LETTER CARRIERS

Window of Operations – Grievance Update

The first three of seventy or so overtime violation grievances have been resolved by the Dispute Resolution Team (DRT).

NALC Branch 2128 was successful in proving that the Toms River management staff did in fact violate the overtime provisions of Article 8 of the National Agreement.

The DRT awarded 27 hours of overtime to the Overtime Desired List (ODL) carriers that the local parties will distribute amongst.

Though it is always rewarding to have a grievance resolved in your favor, I wish that we were able to have resolved these overtime issues in house and that management would have followed the National Agreement as it is written. Absent that resolve, this is the next best thing.

As I have told our membership and the officers of our Branch that serve our members, I believe that we will be successful in the grievance procedure; but, don’t expect that what we are requesting as a remedy will be awarded on the first few grievances. As we process more grievances, the remedies will increase and our aggrieved will be compensated accordingly.

You should know that I prepared, and that I will continue to prepare, and process, our seventy plus grievances as if we were going to take each case to arbitration.

For those that did not wish to work overtime and were required to do so, I did my best to convince management not to work you overtime when they did, and asked that the DRT award you additional overtime and compensatory administrative leave – [time off paid by management] – at a time of your choosing.

For now, no award was given to the non-ODL carriers. However, I do believe that there will be a point in time that the DRT will award what I requested.

For the ODL carriers, I also believe that there will be a point in time that the DRT will award ODL carriers more than just hour for hour of overtime, and that the remedy awarded will maximize ODL carriers to 12-hours ... and the overtime rate that is paid to the ODL carriers will increase, perhaps by several-fold.

Whenever you advance a grievance out of the office, the fate of the grievance lies in the hands of others – whether it is an arbitrator or the DRT team. Sometimes you like what you get; sometimes you don’t.