OVERTIME VIOLATION

GRIEVANCE - UPDATE

As you know, the first three overtime violation grievances, also known as the “Window of Operation” grievances that the branch has filed in Toms River, have been resolved by the Dispute Resolution Team (DRT) in our favor.

We were successful in proving that the Toms River management staff did in fact violate the overtime provisions of Article 8 of the National Agreement ... and our Overtime desired List (ODL) were awarded 27 hours of overtime – hour for hour.

Since the first violation of this nature, we have filed one hundred and twelve (112) overtime violation grievances – inclusive of the three (3) that have been decided by the DRT. That means, one hundred and nine (109) are still in the works and being processed.

It has taken us some time ... and it will continue to take us some time ... to have these grievances processed and inevitably sent out of our office to the DRT.

I can assure you one thing that all 109 grievances will be processed. We cannot go through another period, or another summer, as we did last year.

Being successful in our grievances will be our greatest defense to any further violations. By the time the 112^th grievance is heard and decided, I believe that that violation will have cost the Postal Service a tremendous amount of money.

As I have stated before, as we process more grievances, the monetary remedies should increase ... and eventually punitive and compensatory damages will come into play.

I will continue to prepare process each of these 109 grievances as if we were going to take each case to arbitration.

What ever it takes ... for however long it takes ... all 109 grievances will eventually be heard and decided.

Joseph R. Palmerson, President

NALC Branch 2128 Toms River

January 29, 2010