April 1
At work yesterday I had to check the calendar to make sure it wasn't April Fool's Day. Two things happened that had me wondering if our next safety/service talk would be about missing strawberries....
First was management's proposed contract. Carriers are constantly praised as being the backbone of the Service, but when a contract comes up we are spit upon. This must be a joke, they want no raise (actually I'm kind of OK with that you have to give something back), no cost of living adjustments (not gonna give that up, it's a key thing to have in Fairfield County), change in work rules that would allow supervisors to carrier mail(Who writes this stuff, George Carlin on a bad day?) and most hurtful to me is decreasing the USPS's share in health care coverage, which would cost us about $1,300 a year in take home (thus disposable) income. OK I understand how contact negotiations work, we put up our side, they put up theirs and a middle ground is met. However, our contact is heading straight for arbitration, which means they will get some of their wish list unchanged, and not bargained for, which means somewhere in our contract is going to be a shit sandwich. Sorry folks that's just the way it is. And then they drop this news at during the Christmas rush. Ho Ho Ho....
Speaking of the Christmas rush April Fool's moment number two came as I was preparing to go on the road yesterday. I had asked for 2 hours overtime, given that I had about 40 pieces of parcel post and a ton of catalogues to deliver. That would have had me back around 5:30, given that I had started at 7:00 am, a ten hour day. However, there exists in the minds of management a "5:00 window" in which carriers must be back in the office by 5:00pm. The union does not recognize the 5:00 window. In the past if we were going past 5 we were told to (a) finish the route, (b) give out a section for someone else to finish (who would often go past 5 to do so) or (c) just finish your route before 5 (yeah right!) . Having your carriers make the window is directly tied into the mangers end of the year bonus. So the rocket scientists at work decided yesterday that if I delivered my last stop before 5:00pm (not back in the office as I had thought) that I would fulfill the requirement. So I was ordered to deliver my mail first, then go back, in the dark, and deliver my parcel post. I did as ordered and returned to base at 5:50 instead of 5:30. Oh well. I'll let my steward deal with the rest.............. ho ho ho...........................
First was management's proposed contract. Carriers are constantly praised as being the backbone of the Service, but when a contract comes up we are spit upon. This must be a joke, they want no raise (actually I'm kind of OK with that you have to give something back), no cost of living adjustments (not gonna give that up, it's a key thing to have in Fairfield County), change in work rules that would allow supervisors to carrier mail(Who writes this stuff, George Carlin on a bad day?) and most hurtful to me is decreasing the USPS's share in health care coverage, which would cost us about $1,300 a year in take home (thus disposable) income. OK I understand how contact negotiations work, we put up our side, they put up theirs and a middle ground is met. However, our contact is heading straight for arbitration, which means they will get some of their wish list unchanged, and not bargained for, which means somewhere in our contract is going to be a shit sandwich. Sorry folks that's just the way it is. And then they drop this news at during the Christmas rush. Ho Ho Ho....
Speaking of the Christmas rush April Fool's moment number two came as I was preparing to go on the road yesterday. I had asked for 2 hours overtime, given that I had about 40 pieces of parcel post and a ton of catalogues to deliver. That would have had me back around 5:30, given that I had started at 7:00 am, a ten hour day. However, there exists in the minds of management a "5:00 window" in which carriers must be back in the office by 5:00pm. The union does not recognize the 5:00 window. In the past if we were going past 5 we were told to (a) finish the route, (b) give out a section for someone else to finish (who would often go past 5 to do so) or (c) just finish your route before 5 (yeah right!) . Having your carriers make the window is directly tied into the mangers end of the year bonus. So the rocket scientists at work decided yesterday that if I delivered my last stop before 5:00pm (not back in the office as I had thought) that I would fulfill the requirement. So I was ordered to deliver my mail first, then go back, in the dark, and deliver my parcel post. I did as ordered and returned to base at 5:50 instead of 5:30. Oh well. I'll let my steward deal with the rest.............. ho ho ho...........................
posted by eddie @ 12/07/2006 09:57:00 AM
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