU News
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) introduced legislation in the House of Representatives on March 24 that would restrict USPS subcontracting. The Mail Protection Act (H.R. 1686), which is backed by the APWU, is modeled on a bill the Congressman introduced in November 2007 (H.R. 4236).
The bill would require the Postal Service to bargain with postal unions before engaging in significant subcontracting, and would require the USPS to submit to arbitration if management and the affected unions were unable to reach agreement. It would apply to any private contract involving mail processing, mail handling, or surface transportation of mail, provided that over a 12-month period the contract involved the equivalent of $5 million or 50 work-years.
“This legislation is vital,” said APWU President William Burrus, “especially in light of the Postal Service’s recent financial difficulties. “There is no justification for continued subcontracting while postal employees and equipment are under-utilized.
“Yet the USPS continues to engaging in subcontracting, and, under the terms of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, is able to avoid bargaining over the issue.”
“The requirement to bargain will enhance our ability to oppose wasteful, inefficient and detrimental subcontracting,” Burrus said. “Too often, contracting out ends up costing the Postal Service more money than if the work were performed by postal employees, and contractors’ service to the public is poor.”
“I applaud Rep. Lynch for introducing this bill, which will be beneficial for the Postal Service, postal workers, and the American public,” the union president said. “The APWU will work with him to help gain co-sponsors for the legislation, and to win support for a companion bill in the Senate.”
Burrus urged postal workers to contact their representatives and urge them to support it. “It is imperative that members of Congress hear from their constituents that this legislation is important to the future of the Postal Service and to postal workers.”
APWU activists at the state and local level should make plans to win support from lawmakers, Burrus said.
“We have a great deal of hard work before us,” he said. “We must do everything we can to see that H.R. 1686 is passed.”
USPS Looking To ‘Outsource’ Change-of-Address Program?
From Federal Business Opportunities
The United States Postal Service (“USPS”) is seeking information from parties interested in engaging in a long-term relationship as Supplier and/or alliance partner with the USPS to implement innovative solutions to enable USPS to efficiently and effectively manage its change-of-address (COA) program, while capturing the significant commercial opportunities presented when a postal patron submits change of address forms in connection with a move. Although the USPS desires at this time that interested parties be willing to fund all costs associated with the program, your response should address how the operating costs and potential future investments could be financed as well as your interest in taking on this role.
The process requires the submission of information from interested parties followed by an evaluation period in which the USPS will determine whether to move forward with a statement of work and request for proposal.
Background
Over 46 million Americans change their addresses annually and the processing of change-of-address (COA) orders received from postal patrons is a vital and necessary part of the USPS’s core mission to maintain timely service to the public. In service of this mission, the USPS processes approximately 46 million change-of-address orders each year. .
The mobility of the American population presents formidable challenges for the USPS and business mailers to maintain high-quality mailing lists that are up-to-date and accurate. It also offers a significant commercial opportunity for businesses to form relationships with potential customers because moving inspires increased, and predictable, event-driven spending patterns both before and after the move date. The USPS currently offers several services for postal patrons to update their address when they move., however, the USPS will not provide name and address lists to the supplier and/or alliance partner or vendors, pursuant to 39 U.S.C. § 412 and federal privacy policies.
USPS Objectives
The USPS wishes to continue and enhance, where feasible, marketing programs that leverage the COA program to capture the potentially high-growth commercial opportunities generated when a patron files a change of address with the USPS. A strategic relationship between the USPS and a capable and compatible supplier and/or alliance partner would be designed to defray the USPS costs of the COA program and deliver meaningful revenue growth for the USPS and its partner. The USPS is uniquely positioned in its relationship and interaction with movers when processing a change of address order and seeks to create innovative and effective marketing programs designed to capture the value potential inherent in this relationship.
Information Requested
The USPS is seeking information from companies interested in partnering to develop innovative solutions to defray the USPS costs of the COA program and drive revenue growth opportunities through advertising and marketing opportunities. Interested parties should address all of the competencies listed below and are encouraged to identify additional capabilities, enhancements and/or concepts.
source: FedBizOpp
USPS Seeking Vendor to Replace Manual Distribution
Residual Mail Processing Sources Sought
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is seeking to obtain information on potential strategic sources for developing, acquiring, and managing a system to automate the processing of residual letter and flat volumes. These residual letter mail and flat mail volumes manifest themselves as current letter and flat automation rejects or non-automation compatible mailpieces. The new system will replace the current manual distribution processes of sorting letter and flat rejects or non-automation compatible mailpieces. Respondents to this Sources Sought Notice are requested to submit “white papers” on their approach or solution for the automation of residual letter and flat volumes.
Companies must describe their system concept, its technical and functional feasibility and capability of going from prototype to production to deployment. At a minimal your white paper must depict how your company will accomplish the following:
1. Process all letter and flat mail residual volumes, without regard to physical mailpiece shape, height, width, weight and condition. Provide an automated volume input method, that may include an operator assisted input function.
2. Derive finest depth-of-code address data for individual residual mail pieces. As a minimum, the following mail piece data will be determined: finalized ZIP Code data based upon the delivery address. 3. Uniquely identify – via tag info – each mailpiece processed. 4. Accept sort plan data from the National Directory Support System (NDSS). 5. Provide sortation depth to the carrier park point or relay point (as available in the national DPF file. 6. Shall not create reject / subsequent handling residual pieces. 7. Include a Video Encoding workstation. 8. Contain Undeliverable -as-Addressed handling capability
The Respondents to this Sources Sought Notice are reminded that responses to this notice are not considered offers and will not be accepted by the Postal Service to form a binding contract. In addition, the Postal Service will not incur any monetary obligation associated with this Sources Sought Notice or any responses thereto.
source: Federal Business Opportunties
Congressman Asks Boston Postal Managers For Explanation Of Outsourcing Vehicle Maintenance Work
Filed under: APWU, maintenance, motor vehicle services, outsourcing, postal, usps
From the American Postal Workers Union:
Expressing concern about the outsourcing of maintenance and repair work on postal vehicles, U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) wrote to the USPS Boston District Manager on Sept. 22, [PDF] and asked for an explanation of USPS policy.
“It is my understanding that the vehicle maintenance work is currently being contracted out at an hourly rate which exceeds that of USPS” employees, he said. In addition, Lynch said he had seen documentation indicating that some of the work failed to adhere to maintenance guidelines and risked harm to the environment.
“Also of grave concern is that these contactors have access to universally familiar USPS vehicles” and are authorized to remove them from postal premises. Lynch said he was concerned that contractors may not have been vetted to ensure that they pose no threat to homeland security.
“It is my hope that you can provide a detailed explanation of USPS motor vehicle maintenance policy and the process by which these contractors are selected,” Lynch concluded.
Rep. Lynch wrote the letter in response to complaints from Boston Metro Area Local Motor Vehicle Services Craft President Bill Weaver. In a letter to Postmaster General John E. Potter, [PDF] Weaver outlined concerns about the security of the mail, the lack of training of subcontractors, and the cost of subcontracting, as compared with assigning the maintenance and repair work to postal employees.
APWU national officers praised the activities of the members of the Boston Local and of Rep. Lynch. “We have always gotten a good turnout from Boston,” Assistant MVS Director Michael O. Foster said. “This is exactly the kind of grass-roots effort we need.
“Motor Vehicle Craft employees and local leaders have to get involved,” he said. Foster noted that Rep. Lynch authored the Mail Network Protection Act (H.R. 4236), which would require the Postal Service to bargain with postal unions before it engages in significant contracting-out. The APWU enthusiastically supports the bill and has encouraged union members to urge their congressional representatives to sign on as co-sponsors.
NAPS Challenges USPS Network Plan, Questions Outsourcing
From the National Association of Postal Supervisors Legislative and Regulatory Update
The National Association of Postal Supervisors has questioned the Postal Service’s plans for the use of contracting out in realigning its mail processing and distribution network and has encouraged Congress to ask the Postal Service where it’s headed in its reliance on private contractors to process and transport mail.
In an August 5 letter to Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL), chairman of the House panel that oversees the Postal Service, NAPS President Ted Keating challenged the Network Plan the Postal Service recently sent to Congress and the Service’s lack of explanation of the role it intends outsourcing to play in modernizing mail processing and transportation activity. Keating pointed to USPS efforts to contract-out processing and transportation operations at its Bulk Mail Centers as raising significant policy concerns that “could represent a significant step toward the privatization of postal operations.”
The Postal Service on July 1 issued a draft Request for Proposal to create a “Time Definite Surface Network” (TDSN) that envisions outsourcing all mail processing and transportation activity currently performed by the 21 BMCs within the USPS mail network, starting with those in Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, St. Paul, Atlanta and Seattle. Bulk Mail Centers are highly mechanized mail processing plants that distribute parcel post, media mail, standard mail and periodicals in bulk form.
”If BMC activity is ultimately outsourced through the TDSN initiative, does the Postal Service intend to extend outsourcing to all of its Processing and Distribution Centers and related transportation activities?” Keating asked Congress. “What is the ultimate goal? Is this the first phase of wider reliance on privatization of mail processing and distribution? Does the Service ultimately intend to contract out all processing and distribution of mail, if it believes that service standards and customer service can be maintained at acceptable levels?”
Keating also took aim at the USPS Network Plan itself, criticizing USPS for providing few new details to Congress, which mandated in the 2006 postal reform law that the Postal Service provide a comprehensive report on how intended to modernize the processing/transportation backbone of the postal network. Keating called the plan the USPS sent to Congress a “strategy without a destination.” “The Postal Service’s faith in a ‘fluid approach’ toward network realignment, as evidenced in the Network Plan,” Keating said, “is largely a continuation of the zigzagging we have witnessed since 2001, from the Network Integration and Alignment program, to the Evolutionary Network Development program, to the most recent efforts involving ill-fated Regional Distribution Centers.”
”There is one potentially distinct difference in the latest iteration, however,” Keating warned. “The single-most important development in the Network Plan is the one whose possible consequences are left the most unaddressed. Left unanswered is the role of outsourcing in the Postal Service’s vision of network realignment and whether the Service intends to apply outsourcing toward the entirety of its processing and distribution operations …” “We regard these omissions as flaws in the transparency and completeness of the Network Plan, as well as the creation of understanding by the Postal Service stakeholders and the public of the implications of these steps.”
Keating encouraged the Postal Service to provide answers to the Congress and postal stakeholders, including the Postal Regulatory Commission, and explain the relationship between the TDSN outsourcing initiative and future efforts to modernize and cut costs in USPS processing and distribution centers and other facilities in the mail network.
The potential for USPS outsourcing to private contractors of the responsibility for processing and distribution of mail, in light of stalled USPS efforts to privatize mail delivery, holds huge implications — both financial and political — for the USPS, not to mention its 700,000 employee workforce. There are well over 300 processing and distribution plants in the Postal Service’s mail network, providing jobs to tens of thousands of postal workers and economic heft to the surrounding communities in which the plants are located. At the same time, considerable excess capacity in many plants exists, worsened by the continued decline in mail volume, likely necessitating further facility consolidations and closures, even if the work continues to remain within the Postal Service.
At a July 24 hearing of the House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia on the USPS Network Plan, Subcommittee Chairman Danny Davis in his opening remarks focused on the need for USPS to adopt a smarter approach toward downsizing the postal network, saying, “For this effort to be successful the Postal Service MUST do a better job of realigning its processing and transportation networks, improve the data used in its computerized and statistical modeling, and minimize service disruptions. Failure to prevent and predict service problems will result in poor mail delivery, which in turn will anger the public and trigger political considerations.”
USPS Unable to Justify Outsourcing, GAO Finds
APWU News
The Postal Service is unable to demonstrate that it saves money by outsourcing, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, because it has no comprehensive mechanism to measure savings.
“Without cost-savings data, postal managers, stakeholders and Congress cannot assess the risk and value of outsourcing,” the GAO concluded. Nonetheless, the USPS will continue to “explore outsourcing opportunities” and is considering another major outsourcing initiative involving its bulk mail processing network, the report noted.
The GAO recommended that the Postmaster General establish a process to track the results of outsourcing activities that are subject to collective bargaining and report the results to Congress. Although the Postal Service generally agreed with the report’s findings, the USPS disagreed with recommendation to provide Congress with the information about the results of outsourcing.
In its study, Data Needed to Assess the Effectiveness of Outsourcing [PDF], the GAO cautioned that the inability of the USPS to provide accurate data could make it difficult “to generate support for future outsourcing efforts.”
NALC: Contracting Out Moratorium Extended To September 30
NALC President William H. Young announced June 13 that he has obtained agreement from the Postal Service to extend the moratorium on delivery subcontracting called for by the Article 32 Committee Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in the National Agreement through September 30, 2008, the end of the USPS Fiscal Year.
The moratorium applies to city carrier offices not covered by the National Agreement’s life-of-the-contract ban on CDS routes in offices that employ only city carriers.
The NALC and the Postal Service, meanwhile, continue to update the list of city carrier offices covered by the MOU on Subcontracting. That MOU prohibits any outsourcing of delivery in covered offices for the life of the contract. Young said another list of affected CDS routes that will be converted to regular delivery in June will soon be released. The extension of the moratorium on subcontracting in offices where letter carriers work side by side with rural carriers and CDS contractors will permit the Article 32 Committee to complete its work, as outlined in the MOU contained in the 2006-2011 contract.
Young applauded the continued cooperation of Postmaster General John E. Potter and Vice President for Labor Relations Doug Tulino on the issue of the moratorium.
NALC Members Lobby Congress to Keep Close Watch On USPS Contracting Out
Carriers from Florida, Georgia, and Carolinas Take Union’s Message Directly to Congress
Letter carriers from NALC branches throughout Region 9 continued the union’s lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill April 15-17, pressing Congress to keep a close watch on any resurgence of contracting out by the Postal Service and reminding them of key issues on the union’s legislative
agenda.Hundreds of active and retired members from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina visited the offices of their members in the House of Representatives and Senate, discussing in detail with members and staff the NALC’s position on significant legislation.
NALC Executive Vice President Fred Rolando, acting on behalf of traveling President William H. Young, welcomed the group to NALC Headquarters for a Rap Session on April 16 and gave them a rundown of major topics being handled by the national union.
Rolando said that the 2006-2011 National Agreement is at the printer and will be mailed to local branches by the end of the month now that the list of CDS-protected offices is complete. There are about 3,600 such offices. He said that the Postal Service has begun the process of terminating existing CDS contracts in those offices, and that the NALC is closely monitoring that process.
Rolando also said that the new JCAM reflecting the changes in the 2006-2011 National Agreement is expected to be ready for production about 30 days after the contracts are
shipped.Also discussed was the progress of the Route Inspection Task Force, including a subcommittee created to address pending Minor Route Adjustment issues. The members were also updated on issues related to the status of the Flat Sequencing System, as well as the ongoing discussions with the Postal Service regarding Transitional Employees.
source: NALC