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Social Media Carrier Questions · United We Scan

• 0:17
  Welcome to the United We Scan Podcast, the podcast by rural
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  Thank you. Now here are the hosts of the
• 1:00
  United We Scan podcast. Welcome back, everybody.
• 1:05
  Episode 68 today is Carrier Question Night.
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  So those questions we've seen on social media, we've had several
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  questions emailed and messaged to us throughout the last week
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  or so, especially the last couple days.
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  So we're going to address those tonight.
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  Be a nice little fun episode. I like when we get to answer all
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  those questions that come in to us on the daily almost.
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  So other than that, how was your week, James?
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  Oh, the post office was its normal self, you know, finding
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  out I'm a 40K now went down 58 minutes doesn't make me happy.
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  But I was having fun with it. Picking on management going,
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  wow, it's nice to get back after evaluation every single day.
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  Now instead of being back just a little under evaluation like I
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  had been prior to that, I definitely am going through my
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  4240 ones. Pulled the all the radar reports
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  for the year from management and found out that the coverage
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  factor on the radar reports only goes back to January 1st.
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  They don't go back further than that.
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  Another contention for that is the miscellaneous time.
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  You know, I know that they took it out because it was the safety
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  service talks that they put in there in the miscellaneous time,
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  but we're doing a survey every six months.
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  It's supposed to be 52 weeks of data.
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  My question is, why isn't that in half for this survey?
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  If it's zero, this survey and it was 1520, whatever, previously,
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  why isn't it 1/2 in there? So I'm going to dispute that
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  just to see if I can maybe link that together and and make it so
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  that these two surveys become part of the 52 week average that
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  we're supposed to have on this rec survey.
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  That's gonna be the work of the week.
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  And since I have until the 19th to figure out what I'm gonna
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  dispute, that's probably what I'm gonna be working on for a
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  while while helping people on social media like I normally do.
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  How about you Bill? How has your week been?
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  Oh my week was full of fun adventure miscues.
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  We had a situation on Wednesday where they forgot to switch the
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  date over on the parcel sorting machine in our office.
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  So when they were done for the morning and they started running
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  the parcels for the next day, they were showing up on
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  Wednesday's delivery format. So I got a call from Carrier
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  saying, hey Bill, they want us to run parcels out, says Well,
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  do you want the extra money? No.
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  And tell them tough. It's not a second trip.
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  And he says, well, you know, they're pretty adamant about I
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  said, well you do what you want. And I said, I know what I'll do.
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  Then I get another phone call where a Carrier took out his
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  parcels and some for another route and made a deal to get the
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  time and a half on the MOU for assisting for the entire run and
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  good for him. But I got back at 5:55 on
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  Wednesday, and the next day when I ran my route, I found a couple
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  parcels in spurs in mailbox, parcel in a large mailbox, and I
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  took pictures of the Bark the Bark codes and ran them and they
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  were dispatched at 6:10. Well, hold on, why didn't
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  somebody ask Bill May if he wanted to take his parcel?
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  Well, probably because they know what I tell them.
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  But the fact of the matter is they should have come to me.
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  So tomorrow I'm handing in the class action grievance for every
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  hour that city carriers delivered rule parcels for
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  anybody who wants to participate in class action grievance mail
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  was nominal. Parcels were a bit heavy.
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  Of course they were heavy. It rained all week.
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  My Amazon guy, who usually just takes Thursdays off, decided to
• 5:08
  take Friday too. So that's OK because Friday was
• 5:13
  actually a clear day out and I didn't give a rat's generally, I
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  mean, you know, going through all the social media pages and
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  everything, there's still the gluttony of problems out there
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  from mapping to like you said, percentages, The differences on
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  the 4041 Ms. you know, where's the service talks?
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  They're supposed to be in rims, OK.
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  There's nothing showing there's any service talks whatsoever.
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  So where are they regular day in the in in in the post office.
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  It's today was funny though. I our Subs have to do the Amazon
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  starting at 10:00 AM my sub calls me and says oh they have
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  all the parcels ready and and we're loading up now oh that's
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  good 205. I get a phone call from the same
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  sub going. They just sent us AMDD text
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  message that they found parcels miss or for six routes that we
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  have to deliver. Now I'd like to question why, if
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  you could have all the parcels sorted and at the route at 10:00
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  AM, why it took till 2:00 PM to find Miss words for six route.
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  What the hell were you doing? And how the hell could this
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  happen? But it's the post office, so
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  don't try to make sense of ladies and gentlemen Other than
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  that. Got to see my grandbabies.
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  Got to see my grand dog. Got to see my boys.
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  So it's been a good weekend then.
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  The weather's getting better. Like everybody said, it's
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  getting in the 60s. Seventies here for this week and
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  I'm I welcome toasty. What about you?
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  What did you do all week? Oh.
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  Well, found out that my route went from last year dropping
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  down to 41 K from 48 K then the last survey was 44 K and then
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  now this survey got up to 48 K and actually I'm beyond 48 K,
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  but we'll get to that here later on, I'm sure.
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  Other than that, Monday was pretty heavy.
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  Tuesday we had ADVO, so that's 100% coverage.
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  Put that into the scanner. Wednesday was pretty easy.
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  Got off pretty early on that day.
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  Thursday's my K day. Took that off, got some stuff
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  done. I went to some appointments and
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  then Friday, nice day. Yesterday was a pretty heavy day
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  again for some strange reason. Felt like a Monday again.
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  But overall, the weather's been good here.
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  But it's gonna start raining every week now.
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  Coming up these next two weeks with a lot of rain and overcast,
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  so we'll see if we even see the eclipse tomorrow.
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  But other than that, not a whole lot.
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  Same business as usual, Kristen. You know, you know, it was a
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  week parcels were actually fairly light.
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  I only averaged, I mean my parcel numbers all week were
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  anywhere between 77 to 106, so that's actually kind of light
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  for me. DPS was heavy all week for me
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  though that was different. But again beginning of the month
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  all the bank statements coming out and all the extra junk.
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  Other than that not really too much.
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  I mean my route is a 46K now so I went up an hour.
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  I did find out throughout the rest of my office we had three
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  of us. K routes went up an hour, one
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  stayed the same. Our J route who he's a high
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  option J route. He stayed the same.
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  He was happy with that. He was afraid he was going to go
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  up another hour and lose his high option.
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  And then our 44-H lost an hour. She was not happy but Oh well
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  that route's never been other than when they had it padded so
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  bad prior to Rex. Did it actually make AJ route.
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  So being AI think it was a 42H when I transferred in that
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  office, so it's still right where it's always kind of
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  supposed to have been. So I ain't worried about that.
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  Other than that it's just been pretty average week.
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  Nothing too exciting on my end anyways.
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  Our new, our, our, our new office steward is, you know,
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  reading the contract more and more and really gung ho on
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  getting stuff taken care of. So be interesting when the
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  postmaster comes back in the middle of this week.
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  She was gone all this last week and the supervisor has not been
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  all that great to work with this week.
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  So yeah, I imagine he's already got loaded guns and ready to go
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  blaze them. So all the power to him, oh man,
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  it's just been a rather average week for me.
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  Nothing too exciting for a change on the side of that.
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  Yeah, other than a lot of questions coming in.
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  That's why this episode is addressing all those listener
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  questions. Well, maybe not all of them, but
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  a good hit of a lot of the listener questions that we've
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  gotten this week or things that we've seen on social media that
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  we're going, huh. What?
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  Let. Me look into that, I'll get.
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  Back to you. Yeah, exactly.
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  Exactly. Yeah.
• 10:55
  So the biggest hot topic that we've had this week, and
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  actually it's been a couple weeks now is a nationwide change
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  to the 10 AM start time for Amazon Sunday.
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  This has gone across the country and it is the worst decision
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  that management has made for Amazon Sundays I have ever seen.
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  What is your guys's thoughts on it?
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  Well, I think it's terrible too. It's, it's going to be,
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  especially here in Texas, it, it was 100° for three months
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  straight, basically. And now you're going to send
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  them out at 10 instead of at 8:00 or 7:30, and it's going to
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  be during the hottest part of the day.
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  You're going to have more people with heat exhaustion, more
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  people calling out the next day. It's really not the wisest
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  decision. I don't know who decided this
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  was better or or even why they never gave a reason.
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  Yeah, I've noticed that. Go ahead Chris and ladies first.
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  I was gonna say, yeah, I've noticed that.
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  I mean, I my office doesn't do Amazon on Sundays.
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  I don't know if that'll ever change, but as of right now, it
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  hasn't. But yeah, I just, especially
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  with summer coming up and if they're going to keep this 10:00
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  thing, I mean, you want to preach, you know, all the heat,
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  safety and all that stuff, How does that, that doesn't even
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  play well with that? Because now you're putting
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  people out in the most hottest parts of the day.
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  I'm not a fan of it. Even though it doesn't affect my
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  office directly, I'm still not a fan of it.
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  Well when I brought this up a couple weeks ago it it was a
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  problem in our office because of the fact that it happened for
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  Easter Sunday and they got 4-4 days notice.
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  My Dr. was alerted to it and and nothing came of it.
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  Bridget did make a comment in regards to Article 30.
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  Something something something something, but that had to do
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  with the relief days changing the relief days.
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  So apparently she didn't understand the question or she
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  didn't know where to get the answer.
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  But the fact of the matter is that these people don't need to
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  be spending a 7th day out there in the middle of the summer and
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  like you said in Texas, you're going to get scorched out there.
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  It's not just taking a total on the carriers, but it's taking a
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  total on the vehicles. So until you get the new NGDVS
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  in there with the air conditioning, you're both going
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  to suffer out there in the sun. And in in the example of my
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  office today, they got a Janner message informing them that 6
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  routes had missed sort. Which is funny because
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  everything was ready for them when they reported to work at
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  10:00 AM. So why would it take them four
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  hours to find Miss Sorts 6 route?
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  And I will talk to the Subs tomorrow and explain to them
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  that they don't respond to those messages and if they want, you
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  know, I'd tell them I'm too tired or I feel sick or
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  something and I wouldn't take them back out it.
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  It depends on the individual, of course, but I I would tell them
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  not to. This is egregious in regards to
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  how they're treating the Subs. Got to stop.
• 14:36
  I agree, I agree. You know, and the biggest things
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  about this, there were other notes that were sent to several
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  carriers, management out there and it says that carriers are to
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  start at 10:00 AM carriers should be delivering 22 to 25
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  parcels per hour and carriers should spend 15 minutes in the
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  office, 30 minutes loading and 5 minutes to 1st scan first parcel
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  delivery, 5 minutes. And I looked at that and I just
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  went, this is insanity. You are not only forcing these
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  carriers to work at the hottest point of the day, but you're
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  forcing them to rush, increasing the risk of accidents with the
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  vehicles, increasing the risks of them tripping, falling,
• 15:32
  missing, seeing the dog in the yard.
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  Because a lot of people don't expect deliveries on a Sunday,
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  even if they're tracking their deliveries, things like that.
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  And then you're asking them to do 22 to 25 parcels per day.
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  And in some areas, it can take 20 minutes to drive where you're
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  going to. It can take 10 minutes to drive
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  where you're going to. And you expect them to scan 2022
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  to 25 parcels. Plus on an Amazon Sunday, it
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  says that you should be taking everything you can to the door.
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  Everything should be to the door.
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  So these carriers are having to deliver these to the door, but
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  you can't pull in the driveways because you're not allowed to
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  back up more than 50 feet. There is so much wrong with this
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  and so many problems with it. And then telling them that they
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  should spend 15 minutes in the office.
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  So that's time to clock in, gather your parcels, get
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  everything set up so you can go out the door, Not even organize
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  your parcels. Not even figure out which
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  parcels are yours, which ones are miss sorts, and then head
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  out to your truck. And then you have 30 minutes to
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  put those parcels in some kind of delivery order in your truck
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  and figure that out out there. And then you have to drive like
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  a bat out of hell to get to your first stop within 5 minutes.
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  Now I don't know about you, but the hub for our delivery in our
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  area here in my town is a 25 minute drive from where I live.
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  So are you sending my carriers for my office that are supposed
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  to be delivering my office's parcels out with other area
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  parcels so that way they can deliver 2530 parcels on the way
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  out to my area to deliver the entire area?
• 17:31
  How are you doing all of this stuff?
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  This right here then also puts these carriers out until 8:00,
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  nine o'clock 10:00 at night, which is fine in the summertime
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  when when the sun doesn't set until 9:30 at night.
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  But what are you going to do when it comes fall, when the
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  sun's setting at six thirty 7:00 at night or even 5:00 at night
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  near December? How are you going to manage
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  that? It's unsafe for these carriers
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  and these carriers should be filing a 1767 unsafe practice
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  for this? It's a grievance.
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  It should be grieved because this is a problem.
• 18:17
  Well, James, you left out the fact that you also should be
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  doing your PTI checking your truck out in the first 15
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  minutes also. And because they have set these
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  standards, you file the grievance for benchmarking
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  because that's what they're doing.
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  Everything that they've laid out is a benchmark that is
• 18:36
  unattainable depending on your office, your location, where
• 18:40
  you're delivering to what type of vehicle you have, everything
• 18:43
  it it, it's a total blatant benchmark that states this is
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  what we have to do. We're not working by the UPS
• 18:51
  standards. We're not working by Amazon or
• 18:53
  FedEx standard. We're the United States Postal
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  Service still and we'll do what we do, how we do it, when we do
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  it to the best of our ability and we'll get it done as safely
• 19:05
  as possible, period. Yeah.
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  And think about these people that are in these S&D CS that
• 19:11
  they're building when they're going to have 200 routes in
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  there and the carriers are going to have to walk a half a mile,
• 19:18
  3/4 of a mile just to go check their truck before they use it
• 19:23
  for Amazon Sunday. And you should be going and
• 19:25
  checking your truck before you even touch anything related to
• 19:28
  an Amazon parcel before you leave the office because you
• 19:32
  need to make sure that that truck is safe to drive.
• 19:36
  And don't skimp on inspecting your truck.
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  Make sure you check everything, lights, tires, everything, no
• 19:43
  leaks, everything, because your safety depends on you, you
• 19:47
  alone. And that actually leads me right
• 19:51
  into the next topic I wanted to talk about and that is this
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  blatant, disrespectful carrier harassment by management not
• 20:04
  only on Amazon Sunday, but throughout the week.
• 20:08
  We've talked, touched on it plenty of times before, but
• 20:13
  carrier harassment is a major thing going on in the Postal
• 20:16
  Service that a lot of carriers have contacted us over and how
• 20:22
  some. Union representatives have
• 20:26
  balked at taking on carrier harassment in these offices.
• 20:31
  What's your guys's take? Well.
• 20:37
  Bill, you're the only one unmuted right now, so go for it.
• 20:42
  I I am a a great proponent of ignoring the MDD scanner in
• 20:48
  regards to messages from management and I wish they would
• 20:52
  have today. But I I know most of the people
• 20:55
  including a newbie would would fall in line because they're in
• 20:59
  their 90 days. And it's ironic that the union
• 21:05
  can sign you up for for dues withdrawal from your paycheck
• 21:11
  but you can't get representation for 90 days but they'll collect
• 21:14
  the money. I'm a little confused on that
• 21:17
  one. Well not really because of the
• 21:21
  fact that it makes it so hard to get back out of the union.
• 21:23
  They know what they're doing. The the fact of the matter is
• 21:27
  that management like I said is benchmarking all these
• 21:32
  activities and it's illegal. There's there's a a pre formed
• 21:38
  pre what do you got it pre filled grievance that's
• 21:41
  available for benchmarking grievances and people ought to
• 21:45
  be utilizing that the fact of the matter that management can't
• 21:49
  do the job that I found out that the new supervisor fresh fresh
• 21:54
  supervisor in our office this week was the one on duty today
• 21:58
  and you know that may have been where the confusion was with the
• 22:01
  miss words. If that's if that's true, OK,
• 22:06
  then why are you putting a newbie supervisor on the Sunday
• 22:10
  who has no experience in regards to Amazon Sunday in regards to
• 22:16
  the West routes that we, you know are situated in our office?
• 22:19
  What carriers are new, which carriers are experienced, which
• 22:22
  ones can help and which ones are flat floundering, they they
• 22:27
  support management as much as they support us, which is none,
• 22:30
  you know, because they're usually trying to push our heads
• 22:32
  underwater instead of helping us up.
• 22:36
  I just, I I guess I'm naive to the fact that in a situation
• 22:43
  where you're a working situation that we ought to be cooperative
• 22:47
  in nature, working with each other to get the job done in a
• 22:50
  timely, efficient, safe manner. And it just doesn't seem like
• 22:55
  they give a rat's ass about us at all.
• 22:58
  All they're looking at is getting the numbers done,
• 23:01
  getting their reports filed on time, being on their telecom at
• 23:04
  10:30 in the morning, and everything else can, you know,
• 23:07
  fall by the wayside. And it's got to change.
• 23:11
  It's got to and and the only way we can change it is by grieving
• 23:15
  it and then by voting new national leadership in and
• 23:19
  having that leadership pound the shit out of the post office
• 23:24
  about the hostile, toxic work environment that we're in.
• 23:30
  Like I said, you know, you change that Sunday Amazon to
• 23:33
  10:00 AM Fly fishing just opened in Pennsylvania Saturday.
• 23:38
  You know how many people lost that day and then turn around.
• 23:42
  You can't come in till 10:00. So you lost the first weekend of
• 23:45
  fly fishing. Yeah, it's not a big deal to a
• 23:47
  lot of people, but like hunting or any other type of, you know,
• 23:51
  sporting activity, it's important to them.
• 23:55
  Do we care? No, we don't care.
• 23:57
  We're the United States Postal Service.
• 23:59
  We'll do what we want when we want to whoever we want to do it
• 24:03
  to, Mini Ran. All right, Kristen, your turn.
• 24:11
  I kind of missed the part of it, but well, you know, like I said
• 24:18
  the the 10A, the the Amazon Sunday thing doesn't affect me.
• 24:21
  But but yeah, especially with these Rcas, so the a lot of
• 24:25
  these newer ones and I get that a member of the union, as you
• 24:30
  remember, the only thing an RCA can't grieve in the probationary
• 24:33
  period is termination. However, a lot of our union
• 24:38
  stewards will not fight for an RCA in their probationary period
• 24:42
  in general, which I think is absolute bullshit I feel.
• 24:46
  And for instance, in my office, they are after one of the Rcas
• 24:52
  because he's been there nearly six months now and he doesn't
• 24:55
  have a POV yet. Yeah, it's the other RCA who's a
• 25:01
  little newer than he is. They went out of their way to
• 25:04
  find an extra LLV from a neighboring office so he could
• 25:07
  help run the POV route. Now, once but twice in the past
• 25:13
  two weeks, yeah, they're on the other RCA about not having apov.
• 25:19
  And then when somebody says something, well, what about the
• 25:22
  ox carrier? He doesn't have apov.
• 25:24
  Well, he he he he's he's an exception.
• 25:27
  He's on the OX route that has a an LLV.
• 25:32
  Well, the other routes the other Subs are assigned to are all
• 25:37
  LLVS. We don't have a sub on the POV
• 25:39
  route and then but yeah, so they want to try and target where
• 25:43
  they can and I think it's ridiculous and I know our new
• 25:46
  steward is looking in ways that he can do to help protect that.
• 25:49
  I said past practice, I mean they've allowed everybody to use
• 25:51
  that OX truck LLV and have the OX carrier come in late many
• 25:55
  times over. I said when I had the OX route I
• 25:57
  used my POV many times because we were down a truck or
• 26:01
  whatever. So why is that person an
• 26:03
  exception and the others are not?
• 26:07
  You know what I mean? Disparate treatment.
• 26:10
  Yep. And so that's what we're kind of
• 26:13
  looking at. And we do have a new RCA coming
• 26:16
  in who initially was supposed to go to the POV route.
• 26:20
  They are not. They're being assigned to
• 26:27
  friends. This is route.
• 26:28
  The one that the new RCA just quit on?
• 26:32
  Yeah, yeah. All right, Jacques, your opinion
• 26:40
  it's. Hard to to speak on to it
• 26:42
  because, well, my my office is pretty decent.
• 26:45
  Most of the time, supervisors just know to leave us alone.
• 26:49
  Like they only thing that they've brought down that we
• 26:53
  kind of don't like is the you're required to, you know, take a
• 26:59
  lunch. And it's because supposedly some
• 27:01
  Rcas were sitting in front of a restaurant for several minutes
• 27:05
  without clocking out to lunch. So now everybody has to take a
• 27:09
  lunch or you can file AI think it was a certain form that says
• 27:14
  I'm not gonna take a lunch today, basically.
• 27:18
  So that's. City rules.
• 27:21
  Yep. But it's because some, like I
• 27:24
  said, some Rcas were sitting in front of a restaurant without
• 27:27
  clocking out for lunch and they were going over the evaluation,
• 27:30
  which of course alerts the higher ups who think everybody's
• 27:34
  doing it. So they make a general rule.
• 27:38
  Well, that's a good way to. Yeah.
• 27:40
  Probably grieve it that way, but a general rule for everybody,
• 27:44
  everybody has to clock out for lunch.
• 27:47
  Or even if it's just one click, you have to clock out for at
• 27:50
  least one minute. This and that.
• 27:51
  So, but other than that, they leave us alone because they know
• 27:54
  we do our jobs and they don't get very many calls on customer
• 27:58
  complaints on us. I know that harassment is a
• 28:03
  massive thing that's occurring across the board, across this
• 28:06
  nation. Carriers are being harassed and
• 28:09
  then when they grieve stuff, they're being retaliated
• 28:11
  against. And it's crickets from National
• 28:17
  over this. I haven't heard any speaking
• 28:22
  from leadership other than Don Masten's opening statement to
• 28:26
  the craft for contract negotiations where anything
• 28:31
  about harassment has really been brought to the forefront of
• 28:35
  probably national management from our leadership.
• 28:40
  Because at this point it should be a step four that should be
• 28:44
  filed against management and they should be using everything
• 28:49
  in their power, including the joint statements against
• 28:52
  workplace violence and harassment, the Postal Service
• 28:56
  policy on workplace harassment, as well as using respect in the
• 29:01
  worst place stand up talks that management has done in front of
• 29:07
  the craft before. We should be putting management
• 29:11
  on notice that we're not going to take it anymore.
• 29:16
  We're fed up with what they're doing and how they're treating
• 29:20
  the craft. They're treating us like
• 29:22
  numbers, they're treating us like robots, and they're
• 29:25
  treating us like second class citizens.
• 29:28
  And we shouldn't be getting treated this way.
• 29:31
  The most important thing that any carrier can do is get
• 29:36
  information about the harassment and workplace climate and
• 29:43
  environment, both available on the Union website if you have
• 29:47
  access. If you don't, you can find
• 29:49
  information on ruralinfo.net, one of the best resources for
• 29:53
  people who cannot access the Union website.
• 29:56
  But we have arbitration rulings on carrier harassment.
• 30:03
  The biggest thing that I can say is we're not going to take it no
• 30:09
  longer. We're not going to sit down and
• 30:11
  take it. Our craft is a valuable resource
• 30:17
  to the Postal Service and it's time for management to start
• 30:20
  acting like that. We kind of want to segue in a
• 30:25
  little bit here. This is about the requiring to
• 30:27
  take a lunch break. I did have a carrier reach out
• 30:30
  to me this week on Friday. It says I was wondering about.
• 30:34
  I was wondering about a Rex question if I may ask.
• 30:36
  My new route evaluation time is 7 hours and 17 minutes starting
• 30:39
  tomorrow and my postmaster is telling me I need to deduct a 30
• 30:43
  minute lunch from that time if I don't use it.
• 30:46
  This is the first time hearing about this.
• 30:48
  Is this correct? If you can help me, I totally If
• 30:51
  you can't help me I totally understand.
• 30:52
  Thank you for your time. Nope it's not correct.
• 30:57
  No no. And I didn't explain this to
• 30:59
  them and I told them who to be in contact with as I do believe
• 31:04
  they have the same ADR that you do James.
• 31:06
  But in in the Elm 432.3, the 432.33 under meal time and it
• 31:15
  says accept an emergency situations or service conditions
• 31:19
  preclude compliance. Nope, no employee may be
• 31:22
  required, May be required to work more than six continuous
• 31:25
  hours while at a meal a rest period of at least 1/2 hour.
• 31:29
  That's the only thing I can think of that this manager is
• 31:31
  trying to pull is under, yeah, the Elm 53 and the 432.33.
• 31:40
  That's the only language that I could find on that for required
• 31:44
  and I know that falls. And under City Time they do get
• 31:48
  docked over six hours. There is a difference though.
• 31:53
  We are salary. We're not hourly.
• 31:57
  Bingo. That is the biggest difference
• 32:00
  with that is the fact that we are salaried.
• 32:02
  We are not hourly, therefore that's why they're we don't have
• 32:08
  any mandatory lunch. Well, let me back up your your
• 32:12
  documentation. With the PO6 O3 152.31, you may
• 32:22
  stop for not more than 30 minutes for lunch.
• 32:26
  Notice the word may. You may stop for not more than
• 32:29
  30 minutes for lunch, during which time mail and equipment
• 32:33
  must be protected. You must split your lunch period
• 32:36
  into segments that may be taken in the office or on the route,
• 32:39
  providing the normal schedule is maintained to the extent
• 32:42
  possible. Time spent consuming coffee away
• 32:45
  from your case in the office or on the route is considered part
• 32:49
  of the 30 minute authorized lunch period and must be
• 32:52
  recorded under lunch on the PS Form 4240.
• 32:56
  Now notice it said away from your case, meaning you are not
• 33:02
  doing any work is a lunch break. But if you are taking a drink
• 33:08
  while out on the route, like you stop at a box, you put the mail
• 33:13
  in, you close the box, you grab your water bottle or whatever
• 33:16
  choice of beverage you have that is legal to drink while
• 33:20
  delivering the mail. That is not a lunch break.
• 33:26
  Staying hydrated is not a lunch break.
• 33:30
  But if you stop, you finish the neighborhood and you stop at the
• 33:33
  end of the neighborhood and you sit there and you eat a
• 33:35
  sandwich, that's a lunch. Break or if you stop at the
• 33:40
  local Speedway and after you fill up you go in to get snacks
• 33:44
  and something to drink, then yes, that would be counted as a
• 33:47
  lunch break. Yes, but notice it says may, so
• 33:52
  you are not required to. And I'm also gonna follow up
• 33:59
  with a Step 4 from 2017 that says on several occasions, the
• 34:04
  most recent being August 3rd, 2017, the parties discussed in
• 34:07
  the above captioned grievance at the 4th step of our contractual
• 34:10
  grievance procedure. The issue in this grievance is
• 34:13
  whether or not management can mandate a 30 minute lunch break
• 34:16
  on the street for rural carriers.
• 34:19
  During our discussion, we mutually agreed that the
• 34:21
  following will constitute full and complete settlement of this
• 34:24
  grievance. Article 30.1 Point F states in
• 34:27
  part lunch may be taken in segments with less than lot of
• 34:31
  less than 30 minutes at the carrier's option provided the
• 34:36
  carrier does not exceed 30 minutes.
• 34:39
  Segments may be taken in the office or on the route provided.
• 34:42
  The normal schedule is maintained to the extent
• 34:45
  possible. The parties agree.
• 34:47
  This provision prohibits management from requiring a real
• 34:52
  carrier to take a 30 minute lunch break.
• 34:55
  Accordingly, we agreed to remand this instant case to Step 2,
• 34:58
  where the parties are directed to determine whether any real
• 35:00
  carriers were required to take a 30 minute lunch break other than
• 35:04
  what was customarily taken and, if so, provide the appropriate
• 35:07
  compensation. And let me point out another
• 35:12
  thing that James illustrated that if you were to take a drink
• 35:16
  of coffee away, and that's the keyword away from your case,
• 35:22
  that's considered a break. We actually had a situation in
• 35:25
  my office where we were told that you had to take at least 5
• 35:30
  minutes if you took a sip of water or coffee or whatever your
• 35:34
  beverage was while at your case. When I pointed out the word away
• 35:40
  from your case, they had they they basically had a bird.
• 35:45
  They really did. They they they don't bother
• 35:48
  reading the contract, so they don't understand it.
• 35:51
  But the word away is key in that and they tried threatening
• 35:55
  several carriers on that. So I brought that up and they
• 35:58
  said walked away. I think another thing that's
• 36:05
  confusing is a lot of people are looking at their 42 forties and
• 36:10
  seeing the times on there and they're trying to add everything
• 36:13
  up. OK, I start at 7:00 and then
• 36:15
  it's an 8.5 hour route and you know, adding 8.5, well it says a
• 36:20
  different time on there some times.
• 36:23
  I don't know 'cause remember the 4240 is just for our time
• 36:26
  keeping purposes. It's not like the official
• 36:29
  evaluation, although they use the 4241 A and 4241 Ms. to go
• 36:34
  ahead and calculate what's supposed to be populated in
• 36:37
  there. But some of them will add that
• 36:40
  30 minutes and into that time for when you start, you know
• 36:45
  approximate office time or leave time and then your return time
• 36:49
  and your clock out. Yeah, rural side is not mandated
• 36:57
  to have to take a break. Period.
• 37:01
  And then just just a reminder side note on that considering we
• 37:05
  talked about 30.1 dot F, it's to conclude on that rural carrier
• 37:13
  craft employees may be permitted to travel a reasonable distance
• 37:18
  off their prescribed line of travel to and from an authorized
• 37:22
  lunch stop. Now, authorized lunch stop is
• 37:28
  one that management agrees that you can go there to get your
• 37:32
  food, unfortunately. And they don't have to agree to
• 37:39
  it either. They don't have to agree to it.
• 37:41
  So if they aren't going to agree to it, you got to bring your
• 37:44
  lunch with you if you're going to take a lunch.
• 37:46
  But I just wanted to throw that out there.
• 37:51
  Well and and point in case is that if you're going to do this
• 37:54
  on a regular basis then I would suggest that you get it in
• 37:58
  writing and round round dated from your supervisor, your
• 38:01
  immediate supervisor if it's an everyday occurrence or a very
• 38:06
  frequent occurrence instead of having to go asked every day
• 38:10
  because technically you should ask every day if you're going to
• 38:14
  do that. Anytime you break your line of
• 38:17
  travel, you should get authorization to do so.
• 38:21
  I agree. You know, it's one thing if you
• 38:24
  live on your route, but if you're going, you know,
• 38:28
  McDonald's is a block up off your route and that's where you
• 38:31
  go for your lunch every day. Yeah, get that, you know, agreed
• 38:34
  upon that you're going to travel that block off of your route to,
• 38:41
  you know, take your lunch break that that's one thing.
• 38:44
  Deviating off of your line of travel for your break.
• 38:47
  Definitely get that approved. Especially now that they're
• 38:51
  tracking us so diligently. Oh, I know, right?
• 38:55
  You can ask one of our carriers who just lost 4 miles because
• 38:59
  they changed their line of travel to be more efficient time
• 39:04
  wise while still getting paid for it.
• 39:06
  Well, after a year of data, they turned around and took the four
• 39:09
  miles off of that person. Well, like for an instance, you
• 39:14
  know, I I don't live on my route.
• 39:16
  I live like a block and a half off a couple or off the main
• 39:20
  road which I travel to from and cross through on my route.
• 39:25
  And there are times where, you know, I may have to stop at home
• 39:27
  for something. And I usually let my supervisors
• 39:30
  know in the morning. And I've done this from the very
• 39:32
  beginning because I literally live around the corner.
• 39:34
  They never have had an issue with it.
• 39:36
  Hey, I got to stop at home and grab this on my way out to the
• 39:39
  route, OK? No big deal.
• 39:41
  Or, you know, I got to change real quick.
• 39:43
  I underestimated the weather, overestimated the weather or
• 39:46
  something. You know, I've never had an
• 39:49
  issue with that because it is, you know, like I said, a block
• 39:52
  and a half off the main road one way or another.
• 39:54
  I did have the one time my dog got out and I was coming back up
• 39:59
  north. But.
• 40:00
  I did call my, you know, I called my supervisor, Let me
• 40:03
  know, hey, my dog got out. I got to snap at home real quick
• 40:05
  and get her back in into the house since her fence color
• 40:10
  wasn't working and she was, you know, hanging out with the
• 40:11
  neighbors. And so, you know, something like
• 40:14
  that wasn't a big issue, 'cause I do live so close to my route.
• 40:18
  So yeah, yeah, just get that. OK.
• 40:20
  Usually you know they're not going to have too big of an
• 40:22
  issue with it if you're not driving 2 miles off your route
• 40:25
  for something. Wow, that that sounds like an
• 40:28
  example of a management cooperating with the craft.
• 40:32
  Yeah, once in a while. It does happen, shockingly.
• 40:35
  Wow, I I got to find out what that's like.
• 40:39
  Right, Yeah. Well, that's that's not true.
• 40:43
  I I did have a supervisor tell me one time that if my attitude
• 40:47
  wasn't going to change, I can go home.
• 40:49
  And I picked up my lunch bag and went home.
• 40:53
  So we did agree on that one. Uh huh.
• 40:57
  And and I didn't answer the phone all damn day.
• 41:01
  Came in next day, had a discussion.
• 41:03
  Said you told me I got witnesses.
• 41:05
  You said if my attitude didn't change I could go home.
• 41:09
  I went home. My attitude wasn't going to
• 41:11
  change, so I did you a favor. That's one of the 11143 times I
• 41:17
  heard I hate you, Bill. Just file the direct order.
• 41:22
  If my attitude is not going to change, go home, OK?
• 41:27
  I've always been told. Follow that direct order first.
• 41:29
  Gotcha. It's nice being me the next.
• 41:36
  Thing is, because of the evaluations changing like we
• 41:39
  always have now every six months the formula office situation,
• 41:49
  the thing that I wanted to talk about with that is recalculating
• 41:53
  the formula because we're going to have some offices that have
• 41:59
  to recalculate the formula. Well, it it's tough enough
• 42:03
  getting them to redo the Matrix whenever we we go through Subs.
• 42:09
  I agree. With that.
• 42:11
  We have a bigger. We have a bigger problem redoing
• 42:14
  the formula because for some reason they just can't read
• 42:18
  English and have a hell of a time.
• 42:22
  So because we have a former ADR in the office they often go to
• 42:26
  him and and rely on him to assist them in doing the
• 42:30
  formula. This this is the problem that is
• 42:33
  inherent with Rex. Every six months, not only is
• 42:37
  your pay change for some carriers, but your drop days and
• 42:42
  change and that's a problem when people make long term plan,
• 42:49
  myself especially. Well, you know I have a a
• 42:52
  January vacation every year and you know they they don't want to
• 42:56
  hear about, you know oh it's more than 60 days.
• 42:58
  I don't care. I'm just letting you know it.
• 43:01
  You know you could tell me at at the 59th day I can put it back
• 43:03
  in but I'm going that's that. It's like I said, it's nice
• 43:10
  being billed because you know I don't have a problem with them
• 43:14
  in draining the leave because they know I'm going anyway.
• 43:18
  But for others it it is a problem, Especially where you
• 43:21
  have a lack of Subs or no Subs at all and there's plenty of
• 43:27
  offices out there have no Subs at all.
• 43:31
  This this is a a major problem. When you don't have any Subs,
• 43:34
  you don't have to worry about the formula.
• 43:36
  You're all screwed. But the fact of the matter is
• 43:41
  that when you have to redo the formula, somebody better check
• 43:45
  to make sure they've done it correctly.
• 43:47
  In 26 years, it's only been done right in my office once.
• 43:54
  And that was because the supervisor was a former rule
• 43:57
  carrier. And that's why that supervisor
• 44:00
  didn't last in our office, because of the fact that they
• 44:03
  appreciated the the effort that we put into doing our jobs every
• 44:06
  day and management didn't appreciate him taking our side
• 44:10
  in a lot of issues. So formula has to be redone
• 44:17
  every six months. Sure, they do it.
• 44:20
  And then if they don't, grieve it.
• 44:22
  And do not do not settle for language.
• 44:25
  We've gotten 3 grievances back like that.
• 44:27
  Settled for language. The union will assist
• 44:31
  management. That's not our job.
• 44:33
  That's their job. So please start doing your damn
• 44:38
  job. Just like.
• 44:40
  Everything else. Stop.
• 44:42
  Yeah, there are a couple other change reasons to recalculate
• 44:49
  the formula. Bill, you want to go over those?
• 44:53
  What the The lack of Subs, the the the change of the high low
• 44:57
  options and drop days. The seniority.
• 45:04
  The The change in the number of available relief carriers.
• 45:09
  Well, that's the Subs, yeah. Yeah.
• 45:11
  And that's carriers that are off of their training and have
• 45:18
  passed their their required time on on solo on a single route and
• 45:26
  a change if you lose relief carriers, So say a carrier gets
• 45:31
  promoted to a regular carrier, then they have, what is it, 30
• 45:36
  days to recalculate the formula from that bill if I recall
• 45:39
  correctly. They should do it.
• 45:42
  Do it as as quickly as possible. As expeditiously as possible.
• 45:47
  Yeah, yeah. I don't recall exactly 30 days
• 45:51
  clause, OK? I I do want to add in with the
• 45:55
  big talk, you know we're we're right now of recalculating
• 45:58
  formulas with especially with the rocks and the evaluations
• 46:02
  that it did come out at Western State Conference recently that
• 46:09
  with this newest round of evaluations that 70% of the
• 46:13
  routes increased, 29% lost and only 1% stayed the same 70% came
• 46:24
  back up a one year you know a year after the first mini mail
• 46:27
  survey when 66% went down a year later we are at 70% going back
• 46:34
  up. It it would appear that people
• 46:36
  are paying attention now, isn't it?
• 46:38
  Yeah. Well, there's that fact and it's
• 46:42
  also the fact that you remember it was 66% that got gutted the
• 46:47
  very first time. They didn't release the numbers
• 46:50
  of this previous mini mail survey, but they just told us
• 46:54
  that 70% just went up on this one.
• 46:56
  So if you really want to take in the math and accountability into
• 47:00
  that system, you got to understand that the previous one
• 47:04
  to this was a small adjustment system.
• 47:07
  The ones that went way up probably went up even higher.
• 47:11
  We probably had 80% of routes go higher in the second mini mails
• 47:16
  every or more. And that's why they didn't want
• 47:19
  to tell us those numbers. But now we're levelling off
• 47:23
  because everybody's been doing what they're supposed to be
• 47:25
  doing, been paying attention to things like this podcast and
• 47:29
  other avenues of information to learn their jobs because the
• 47:33
  people who were supposed to do it didn't do it, which was
• 47:35
  management. The the union didn't bother
• 47:39
  stepping up and saying, hey, this is going to hurt carriers.
• 47:43
  We need to step in to protect the craft.
• 47:46
  So now carriers have taken it upon themselves to learn this
• 47:49
  stuff. Granted, there are people out
• 47:51
  there that could care less to learn this stuff, but this just
• 47:56
  shows that we were right more than anybody else, that our
• 48:02
  routes really were not overvalued for the work that we
• 48:07
  were doing. We deserved the pay we were
• 48:10
  getting and and for the 66% that lost a lot.
• 48:14
  I mean I'm going to use my route as an example of pre Rex pre the
• 48:20
  first mini mail survey. The route that I have now after
• 48:24
  the 2018 mail count was a 42K. I'm not going to go into
• 48:31
  specifics, all right? My carriers in my office got
• 48:33
  screwed at the actual last mail count in 2018 with that whole
• 48:37
  pill bottle fiasco it they all got counted as flats and it was
• 48:41
  just a a fiasco. So several of our routes lost
• 48:45
  hours because of that. So that route was a 42K, The
• 48:48
  first mini mail survey it went up to A45K, the second mini
• 48:54
  mails and then the last mini mail survey, the second one it
• 48:59
  stayed A45K and with this most recent one it went up to a 46.
• 49:05
  Yeah. And then like with mine, the
• 49:07
  last mail count being 2018 actually created my route.
• 49:11
  And then we have so much growth here in Texas and so many
• 49:14
  subdivisions going up. Like I had said in the group
• 49:18
  chat last week that I have 300 addresses that I just wrote into
• 49:23
  AMS to add since they're starting to lay foundations and
• 49:27
  put up frames and roofing on these new subdivisions.
• 49:31
  So we've got I've got a lot of growth, but whenever my route
• 49:33
  was created it was cut off of all the overburden routes.
• 49:38
  So on paper back then it looked like it had a 2.49 volume
• 49:42
  factor. It didn't.
• 49:44
  So I was over. I was one of those carriers that
• 49:46
  was riding high over evaluated. Posley 48K went down to 41 K
• 49:52
  That's probably about where I was at.
• 49:53
  I was hoping for 4243, but it it just shows you that even with
• 50:00
  all this growth that I've had, I've been adding, you know,
• 50:02
  additional authorized dismounts and houses since the last
• 50:04
  survey. And I have about 100 more boxes
• 50:08
  from last year than I than I had, you know, during the
• 50:11
  survey. But now I'm up to A48K because I
• 50:15
  now have a package pick up. Now I have more parcels because
• 50:18
  when people move in, oh, I have more counter space to put up a
• 50:21
  coffee maker. Air fryer.
• 50:23
  Oh, I have cats. I want the automatic Kitty
• 50:25
  litter box. That thing sucks.
• 50:28
  That is bulky as junk, yes. Yes, it.
• 50:32
  Is but you know, you know it comes with the extra volume now.
• 50:36
  So now, yes, I am a 40 AK and so is my case mate whose route was
• 50:40
  created from my route being over, you know, evaluated.
• 50:43
  And she's 40 AK now too. But everyone else stayed about
• 50:47
  the same, went up a little bit. A lot of our JS went to KS.
• 50:52
  I don't know about of our how many of our HS went to JS or
• 50:55
  moved up to KS or not. But yeah, it's just been this
• 50:59
  whole, you know, readjustment now that everyone's actually
• 51:02
  paying attention. Oh, when when am I supposed to
• 51:04
  do the WSS? When am I supposed to do box
• 51:07
  holder? When I'm when am I supposed to
• 51:08
  do authorized dismount? When am I supposed to do all
• 51:10
  this? That came.
• 51:12
  All those questions came right after, which was probably your
• 51:15
  most popular or the most popular episode was last year, right
• 51:19
  after Rex and everyone realizing, oh, I don't know
• 51:23
  anything about this. So that episode helped out a
• 51:26
  lot, which I've been listening ever since then.
• 51:29
  But yeah, it it's showing that we're basically back where we're
• 51:32
  at, those of us that have growth, you know, it sucks not
• 51:35
  getting paid for when those boxes open a week after survey.
• 51:39
  But you know, it is, it's I'm getting paid now and since I'm
• 51:43
  still under evaluation, they probably won't cut my route for
• 51:46
  a while. So I'll be riding at 48 K for a
• 51:48
  bit and unfortunately I got a dip out for the rest of the
• 51:51
  night. Kiddos had a little trouble, so.
• 51:55
  All right, well, be safe. Enjoy your night.
• 51:58
  Take care for me. I went from 42, which is what I
• 52:05
  was in. 20184142 is where I've always been.
• 52:10
  I was a 42, the very first survey, and because of not a
• 52:15
  lack of trying finding out all the information I could, I
• 52:19
  stayed a 42 for the first survey.
• 52:21
  The second survey I just was just barely under 42.
• 52:26
  I was at the high end of a 41. This survey I came back as a 40.
• 52:32
  Now I can say with without impunity, a lot of that has to
• 52:37
  do with the loss of the weekly flyer.
• 52:42
  The weekly flyer killed my route.
• 52:44
  They took it away, we no longer get it, so it killed my route.
• 52:48
  But I think there are more spaces in my route that I need
• 52:52
  to figure out and fix and find in my 4241 to dispute.
• 52:57
  Because I believe my route is right there at the 4142 and has
• 53:02
  been for a few years now because what I lost in mail volume, I've
• 53:07
  picked up in parcel volume. So I have to go through that as
• 53:10
  well. But the biggest thing to do is
• 53:14
  make sure you're doing every input possible.
• 53:18
  And I know our activity scan episode is a slightly outdated
• 53:22
  to the information that the Union has rolled over for on
• 53:25
  management, but it's still a good starting point of ideas of
• 53:30
  what to do for your route. Now I did want to get before we
• 53:37
  get to the end of the day, I really did want to get up into
• 53:40
  the relief day work list sign up coming up because it's about to
• 53:46
  open up and people only have two weeks to sign up for the relief
• 53:51
  day work list. Now I want to make it clear, we
• 53:54
  do not have an overtime desirability list.
• 53:59
  We are not city carriers. We do not do overtime except on
• 54:04
  a voluntary basis. With the MOU, we only have the
• 54:08
  relief day work list, which means you volunteer to work your
• 54:14
  scheduled day off when management needs it.
• 54:18
  There is a full list of things management has to do before they
• 54:22
  can assign somebody from the relief day work list, but the
• 54:26
  sign up is coming up. You guys want to touch on that?
• 54:32
  OK, first of all, if you sign up for the relief day work list and
• 54:36
  you work your drop day, you are not required to assist on other
• 54:40
  routes as you are already getting paid overtime and they
• 54:43
  have no venue for paying you extra overtime.
• 54:48
  If you want to make a deal and say put it on Monday's hours,
• 54:51
  fine, whatever you want to do for the extra coin, do it.
• 54:56
  Just keep it to yourself, that is.
• 54:59
  Falsifying time records. Yes, that is a federal crime.
• 55:04
  And and you can get management for that, hey, let them hang
• 55:10
  themselves, OK. The other thing of it is it's
• 55:13
  not guaranteed you are. There's no guarantee that you
• 55:17
  were going to be called in. So it is not guaranteed money.
• 55:21
  They are not required to unless they absolutely have to or if
• 55:27
  you have understanding management.
• 55:29
  But the fact that it is just like they're working on the the
• 55:32
  MOU, it's not guaranteed to you. It's an option for them to
• 55:38
  utilize you. And remember you got to keep in
• 55:42
  mind your evaluation on your route, whether you're going to
• 55:45
  go over 2080 or 2240. Again that should fall on the
• 55:51
  management. But as we've seen letters that
• 55:54
  may have been sent out, even though they really can't collect
• 55:58
  that money off of you, it's it's a real easy grievance for any
• 56:01
  cable steward or ADR. That's all for me.
• 56:10
  Kristen, anything to add to that?
• 56:13
  No, I mean I would definitely, you know make your decision
• 56:19
  widely and if you actually want to sign that relief day work
• 56:22
  list or not. Initially I thought well yeah,
• 56:25
  I'll go ahead and sign it. But now I have decided I am not
• 56:30
  gonna sign it mainly because of 1 issue with a particular
• 56:35
  carrier in management making sure that they get off any and
• 56:39
  all time that they want regardless of what they have to
• 56:43
  do. I no, I'm not gonna give that
• 56:47
  that open venue. I mean, I'll still get forced in
• 56:49
  as a junior carrier, but I'm not gonna.
• 56:53
  That's going to be the last resort.
• 56:57
  I agree. And plus they have to inform you
• 56:59
  the day prior. They can't call you the day of
• 57:02
  and say hey come in and work you.
• 57:05
  They can call you and ask would you like to come in and work,
• 57:08
  but they cannot force you in the day of all right.
• 57:16
  And also on the work day relief list, once you sign it you are
• 57:21
  required to come in. Now if you have a problem with
• 57:25
  the Saturday coming up, if that's your drop day and you say
• 57:29
  well you know I don't I I want to get off of a release day work
• 57:32
  list. You are still required to work
• 57:34
  that Saturday and get off prior to the following week, but you
• 57:39
  are still required come in, fill the duties for that period and
• 57:47
  once you get off of it, you cannot get back on it until the
• 57:50
  next sign up period in September, October.
• 57:53
  Correct. Yep.
• 57:57
  Right now, the next big topic that I've seen was management
• 58:03
  starting to tell carriers that they need to replace the vehicle
• 58:09
  that they have for mail delivery under the adequate vehicle size
• 58:14
  for delivery. Now Kristen, you're the only one
• 58:19
  here that has APOV route in the office.
• 58:22
  You care to take the lead on this one?
• 58:26
  Well, we've actually had this issue pop up, especially at
• 58:30
  Christmas time or anytime Amazon has a big sale.
• 58:35
  It's if you're looking, I don't have the manuals open, but they
• 58:41
  all, sorry, you threw that one at me as I was doing something
• 58:45
  else. But I mean they all say the
• 58:48
  average amount of mail. They don't say the oversized
• 58:52
  Amazon packages. You know, that goes to the same
• 58:56
  thing with management saying that you have to have a second
• 59:00
  vehicle, you have to have a backup.
• 59:02
  No, no you don't. It just says you have to have a
• 59:05
  vehicle route ready and if Amazon has a big sale or you've
• 59:10
  got people that moved in and they moved by Amazon, as we all
• 59:14
  know they do, You know that's not an average day.
• 59:19
  You know, if your average day and you fit everything in and
• 59:22
  you're just fine on your average days, they can't force.
• 59:27
  That you have to remember an adequate vehicle for mail
• 59:34
  delivery. I don't know about you guys, but
• 59:37
  I don't believe parcels to be actual mail.
• 59:41
  It's mailable material, but I believe that parcels, especially
• 59:46
  Amazon, that are oversized over shaped don't fit.
• 59:51
  Wouldn't work. You know the biggest thing about
• 59:57
  it is anybody that has a vehicle, the Grumman LLV has 121
• 1:00:03
  cubic foot capacity to haul the mail and that's right up there
• 1:00:10
  with your SUVs. That are out there.
• 1:00:15
  In fact, right around that is a lot of your normal SUVs, like
• 1:00:21
  your tahoes, your nothing. That's gonna be somewhat fuel
• 1:00:24
  efficient. Nothing that's fuel efficient,
• 1:00:28
  but you can also get 121 cubic feet of space in a smaller
• 1:00:33
  vehicle than that if you remove seats and things like that and
• 1:00:36
  make it an actual full on mail delivery vehicle.
• 1:00:40
  But you've been delivering with this vehicle for years with the
• 1:00:45
  with the mail volume that's been on the route and they're saying
• 1:00:48
  mail volume is down. Well, parcel volume's up, but
• 1:00:52
  Amazon is screwing us over with these extra large boxes that if
• 1:00:57
  it was an LLV, I'd fit the exact same amount that I'm fitting in
• 1:01:00
  my car, Tetra style and an LLV that's just loaded randomly.
• 1:01:08
  So the problem is, is management is thinking this is the
• 1:01:13
  contract, it's what you got to do.
• 1:01:15
  Go out and buy a new vehicle. I have yet to meet a table two
• 1:01:19
  person who can go out and buy a brand new vehicle right off the
• 1:01:23
  lot to run their route. No, you got to go and buy out a
• 1:01:26
  used vehicle. Well now you got to do parts and
• 1:01:29
  repairs on that vehicle and things like that because it's
• 1:01:32
  worn out already. Plus you don't get the incentive
• 1:01:35
  from the post office because it's got to be 5 years old or
• 1:01:38
  newer. So where are we going to get the
• 1:01:43
  money to do that? And then and then then touching
• 1:01:46
  on the POV thing, it too, these new RC as especially if you're
• 1:01:50
  in an office that maybe doesn't have POV routes or only has one
• 1:01:55
  or very few POV routes, I mean it's totally different.
• 1:01:59
  I started an office that at the time had 12 routes, nine of the
• 1:02:04
  12 routes were POV's. So yes, you had to have apov.
• 1:02:09
  In fact, I never even got my LLV training till I was there for
• 1:02:13
  almost three years, which was different when I started than
• 1:02:17
  everybody getting the LLV training.
• 1:02:19
  Not just training and stuff, Ffes and all that stuff all
• 1:02:23
  together now at the very beginning.
• 1:02:26
  But when you're trying to get, you know a newer RCA to find
• 1:02:29
  apov, good luck because there's not much out there that and RCA
• 1:02:37
  would be able to afford that. They would be able to deliver
• 1:02:40
  mail out of and many of them just starting out would be able
• 1:02:44
  to afford 700 plus dollars for even pedals.
• 1:02:49
  You know, it's that's the biggest issue.
• 1:02:51
  I mean that we run into as well having one POV route.
• 1:02:56
  And as James stated, you know you're going out there and
• 1:03:00
  you're getting a used vehicle and most of these POV routes are
• 1:03:04
  in really rule America where you have a lot of unpaved Rd.
• 1:03:10
  So worn out vehicles gonna get worn out even faster on those
• 1:03:14
  those routes. Oh.
• 1:03:15
  Yeah, I I had AI had a gravel Rd. that took out three brake
• 1:03:19
  lines. One day in my car I'm driving
• 1:03:22
  along and Cha cha Cha and I went to hit my brakes and went whoa,
• 1:03:25
  my pedal went almost to the floor.
• 1:03:27
  So yeah, I mean this. This is one of them situations
• 1:03:30
  where a backup vehicle, folks, I can't afford the primary vehicle
• 1:03:35
  on table two, let alone a backup vehicle.
• 1:03:38
  Let me see you do it. Yep.
• 1:03:41
  And we're not required to have a backup vehicle.
• 1:03:43
  It just says we have to provide an adequate vehicle.
• 1:03:48
  That's all it says. We don't.
• 1:03:49
  It doesn't say we have to provide adequate vehicles.
• 1:03:55
  It doesn't say we have to have a spare in case ours goes down.
• 1:03:59
  It just says you have to have an adequate vehicle.
• 1:04:02
  The same as the post office has to provide a vehicle to a
• 1:04:05
  government route and if a vehicle is not available, they
• 1:04:08
  have to figure out how we're going to deliver the mail
• 1:04:11
  without a government vehicle available.
• 1:04:13
  So they have to go contact VMF and get a vehicle from VMF to us
• 1:04:18
  so we can deliver the mail. Because we are not required to
• 1:04:22
  use APOV if it's an A government vehicle route we can't volunteer
• 1:04:28
  to. Yeah, and the VMF is required to
• 1:04:31
  have backup of vehicles available.
• 1:04:35
  There is a there is a percentage that they must maintain.
• 1:04:38
  See back in my day that we only had the one horse and we wore
• 1:04:43
  his ass out. My POV carrier in my office had
• 1:04:48
  to take Friday off because his brakes were not going to last
• 1:04:52
  him through. I mean he barely got through the
• 1:04:54
  route Friday. He had to do his brakes.
• 1:04:55
  He had to take Friday or Thursday.
• 1:04:57
  He barely got through the route Thursday with his brakes.
• 1:04:59
  He knew they were going, he knew he had to get them done.
• 1:05:02
  He got the parts ordered and he, you know he had to take Friday
• 1:05:08
  off because there was no way that he was going to be able to
• 1:05:10
  make it out on that route on Friday when the condition of
• 1:05:13
  those brakes were. You know that and I said and
• 1:05:17
  that's the whole point of why you should have a sub number
• 1:05:20
  one, especially if you're on APOV Row.
• 1:05:24
  That way you know you can take that day off to do your vehicle
• 1:05:28
  maintenance if you do it yourself or take it to the shop,
• 1:05:31
  schedule an appointment, take a shop and you have somebody
• 1:05:33
  running your row and. And if you're very audacious,
• 1:05:39
  like someone like Bill, you turn around and you fill out a 1767
• 1:05:45
  for unsafe condition. I used that for three days in a
• 1:05:50
  row. Hey it worked.
• 1:05:56
  Or if you have my instance of even just trying to get an LLV
• 1:05:59
  and to get looked at because your shifter is so loose that
• 1:06:04
  three times, well, twice on yourself and once on your sub.
• 1:06:07
  Luckily we were sitting in the seat of the truck and it dropped
• 1:06:11
  from park to reverse on its own. You know, I can't even get my
• 1:06:18
  truck into looked at really. I asked for brakes in November.
• 1:06:23
  All I got was my seat belt replaced.
• 1:06:25
  My brakes are squeaking like no tomorrow.
• 1:06:28
  It's been written up for brakes more than once.
• 1:06:31
  I had a top off brake fluid one day 'cause I'm like, wait a
• 1:06:34
  minute, the pedal's going a little too far down.
• 1:06:36
  One of my master cylinders was basically out.
• 1:06:40
  The next one is the big one that somebody wanted me to talk about
• 1:06:45
  here. The political action committee
• 1:06:48
  and leadership's abilities to influence politics.
• 1:06:54
  Getting involved in the political action committee,
• 1:07:00
  getting them to talk about rural carrier things like bills for
• 1:07:04
  buying back the time and stuff like that.
• 1:07:08
  What do you guys feel about the political action committee?
• 1:07:10
  What can carriers do to make it better?
• 1:07:12
  What can can carriers do to help?
• 1:07:15
  Things like that? I know, big change of what we've
• 1:07:20
  been talking about. I really don't have much of A
• 1:07:26
  comment on that, not knowing exactly what our PAC committee
• 1:07:34
  actually is trying to lobby for outside of what we get from our
• 1:07:41
  legislative reps and seminars. I mean, we really, honestly are
• 1:07:48
  kind of left in the dark on what our, what our political action
• 1:07:52
  committee is actually fighting for, in all honesty.
• 1:07:59
  You you've you've covered basically the the whole spectrum
• 1:08:02
  of what we don't know what they do, what one of the things they
• 1:08:06
  do is lobby senators that are supporting our bills such as
• 1:08:10
  getting rid of the postal reform which was effective.
• 1:08:15
  OK. The other thing is in regards to
• 1:08:19
  the six day delivery schedule which is also effective.
• 1:08:23
  But like anything in politics, money greases the wheel and and
• 1:08:27
  that's how you get in to see these people.
• 1:08:30
  What other topics and subjects such as the leave, replacement
• 1:08:34
  buyback, that's kind of a dead horse and I don't know if that
• 1:08:40
  ever get you know, pass. But the problem of it is by the
• 1:08:46
  time you're ready at retirement, if you were to look back and say
• 1:08:51
  I want to buy back the six or seven years, it's not
• 1:08:54
  financially feasible to do that. So that's a that's a hit or miss
• 1:09:00
  proposition for me. If they could institute it now,
• 1:09:05
  yes, some people would take advantage of it.
• 1:09:07
  I'm not one of them. I spent less than a year, you
• 1:09:10
  know, I spent less than a year basically as a sub before, you
• 1:09:14
  know, my opportunity came up and I've been on a route that came
• 1:09:19
  up and and was awarded it the day after my one year
• 1:09:22
  anniversary. So that was back when we had a
• 1:09:27
  better HR, you know department in PA district and they said
• 1:09:31
  we'll take your bid as long as nobody else, you know accepts it
• 1:09:35
  because it'll be coming in after your one year anniversary.
• 1:09:39
  Nowadays they won't even accept it unless you have that one year
• 1:09:42
  in there. The the political action
• 1:09:46
  committee serves a purpose. I'm just not thrilled about
• 1:09:51
  where it's all going to, and I'm not aware of how the funds are
• 1:09:57
  distributed, especially in regards to our national PAC
• 1:10:01
  person, Natasha, who does a phenomenal job raising money
• 1:10:05
  every year at the National Convention.
• 1:10:08
  But I'd like a a a better, detailed report on how our funds
• 1:10:12
  are, you know, contributed among the members of Congress.
• 1:10:17
  Hey Bill, did you happen to notice in the most recent
• 1:10:19
  national magazine how the PAC donations were minimal compared
• 1:10:23
  to the past? Yes, I I wonder why that is.
• 1:10:28
  I. Can't afford it.
• 1:10:31
  Well, that and and you know, the fact that people are quitting
• 1:10:35
  the union and pulling their PAC money.
• 1:10:38
  The biggest things for PAC, and this goes for anybody that wants
• 1:10:42
  to do anything in DC is like Bill said, you have to have
• 1:10:50
  money to sit down with these guys.
• 1:10:53
  You have to give them something for them to be incentivized for
• 1:10:59
  you to talk to them. And the biggest part of that is
• 1:11:03
  why all our representatives and senators become millionaires.
• 1:11:10
  Now, that's not to say the political action committee is
• 1:11:13
  not doing something good for us. They are because they're being
• 1:11:17
  able to sit down and talk with our senators, our
• 1:11:21
  representatives, and get this information in front of them.
• 1:11:25
  That our union leadership supports these things.
• 1:11:29
  And everything that they've put in front of us does support the
• 1:11:33
  rural craft like our Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, which is
• 1:11:38
  supposed to help the Postal Service update the Arrow key
• 1:11:43
  locks and change sentencing guidelines for it to harsher
• 1:11:48
  penalties for messing with mail carriers.
• 1:11:51
  You have the Postal Shipping Equity Act to help Allow us to
• 1:11:57
  mail alcoholic beverages through the Postal Service.
• 1:12:01
  You have the Retirement Fairness Act, also known as the buyback
• 1:12:05
  legislation, which bill touched on which?
• 1:12:07
  Yes, it's going to cost people money in order to buy back your
• 1:12:10
  time as an RCA. But like in my office I got a
• 1:12:13
  guy who had 17 years and as an RCA, imagine if he could buy
• 1:12:17
  back those 17 years and have that towards his retirement that
• 1:12:22
  he has now as a regular carrier. He'd only have to work a few
• 1:12:27
  more years and he could retire with a full retirement for the
• 1:12:30
  Postal Service. And then of course Social
• 1:12:34
  Security Fairness Act is one of the smaller ones that they're
• 1:12:37
  going for. Which of course is an important
• 1:12:39
  thing that we continue to have Social Security available for
• 1:12:42
  our retired people because we all know that retirement
• 1:12:46
  accounts are getting smaller and smaller these days.
• 1:12:50
  So, but there is a point to them being there.
• 1:12:54
  Not only does Pack have to go talk to these people, but so
• 1:12:57
  does our leadership. But the biggest people that can
• 1:13:01
  sway the vote of our elected delegation in the House and
• 1:13:06
  Senate are everyday rural carriers.
• 1:13:11
  Contacting them and telling their story and telling them why
• 1:13:15
  they should be voting for or voting against certain things.
• 1:13:20
  Contacting them and talking about problems in the Postal
• 1:13:23
  Service. Contacting them and talking
• 1:13:25
  about how you feel about the things in the Postal Service is
• 1:13:30
  an OK thing to do. And they prefer the go ahead.
• 1:13:34
  I was going to say they prefer prefer the personal stories over
• 1:13:38
  the form letters. Exactly.
• 1:13:40
  I spent an hour and a half on the phone with our one of our
• 1:13:45
  state senator staffers talking about the Postal Service and the
• 1:13:49
  bills that he should support. Because it's important to us.
• 1:13:53
  It's important to us to get the message out there.
• 1:13:57
  And spending that time with them is a duty of us as citizens of
• 1:14:03
  this country for our voices to be heard, sick leave and
• 1:14:09
  attendance reviews. This is one that I wanted to
• 1:14:13
  talk about because it happened to a carrier.
• 1:14:16
  And it also just actually happened to me because I was
• 1:14:20
  sick for a couple of days and when I went back to the office,
• 1:14:25
  I filled out my 3791 for being sick and then they gave me the
• 1:14:30
  attendance review packet and I was in the attendance review
• 1:14:35
  packet. I only had two sick days, which
• 1:14:39
  were the two days I had just taken off.
• 1:14:43
  Management is now trying to do attendance reviews every time
• 1:14:47
  you're sick, which is back to the harassment topic we were
• 1:14:50
  talking about before. But they shouldn't be doing
• 1:14:55
  that. Bill, your take.
• 1:15:01
  Since we just celebrated 2 carriers getting 30 year pins,
• 1:15:05
  they also made a big deal of attendance.
• 1:15:10
  One of them was a carrier rule carrier in our office.
• 1:15:14
  I'm sorry, this guy calls out more.
• 1:15:22
  This guy calls out more than any other two routes together and he
• 1:15:26
  got an attendance award and when his name was called, everybody
• 1:15:32
  said what? And the district manager was
• 1:15:37
  looking at us like, well, what are you laughing about?
• 1:15:39
  It's like you must not be looking at the same records we
• 1:15:42
  know it's. It's such a laugh because of the
• 1:15:46
  fact that they they want to give you the welcome back packet and
• 1:15:50
  explain your responsibilities and how you're violating your
• 1:15:53
  loyalty to the post office by not being at work.
• 1:15:57
  Well, you know, you didn't have that problem during COVID when
• 1:16:00
  we came to work with masks and work through thick and thin and
• 1:16:03
  shortages of personnel, Did you? No.
• 1:16:07
  But now, now that you have time to do this and and you're trying
• 1:16:10
  to micromanage us with inexperienced managers and
• 1:16:14
  supervisors, postmasters who don't know the contract, let
• 1:16:17
  alone labor law, kiss my ass. That's all I can say.
• 1:16:22
  Kiss my ass. Yeah.
• 1:16:23
  We had everybody in my office in the last couple weeks, got
• 1:16:27
  attendance, reviews, everybody. And of course it was brought up
• 1:16:32
  to me those two days that I was really super sick back in
• 1:16:36
  November, right after veteran's day.
• 1:16:39
  When I called in those two days, 'cause I was sick, I was in bed
• 1:16:43
  sick. And of course she looked.
• 1:16:46
  Well, these ones are OK because these were scheduled my FMLA for
• 1:16:50
  my my daughter's doctor's appointments.
• 1:16:52
  But my two UNS, well, it was 1 occurrence.
• 1:16:54
  So excuse me, it was 1 occurrence those two days that I
• 1:16:58
  that's just not good. And I looked at her and I'm
• 1:17:00
  like, that's all you have really.
• 1:17:05
  I was sick in bed, couldn't get out of bed.
• 1:17:07
  Fever sick, sick. So you're going to hold that one
• 1:17:11
  time against me? Bite me.
• 1:17:14
  That's exactly how I feel on that.
• 1:17:15
  Meanwhile, you have a carrier who would pull in and see that
• 1:17:18
  my car wasn't there at start time, so I was on my ox route
• 1:17:21
  who would call in from the damn parking lot.
• 1:17:24
  They watched her call in from the parking lot.
• 1:17:29
  So, yeah, I I yeah, I I'm right there with you, Bill.
• 1:17:36
  And Frequency says that she offered to come in and puke in
• 1:17:40
  the mail. I actually did that one time,
• 1:17:45
  not on the mail, but in the trash can, right in front of the
• 1:17:49
  district manager. I grabbed my lunch bag, turned
• 1:17:54
  around. I said, Dick, I'm going home for
• 1:17:56
  the day and the proof was right there in the can.
• 1:17:58
  Yep. So.
• 1:18:03
  That's funny. In dealing with that, there are
• 1:18:06
  some some jerk managers out there that when you call in sick
• 1:18:12
  they're going to tell you you need to provide documentation.
• 1:18:17
  Now thankfully our wonderful leadership just put out the
• 1:18:21
  Arcam, the Rural Contract Administration Manual, the Joint
• 1:18:25
  Contract Administration Manual for the rural carriers and in it
• 1:18:31
  it specifically states get documentation for the interests
• 1:18:37
  of the Postal Service. So anytime they ask me for
• 1:18:42
  documentation now, every time they do that, I would just say
• 1:18:48
  specifically what interests the Postal Service has with my life
• 1:18:53
  outside of the Postal Service. How does me getting a doctor's
• 1:18:58
  note protect the interests of the Postal Service?
• 1:19:03
  When I'm sick and I'm calling off and saying I am sick with a
• 1:19:07
  bug or I'm sick with something, I don't want to spread it to my
• 1:19:12
  Co workers. That is protecting the interests
• 1:19:16
  of the Postal Service because it's better for only one carrier
• 1:19:20
  to be out sick, get better and come back to work than that sick
• 1:19:24
  carrier to come in infect the rest of the office.
• 1:19:27
  And then you've got 5/10/20 carriers that are now out sick
• 1:19:32
  because of that one carrier coming in sick.
• 1:19:36
  That's a more of a protection of the Postal Service than just me
• 1:19:40
  being out sick for a couple of days to cure whatever I have.
• 1:19:47
  You guys agree with that? Yeah.
• 1:19:49
  Yeah, I I, I do agree with that. You know, I mean, I've been
• 1:19:53
  teetering today on whether or not I wanted to call in for
• 1:19:55
  tomorrow. Can you have it for Monday?
• 1:20:00
  It's a Monday and and and and and restrooms are limited on my
• 1:20:04
  route. And there is a step four out
• 1:20:10
  there that if management requires you direct order, go to
• 1:20:16
  a doctor and get a note, the Postal Service has to pay the
• 1:20:19
  copay on that. So if they force you be like, so
• 1:20:24
  where do I send the copay bill to?
• 1:20:26
  What do you mean? There's a step four that says
• 1:20:28
  you have to pay it. If you're forcing me to go to
• 1:20:30
  the doctor when I call in sick is there.
• 1:20:34
  I had just update that route cut information for people.
• 1:20:40
  The biggest thing management is focusing on, there are routes
• 1:20:45
  that are 48 K and higher that the carriers are not making it
• 1:20:50
  back in 48 K That is what they're gonna focus on 1st
• 1:20:57
  followed by 47 KS who are taking longer then 47 K to get their
• 1:21:03
  route done. Those are the first two segments
• 1:21:06
  that they're going to be focusing on and they're saying
• 1:21:09
  starting probably the middle to the end of April is when they're
• 1:21:14
  going to start figuring out how they want to do that.
• 1:21:18
  So I just wanted to pass that little note along for you guys,
• 1:21:21
  but that's all the topics I had. You guys have anything?
• 1:21:25
  No, I think we covered pretty much everything.
• 1:21:30
  I'm good. All right.
• 1:21:34
  Well, we'll wrap this up then, right?
• 1:21:39
  Chris, we've got some editing to do.
• 1:21:41
  Yeah. Yeah, I think we're good.
• 1:21:45
  We can wind down for this evening.
• 1:21:47
  You know Toasty's already bailed on us early due to family.
• 1:21:50
  So James, your. Yeah, absolutely family first.
• 1:21:56
  James, your final thoughts for this evening.
• 1:22:00
  Well, that's a lot of little information tidbits, and we were
• 1:22:04
  all over the map on them a bit. But that is how social media
• 1:22:08
  works. You get a little bit here, a
• 1:22:10
  little bit there, a piece of this here, a piece of this
• 1:22:13
  there. The biggest thing we want is you
• 1:22:16
  guys to get educated. We want you to see that you're
• 1:22:20
  being heard, that people are actually listening, people are
• 1:22:24
  trying to help. It helps that if you look up
• 1:22:28
  that information yourself, we can guide you in the right
• 1:22:31
  direction. We're always available 24/7.
• 1:22:36
  If we don't respond, we're probably sleeping or on the
• 1:22:40
  route. But we will get back to you as
• 1:22:44
  quickly as we possibly can, because the craft is what
• 1:22:47
  matters to us the most. And helping you guys helps the
• 1:22:53
  craft as a whole, which to be a little bit selfish, helps us as
• 1:22:59
  well, because the better the craft does, the better the rest
• 1:23:03
  of the craft is. And as I always say, we're all
• 1:23:08
  in this together, and I mean it. We go through this and we deal
• 1:23:13
  with these things all on a national scale.
• 1:23:17
  And we have to remember that no matter what, at the end of the
• 1:23:21
  day, we're all in this together, Bill.
• 1:23:30
  I I'm going to segue off of you in regards to people learning
• 1:23:36
  the contract, the 603, the album, the R Cam now and and
• 1:23:41
  this is a a personal peeve of mine because of the fact that I
• 1:23:44
  have preached this for the last 10 years at at my office.
• 1:23:50
  This is your livelihood, This is your paycheck, This is your
• 1:23:53
  career. So you need to invest a little
• 1:23:58
  bit of your time in there. I know Johnny's got soccer and
• 1:24:02
  little Chrissy has ballet and Mikey is just one of those kids
• 1:24:08
  that just never sit still. So you know you you're going 20
• 1:24:12
  hours of a day. And I know because I've gone
• 1:24:14
  through that too. And now that I've grandchildren,
• 1:24:17
  I'm going through it. And personally folks, we can't
• 1:24:23
  hold your hand every day, so you need to put a little effort of
• 1:24:29
  your own into protecting your jobs, protecting your paycheck.
• 1:24:33
  We will help you with the questions and issues that you
• 1:24:36
  have that are a little deeper than you've had time to to look
• 1:24:40
  into, but it still falls onto your shoulders to to take the
• 1:24:45
  first step. File the grievance, see if you
• 1:24:48
  have grounds for a grievance. You can find plenty of
• 1:24:51
  information on Rural dot, Rural Info net and as well as our
• 1:24:55
  national website. Invest some time for yourself,
• 1:25:01
  for your family, for your career.
• 1:25:03
  We are glad to help you but we're not going to be here to
• 1:25:07
  hold your hand through every little step.
• 1:25:11
  We depend on you taking the first step on your own and then
• 1:25:14
  when you get stumped you can come to us.
• 1:25:19
  You can go to many of the websites that give information
• 1:25:23
  very helpful, very truthful and factual, and utilize that in
• 1:25:28
  promoting yourself and your career.
• 1:25:32
  I only wish the best for everybody in this craft, but you
• 1:25:36
  have to help us to help you. And with that I would say
• 1:25:43
  everybody have a good week. The weather's starting to break
• 1:25:46
  a little bit across the country. Careful tomorrow with the
• 1:25:50
  eclipse. Don't let anybody do anything
• 1:25:52
  stupid and look up there and try to get disability because your
• 1:25:56
  your eyesight's not worth it. Be safe, Do the job as
• 1:26:00
  efficiently, safely, professionally as you can, and
• 1:26:03
  get home to your loved ones because you're the most
• 1:26:05
  important delivery of the day every day, Kristen.
• 1:26:12
  Thank you guys. Yes, and you know is what they
• 1:26:15
  say. Be safe.
• 1:26:16
  I know Eclipse coming tomorrow. Some people are in 100%, some
• 1:26:21
  people not so much. I think I'm at 92%.
• 1:26:24
  It'll hit me up right about smack the middle of the route.
• 1:26:28
  So yeah, definitely don't look at it directly unless you have
• 1:26:32
  proper eye protection. And please pull over if you are
• 1:26:36
  in wanting to look at it. Don't try and look at it while
• 1:26:39
  you're driving delivering mail. Let's be safe out there, folks.
• 1:26:43
  I know springtime's starting to rear end, finally, rain coming
• 1:26:47
  up in various areas, I know we got it in mine, but other than
• 1:26:52
  that everybody have a safe week and we'll be back next week.
• 1:27:08
  Maybe we'll get this hour and 45 minute, almost hour and 45
• 1:27:12
  minute episode down to an hour #shameless plug, I'm.
• 1:27:16
  Sorry, I didn't get that in my R Cam.