February 19, 2010

President Fred Rolando

NALC, AFL-CIO

100 Indiana, NW

Washington D.C. 20001-2144

Dear Brother Rolando,

              Pittsburgh Branch 84 is writing to address concerns of our membership with the current MIARAP procedure. After numerous phone calls to our office during the past two adjustments and many questions from the rank and file at our monthly meetings, we felt it necessary to address these problems to the National. The Executive Board of our local has reviewed our Organizing Committee’s recommendations with input from the Pittsburgh District MIARAP Team. We fully understand the importance of the success of this process and the need to cooperate with our employer to ensure the financial viability of the U.S. Postal Service well into the twenty-first century. Also, we understand that some form of route adjustment without inspections is here to stay and that discussions to its format going forward are underway. But, we cannot ignore the concerns of our members and hope that you take our recommendations into council.

• Adjusting routes twice a year. It does not seem practical to make changes at the lowest and highest volume periods. It is very disruptive to our customers and members, and brings zero value to the businesses we serve. We also question the economic value of adjustments twice a year. Is our employer getting enough cost savings at the expense of our customers and the escalation of confrontation at the work floor level? Would it be more practical to analyze data from the period of the start of September through the end of May (minus the month of December, if needed), and have summer adjustments? While a single annual adjustment might lead to periods of overtime and pivoting, we feel it would be superior to the frequent changes and territorial move under the current system.

• Street Time Evaluations.  The current process allows the Lead MIARAP Teams the authority to choose from four options to select street times. We feel that this may give management a little too much flexibility to choose a “favorable” time. Locally, we have seen move-to-office clock rings altered to show a carrier was back before their window, multiple 3999s conducted until they get a number they like and even last-minute 3999s conducted with substitute carriers, PTFs or TEs. Clarification of how times are formulated and simplifying the street evaluation by using just the average from a selected time period would seem more prudent.

• Validating mail count. Our membership has always been leery of the accuracy of DOIS volume numbers. There needs to be a way to authenticate the mail volume counts, especially if we know what time frame will be used during the process. The perception by our members that we are trusting management’s figures, along with the distrust of DOIS built on years of pivots, yields a skepticism of the accuracy of the route’s mail volume. Random samples by a steward and manager or MIARAP team members are the start of possibilities. A carrier validating his own count on a consistent basis as part of his A.M. duties is optimal.

• Movement of territory. There has never been a fair way to transfer territory; once territory is added to or taken from your route, you’re being forced to adhere to someone else’s performance. Allied time is always an issue. And, many of the people charged with making the adjustment have an incomplete understanding of the 3999 and what information on it should be used or discarded. This may be a moot point as more of our future territorial movements will be done by COR.

• Handling of Exceptions. Vacant routes, routes held by light/limited duty carriers and auxiliary routes pose additional problems for obtaining accurate office and street times. A great deal of this data is at the mercy of whether proper moves between routes have been recorded in TACs. This is not simply an issue of the carriers being more diligent about recording the times; management often manually inputs this information, again raising questions of its integrity. We need to have the ability to randomly check TAC reports to ensure the accuracy to the clock rings.

• Curtailed mail on evaluation days. Our local route team has noticed the practice of management using the CC2 position to their advantage. During the month of adjustments, the regular is instructed to cut mail to get back on time, often with the curtailment unrecorded. Then the CC2 will be instructed to clean up a route during the adjustment process. Since the CC2 carriers’ times are not included in the evaluation, this can clearly distort the route’s volume numbers during the adjustment period.

We thank you for considering our concerns regarding the current MIARAP system while you are considering options to move forward. The intent of this letter is constructive in nature. We hope that it will be viewed as such, and hope that these issues can be addressed and/or corrected in future versions of route adjustment agreements.

In solidarity,

CC Director of City Delivery Dale Hart

       Region 12 Business Agent William Lucini

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