Latest / United We Scan / Stewards and Grievances

Transcript

Stewards and Grievances · United We Scan

• 0:15
  Welcome to the united, we scan podcast the podcast, by rural
• 0:20
  carriers, for rural carriers. The views expressed in this
• 0:24
  podcast. Do not reflect the views or
• 0:26
  opinions of the United States, Postal Service or the national
• 0:30
  rural letter, carriers Association.
• 0:32
  We ask that you please consult your assigned union
• 0:35
  representative for guidance in your local area.
• 0:39
  Make sure you like this podcast, share with your fellow rural
• 0:42
  carriers, And subscribe to be notified each time.
• 0:46
  A new episode is uploaded. Please rate this podcast, 5
• 0:50
  Stars where applicable and leave a comment or question for us
• 0:54
  below. Thank you.
• 0:56
  Now, here are the host of The United, We scan podcast and
• 1:01
  welcome back. It's another week starting, and
• 1:05
  this is episode 19. And Josh is not with us tonight.
• 1:10
  He's a bit under the weather but we still got Bill.
• 1:13
  Mike and James. And how was your week Mike?
• 1:18
  My week was good. I went to Stewart's
• 1:23
  certification training on Wednesday.
• 1:28
  Last Saturday. I headed a new RC a shadow me.
• 1:32
  He went to Academy this week and he was back this next set of
• 1:36
  Saturday. So yesterday, and I began
• 1:40
  training him. So, let us see how that goes.
• 1:43
  There's still some question as to, whether or not he's actually
• 1:46
  assigned to my route. But it said, I'm training will
• 1:52
  have him trained with you while we figure it out.
• 1:54
  Okay, we'll do that. So, It was a good week.
• 2:05
  Remember we're speaking about postal management and it's, you
• 2:10
  know, you know, somebody probably knows and but
• 2:17
  communication, I don't know about your offices but
• 2:21
  postmaster, supervisors. Don't always communicate very
• 2:25
  well with each other. So let's just leave it at that.
• 2:37
  I worked up train the new guy little bit last week Friday or
• 2:43
  Tuesday. I pretty much just sit back and
• 2:46
  road and let him do his thing. Gotta remind him on the Not to
• 2:53
  reverse quite so much. Slow it down out on the road.
• 2:56
  See, you're not blown past a box other than that he was out by
• 3:02
  himself yesterday and do it did pretty good.
• 3:04
  I helped him out towards the on there but, you know, their new,
• 3:07
  that's what happens. We just keep helping them until
• 3:11
  they don't need the help. So hopefully a couple more times
• 3:13
  and he should be all set James. How was your week?
• 3:17
  So it was a lot of fun, a lot of fun.
• 3:21
  You know, just dealing with wondering when they were going
• 3:25
  to release the information on the wreck delay or not and stuff
• 3:30
  like that. And of course we had to wait
• 3:33
  until Union Finally Revealed it around.
• 3:35
  Little after 4:00 I said 459 they would release it so that
• 3:39
  way they can get out of the office before everybody started,
• 3:42
  lighting up the phones. But they did a little earlier
• 3:45
  than that. I was actually surprised with
• 3:48
  that. But had a midweek.
• 3:53
  Grievance meeting took a little over an hour to do but we cover
• 4:00
  to grievances in that time frame.
• 4:02
  So it was well worth it. Got them both settled and moved
• 4:07
  on from there and other than that, it's pretty much been a
• 4:11
  quiet week other than dealing with the wrecks questions still
• 4:16
  and trying to make sure carriers in my office at least maximize
• 4:20
  the scans that they're doing to their benefit and to the
• 4:24
  accuracy that they can make it and helping them try and figure
• 4:28
  out how they want to do a dispute over their numbers
• 4:34
  because it's hard, you've got nothing from either side
• 4:39
  creating a dispute form yet, but we were prepared in case it went
• 4:44
  through that Saturday. Every single carrier was going
• 4:46
  to walk up to her supervisor desk and tell them.
• 4:50
  Were disputing are 4240 ones, right here, right now.
• 4:54
  And can you do anything about it?
• 4:56
  If they say no I'd rate their I drop a class action on.
• 4:59
  Am I even had it drawn up and ready to go?
• 5:02
  Just in case I would have been there Saturday morning just to
• 5:05
  do that. So it was nice to hear that.
• 5:09
  It was relaxed for another two weeks, another Kick, the Can
• 5:12
  down the road until we can either come up with Let It Be or
• 5:18
  drop it for this time and move on.
• 5:20
  And And do a count and six months and see where that leads
• 5:23
  us. So I don't know what's going to
• 5:26
  happen. I'm nervous for everybody.
• 5:29
  You know, Union Union, it doesn't matter.
• 5:31
  However, you want to look at it, dues-paying then dues-paying.
• 5:34
  I'm worried for everybody and it's not helping my health at
• 5:39
  all. All this stress over it but it's
• 5:42
  because I care about everybody, everybody.
• 5:44
  That's listening and everybody that's not listening to us.
• 5:47
  I care about them so it hurts me to see it going like this, but
• 5:50
  Got to do something Bill. How was your week?
• 5:52
  Dear. Oh, it was fine and dandy peachy
• 5:56
  keen. It was nice to find out that our
• 5:59
  new custodial engineer with his designer sneakers, sunglasses
• 6:04
  and tropical shirts is dictating policy in the office.
• 6:08
  Now, it's even better to find out that the district wants us
• 6:14
  out of our offices in three hours time.
• 6:16
  And I looked at postmasters that, you know, we're not City
• 6:20
  carriers. He says, this the coming from
• 6:21
  District I said, you know, they don't set National policy
• 6:24
  either, do they and he's like, I'm just doing what I'm told and
• 6:28
  I'm like, man, and he did not like that, you know, it's always
• 6:36
  been my policy that if you're in fear for your job, then you're
• 6:39
  in the wrong job and these people fear for their positions,
• 6:43
  every day from this district manager, we have.
• 6:46
  And to equate him to being Hitler, would be Not
• 6:51
  far-fetched, but spot on this guy thinks he's the word of God
• 6:55
  and the hand of God. And, you know, every time he
• 6:59
  runs into Mead, he just walks away because of the fact that I
• 7:01
  just say, show me in the contract.
• 7:06
  Yo, I'll do whatever the contract says but if you can't
• 7:10
  show me, we're not talking and you know, yesterday was my
• 7:16
  dropped day and then again we had another stand-up service
• 7:19
  talk and and the custodian or was the premier speaker in the
• 7:23
  service talk and I just sat there and said okay I said,
• 7:27
  Thank you and they said why, and I said, you made my Monday
• 7:30
  morning. I'm a I'm gonna go in there and
• 7:32
  raise so much shit. They're going to think that
• 7:34
  Mount Sinai fell on them. I'm so tired of people you know
• 7:41
  coming up with these rules application I really where the
• 7:46
  hell do you people come from? I don't understand.
• 7:49
  So yeah, like I said yeah yeah. Don't get stressed closet
• 7:53
  tomorrow. I'm gonna cause a boatload.
• 7:57
  Oh not. You know it's nice.
• 7:59
  Nice weather in the 50s and 60s. It's just beautiful out.
• 8:02
  Yeah, we had rain and snow mix and rain.
• 8:06
  This one of those weeks. Yeah.
• 8:08
  Same down here. We even had snow today falling.
• 8:11
  It was too warm for it to stick, but it was falling from the sky
• 8:19
  and every time they're talking about the Aurora Borealis
• 8:22
  tonight. Yeah, I seen that.
• 8:25
  Well, we'll have to check that out unfortunately.
• 8:27
  Probably when these people are listening to this podcast.
• 8:29
  It's already past but this Sunday night, I guess they said
• 8:33
  between between 8:00 8:00 p.m. and 2 a.m. eastern time is the
• 8:39
  best time to see them. If you're north of basically,
• 8:43
  just draw a line across the country from Michigan, the
• 8:48
  bottom part of Michigan, across the country and north of that,
• 8:52
  you'll probably see the Northern Lights.
• 8:53
  If you don't have clouds in the sky, that includes first in here
• 8:56
  in Michigan, as well as myself and anybody in New York, Vermont
• 9:02
  New Hampshire, Maine Rhode, Island, Delaware Wisconsin,
• 9:07
  Minnesota, North and South Dakota.
• 9:10
  You might see it in Idaho, but it might be too late.
• 9:15
  The sun setting is too late for you to see it, but you might be
• 9:17
  able to. So keep if you're up late, keep
• 9:20
  an eye to the sky, kind of thing.
• 9:23
  Any pictures. I'll post them on YouTube but
• 9:29
  Yeah, so I think tonight we had agreed on doing how to post a
• 9:38
  Stewart election and properly file.
• 9:42
  A grievance felt like a plan. One of us just recently went
• 9:46
  through this. I wonder who that was no crew.
• 9:52
  Hey Mike, that's it was me. That was me.
• 9:55
  I have the floor. Well, the first thing I did with
• 10:02
  my new oh I see station manager was, I asked him who I needed to
• 10:07
  see if I needed his permission, or the postmasters permission to
• 10:10
  use the office break room to hold the steward election.
• 10:14
  And then once I got that, I guess he just I talked to her
• 10:18
  and she said, yeah, it's go ahead.
• 10:20
  It's fine. I got the form 10 from the, from
• 10:26
  the NRL. See a website, which is both the
• 10:29
  announcement of the steward election.
• 10:32
  And then the D form that you use to report the election results.
• 10:36
  Back up to your Trad. Are your District record?
• 10:41
  Your Dr. Whoever is appropriate. I filled out the form.
• 10:46
  I post it on the bulletin board. And we made a verbal
• 10:49
  announcement. And and then we held an
• 10:56
  election. I was the only person running so
• 11:00
  it didn't go. It didn't take very long.
• 11:04
  Basically everyone said no one else really wants the job.
• 11:07
  So, if you want it, you got it. There's a easiest.
• 11:13
  Have they had the? Well, of course they made a
• 11:17
  general announcement, we pulled all the rural carriers, all the
• 11:20
  The pts and RCA's into the break room.
• 11:22
  So the first thing we had to do is say, hey, if you're not a
• 11:24
  union member, you have to leave because this is an election only
• 11:28
  for union members, and the couple of people who are not
• 11:32
  members left, I I made a just a brief statement and they all
• 11:41
  said, you know, Amadeus, it's yours.
• 11:46
  Then on the second sheet. You have everyone, everyone who
• 11:51
  participated sign that they acknowledge that.
• 11:54
  Yes, this is the person we elected.
• 11:57
  They sign their name and put their route number on it and I
• 12:00
  filled out the rest and sent that to my ADR.
• 12:04
  And I was elected Union steward. And last week I went to I went
• 12:13
  to certification training with my ADR.
• 12:19
  We had actually seven new stewards from from our district
• 12:25
  in training and I have since gotten an email from RDR
• 12:31
  congratulating me on congratulating me on stepping up
• 12:37
  one of the other adrs all you know reply I'd also and
• 12:41
  congratulated me, I guess, I'm just waiting for the official
• 12:44
  letter that says that, I, that I have the, the honor of being the
• 12:49
  Union steward for my office. So, And those are the easy ones
• 12:55
  when you don't have anybody running against you.
• 12:57
  Yeah, now, in my first to let my socket election, at my second
• 13:02
  office was like that as well. Nobody else wanted it and
• 13:05
  they're like, yep. Okay here.
• 13:06
  Where do we sign? And then, yeah, my first office,
• 13:10
  we actually had another carrier. Put another carriers name on
• 13:14
  there, just to ruffle feathers. And so we actually had we
• 13:19
  actually had hold an election and Our boss was a nice enough
• 13:25
  to let us do it. Take the time on the workroom
• 13:27
  floor rather than all trying to cram into the break room.
• 13:29
  So they just handed out slips of paper.
• 13:33
  And you wrote whoever's name, you wanted and then we had two
• 13:37
  people go and count them and bring them back and then we
• 13:40
  mailed that one in to the Dr. At the time we had to include the
• 13:45
  voting slips with the names on them, just as proof.
• 13:48
  So that's the other way of doing it when there's more than one
• 13:51
  running. Make sure you include the.
• 13:56
  The ballots or however you do to vote that the way they're
• 14:00
  tallied up and everything is included.
• 14:04
  Yeah, I went, I went the easy way.
• 14:06
  I had my ADR come in and run the whole thing for me.
• 14:09
  Yes, I had a, I talked I talked with her about it first and
• 14:14
  she's like, well, if you want to hold an election for Stewart,
• 14:18
  since nobody, the steward in your office, you can be the one
• 14:21
  to put it up. And I said, can you help me
• 14:24
  with? And she said, sure.
• 14:25
  So, she actually When I first started it, she came in.
• 14:28
  She handed me the fethiye needed for it and said, I needed this
• 14:32
  post this in a conspicuous place so people can see it.
• 14:36
  So, I talked with my postmaster, my really cool postmaster and
• 14:41
  asked if I could post it between the man door and the exit door
• 14:45
  for the trolleys to go out to the truck and so I posted it
• 14:50
  there, it's at there for 15 days. 15 days.
• 14:53
  Later my ADR came back. She grabs a sheet.
• 14:56
  Off the Wall walked out on her. The work room floor and called
• 14:59
  out if anybody else wants to run for Steward.
• 15:02
  Three times, which is what you're required to do, and
• 15:05
  nobody came up and did it. And then after she, she closed
• 15:10
  it and congratulated me for a being elected for it.
• 15:14
  Somebody who doesn't like me in the office and hasn't liked me
• 15:17
  since she transferred to our office, because she's lower
• 15:20
  seniority, to me, got upset and said we had no notice and my 80.
• 15:26
  I turned around and said it was posted on the wall by the exit
• 15:30
  for 15 days, if you didn't see it, that's your problem.
• 15:35
  So and since then I was elected Steward, she only had to have me
• 15:40
  sign it because I was the only one running uncontested and I
• 15:45
  got sent to training and head Zoom training it's time because
• 15:48
  this was still during the covid Fiasco.
• 15:51
  So yeah and did the zoom training two days of that and
• 15:58
  then was elected was officially a steward at that point since
• 16:03
  then I been like Villain haven't taken my foot off the gas, keep
• 16:07
  my office in line. Even with my grievances, I
• 16:12
  didn't have to go to certification training the
• 16:14
  second time because I was still certified from previous.
• 16:16
  So it hadn't been a full year yet between the office switch
• 16:20
  and when I came so that was even nicer to she just sent out the
• 16:24
  letter and transfer. My certification from other one
• 16:27
  office to the other nice. Yeah.
• 16:31
  Yeah. Yeah, we got the only, we have a
• 16:36
  recertification on the 9th of May the day after we get back
• 16:41
  from mid states. Basically the 12th of May that
• 16:47
  Friday, I get to go to Gaylord for that.
• 16:50
  It was when they do they are called me the other day and
• 16:53
  verifying my email. She basically was.
• 16:58
  Oh yeah, she goes. You kind of have to drive no
• 17:00
  matter where you go. Don't you I said, yep.
• 17:02
  She was well, we got one Gator coming up real soon, and we'll
• 17:05
  have another one in Saginaw shortly after.
• 17:08
  So I'm like, well, I got the notice for Gaylord, so my Gap,
• 17:11
  it's a Friday. I'll go then, I could pick up my
• 17:12
  daughter afterwards and bring her home for the weekend.
• 17:16
  Who are you guys need to come to Westchester?
• 17:18
  You have boring elections. I was elected Steward 18 years
• 17:25
  ago. After two years of putting up
• 17:27
  with the carrier bullshit I said oh nothing I can't deal with
• 17:31
  this miss much. Stupidity.
• 17:34
  But was it two and a half years ago.
• 17:37
  I ran against the ATR. Who's, in my office?
• 17:41
  The Dr. Who is basically his stepfather?
• 17:46
  He came to the office, and we were having discussions in our
• 17:50
  break room. One of the carriers almost
• 17:54
  punched out the Dr. Me and the ATR almost went toe-to-toe on
• 17:59
  it, so they cancel. Get it, and put it back, two
• 18:03
  weeks, and had it all off property, and the ADR in my
• 18:08
  office and who was Steward for five years, lost to me.
• 18:17
  And as of as of tomorrow, I will have filed the 143 grievances in
• 18:22
  my two and a half years. Nice.
• 18:24
  Wow! That doesn't that doesn't beat
• 18:27
  out one of the offices here and Southwest Southeast Michigan.
• 18:32
  One of the Offices. Here is filing 30 grievances a
• 18:35
  day. Wow, what would they have gotten
• 18:38
  this Bleak? Do they run a route?
• 18:41
  I think. Yeah, I was gonna say, do they,
• 18:44
  they do anything pesky, like delivered a hole in the
• 18:46
  meantime, or I believe they have 120 rounds in that office.
• 18:52
  Okay. Well, they should have more than
• 18:53
  one Steward then And not only that because of the amount of
• 19:00
  grievances, they're filing against management.
• 19:02
  The ADR is literally almost living there.
• 19:05
  She practically has a cot in the back room.
• 19:12
  Well, that's that's that was the only question they had was,
• 19:16
  because we have two offices in my town.
• 19:18
  They the initial question was, did I need to post it at both
• 19:24
  offices and the adrc is no? Posted in your office then we'll
• 19:27
  decide later whether or not we need to have a another election
• 19:31
  for the main office or whether we'll just make you the chief
• 19:36
  steward and just put you over bolt offices.
• 19:39
  So we had a question. It's over 50 routes.
• 19:58
  Isn't it? One per 50 routes if it's a big
• 20:00
  huge office. Correct, correct.
• 20:05
  And the only way you can not be a steward of an office is if
• 20:09
  there are no rural routes in that office, It's an all city
• 20:14
  office, you can't can't be a steward over it.
• 20:18
  I'm actually wondering how they're going to work this out.
• 20:20
  If they actually do centralized the offices into the PD and sees
• 20:24
  how they're going to work out, the stewards that are in all
• 20:26
  those offices and stuff like that, if they're going to turn
• 20:29
  it around to the T, Stewart and stewards, or are they going to
• 20:32
  do it by ZIP code or what they're going to do with that?
• 20:35
  That's going to be. I noticed the one coming up for
• 20:39
  Michigan, the sdn. See is they're going to be
• 20:42
  moving. It will be out of Jackson.
• 20:45
  It'll have Leslie Pleasant Lake Brooklyn and I think Hopkins was
• 20:52
  the other one that are all going to be out of the Jackson Post
• 20:55
  Office. It's all the PD and fees,
• 20:59
  they're putting a lot of the routes in the PD at ease and I
• 21:02
  believe, if I'm not mistaken, the rule for it was within 25
• 21:06
  miles of the PD and see. If I recall correctly which
• 21:11
  means that the one office that I had a problem with the
• 21:14
  postmaster at is close enough to be dragged into the p d and c,
• 21:19
  but my office is not, my office is actually, I believe it's 27
• 21:26
  and a half miles from the PD and C so they won't pull it in
• 21:29
  there. Even though my route where my
• 21:32
  route starts it's like 23 miles from the p d and c and as a
• 21:37
  local steward Don't really get paid extra as a regular carrier,
• 21:42
  being a steward. Anytime you're doing steward,
• 21:45
  duties you go into Z time, which then after eight hours, you get
• 21:50
  a day off similar 20 time and stuff like that.
• 21:55
  As an RCA that steps up to be a local Stewart.
• 21:58
  All your Steward time is Green Card time.
• 22:03
  And that's that's the benefit you get to that unless you're
• 22:06
  working every single day and doing Stewart on top of that and
• 22:09
  you bust 40, even though you've been doing evaluated routes
• 22:12
  under time when you lose money, depending yeah.
• 22:17
  Depending yeah, well, where do they do these PVCs?
• 22:21
  I heard that the steward selection, for the chief steward
• 22:25
  will be done via the lip test, Whoever has the softest lips.
• 22:55
  We're not, we're not you, you know, the thing about that.
• 23:00
  We're Stewart. We're rabid dogs.
• 23:04
  Trust me. The but here's the is Carrier
• 23:07
  discretion. Yes, that's supposedly when I
• 23:12
  post a little throwback of the shot glasses and and the one
• 23:17
  comment was is that the Carrier discretion shot glass.
• 23:23
  I'm like that's an idea you I was going to say, you know,
• 23:40
  the difference between all right.
• 24:16
  Again, depends on house off. Your lips are actually base is
• 24:23
  actually based on number of votes in the election, when you
• 24:29
  hold an election for stewards, the top votes become the
• 24:34
  stewards, depending on how many routes you have.
• 24:37
  After 50 rounds, you get an extra Stuart.
• 24:39
  If there's two people running and you have 51 routes, you have
• 24:43
  to Steward. And the one that gets the most
• 24:45
  votes because comes the chief steward over the office and the
• 24:48
  other ones become local stewards for the office.
• 24:52
  That's how it works. Never work at office that big.
• 24:57
  So I had no experience in that. So, the next question to follow
• 25:01
  on that is how do you divvy up the routes between the chief
• 25:06
  steward and the local Stewart? You don't.
• 25:10
  They all they both work together.
• 25:16
  It's just the way that it's just a way to cover handling, the
• 25:19
  amount of grievances that could occur with that many routes
• 25:23
  around and the chief steward basically is there to oversee
• 25:27
  the rest of the Stewart and make sure everybody's doing something
• 25:30
  like the chief steward, okay? And he doesn't like me.
• 25:36
  Oh, when you put your Stewart hats on, you guys work together,
• 25:39
  it's the same as same as when you're a carrier versus the
• 25:42
  Stewart. When you're a carrier, your your
• 25:45
  a subject Subjugate to the management /, the /, the
• 25:48
  contractor subjugate to the management.
• 25:52
  And when you become a steward, you're equal to management.
• 25:57
  So you can you can you can be soft and kind to management when
• 26:02
  you're just a rural carrier, when you become a steward, you
• 26:05
  are equal to them. You can actually argue with
• 26:08
  them, politely argue with them, you never forget, you never
• 26:14
  never get angry, never raise your voice, but you can dispute
• 26:18
  with them on a more equal level, because the reason why I say you
• 26:23
  don't raise, your voice is because you want Them to lose
• 26:28
  their cool, not you. You want to keep your head in
• 26:33
  the game, keep your head, your mind on the goal because in the
• 26:38
  end you want your side to win. Even if it means you have to
• 26:45
  settle with them, you're still going to be kind straightforward
• 26:49
  and on it because everything in the post office is treating each
• 26:55
  other with dignity fairness and respect and you can laugh at
• 26:58
  that all you want. But that is the main goal is
• 27:02
  dignity fairness and respect. And if you provide that and they
• 27:06
  don't, you've already won against them because you're
• 27:11
  already in their mind. So deep that they're Frustrated,
• 27:14
  they're angry at you and you're just doing your job.
• 27:19
  Now, the bill approach, well, I'm still mad about him saying
• 27:26
  that I'm equal with them and I don't ever want to be that
• 27:28
  stupid. Well out there, you know.
• 27:36
  Well the reason why I say equal is not her management feeling,
• 27:40
  all right no, we know where we know we're better than them at
• 27:44
  knowing the contract and knowing what rural carriers are supposed
• 27:47
  to do and it's our job to educate them on that.
• 27:56
  With that being said, Kristen what's the first step you do
• 28:01
  when you think you have something worth a grievance?
• 28:06
  Well, since we are the only craft, the only Union that says
• 28:10
  your Steward cannot initiate the grievance for you.
• 28:14
  You yourself must go have a discussion with management about
• 28:18
  the issue. If you cannot come to an
• 28:22
  agreement, that's when you say, well you can consider this my
• 28:25
  step 1 discussion and please print out that 8191 grievance
• 28:29
  form. That's the very first step.
• 28:36
  Management is supposed to print out this form for you.
• 28:40
  And there is a spot for them to initial or sign and the date on
• 28:45
  which they did. if they move and you have 14 days from the date
• 29:01
  that you Discovery. Yes, you are aware that you were
• 29:08
  aggrieved to file the grievance. That doesn't mean 14 days from
• 29:13
  date of incident. If you are not weren't present
• 29:17
  from the date of incident, this can actually comes in a lot of
• 29:20
  times with our Cas if they're not following the Matrix
• 29:23
  accordingly, and they skip over a primary and call somebody
• 29:27
  else. You may not know about it till
• 29:31
  later on if it, It's happens on the workroom floor.
• 29:35
  Right? Then and there and you are
• 29:37
  completely aware of it at the time, it happens.
• 29:40
  Then yeah, it's 14 days from incident.
• 29:42
  But it is supposed to be 14 days from when you become aggrieved,
• 29:46
  that you have to file the step 1.
• 29:52
  And with the 81, pouring, my heart. for an example of that,
• 29:58
  for two examples of that the first 10K, management turns
• 30:03
  around and tells you That will use this one because they've
• 30:09
  been doing this in a lot of offices.
• 30:10
  They're getting rid of cases, trying to lower the number of
• 30:15
  pieces of equipment, that carriers have rural carriers,
• 30:19
  are required to have a minimum of one inch slots for their
• 30:24
  addresses. And a lot of offices are trying
• 30:28
  to cut that down to half inch slots, or whatever for
• 30:33
  addresses. Because mail volumes low, But
• 30:36
  our contract says you get one inch per address and with each
• 30:41
  case I believe it is, well, I know a three cases, you get 700
• 30:48
  addresses. With three cases, you get 700
• 30:52
  addresses. And the reason I know this is
• 30:53
  because of mind, my case, I have 650 668 addresses that my case
• 30:58
  is almost full and I have no less than 1 inch slots.
• 31:02
  In my case, I have a few 2 inch slot.
• 31:04
  But if management is trying to tell you, hey, I got to remove
• 31:07
  your wing because they're getting rid of equipment, but
• 31:11
  you have 750 addresses Ural entitled to that wing.
• 31:16
  And so you tell management, I need that wing for the number of
• 31:20
  addresses, I have 41 inch slot, the minimum and management goes.
• 31:25
  Okay, let's talk about this. That's one of your steps that
• 31:30
  you start you start your discussion management goes well
• 31:33
  I'm not going to I'm not going to change that.
• 31:35
  We're going to take that Wing away.
• 31:36
  Anyway that's when you say, can you print me in 8191 form, they
• 31:42
  put the date of the step 1 discussion on it and initial it
• 31:46
  so that way, you know, they know that they saw it and then you go
• 31:50
  into filling it out. And how do you fill it out?
• 31:56
  Mike, how do you fill out a grievance form since your fresh
• 31:59
  fortification since I'm fresh out of certification?
• 32:02
  The the grievance, the person filing, the grievance fills out
• 32:07
  the, the first, for the first four lines, or the first four
• 32:12
  boxes on the grievance form. And then the, the fourth, the
• 32:20
  fourth box, where you say, what is, what is the issue, it's like
• 32:24
  Jeopardy, you have to ask it in the form of you.
• 32:26
  You have to make it in a form of a question.
• 32:29
  So did you know did did management violate the national
• 32:34
  agreement and something to the effect of did did the management
• 32:39
  violate the contract and postal or pull and or Postal manuals
• 32:44
  when they did X, whatever. Whatever your, whatever your
• 32:48
  issue is in James is cases, are they evaluating by trying to by
• 32:55
  attempting to take away the care?
• 32:57
  A wing from my route. Something to that effect.
• 33:02
  It would be. And then, the question would be
• 33:05
  did management violate the contract because it's a contract
• 33:09
  that says, one is slots in our contract and or Postal manuals,
• 33:13
  pocl3 just rural carrier duties, and responsibilities, as well as
• 33:18
  the managers guide, to managing rural to rural, craft does
• 33:24
  another postal manual. There the empty, want to put
• 33:27
  that in there? Yeah, I'm pretty Atrium.
• 33:29
  Yes, thank you. When taking away the wing from
• 33:37
  carrier. So and so and this.
• 33:40
  But a question mark. and then, Next Step would be built.
• 33:47
  What's the next step? After they fill out the question
• 33:50
  on the, on the Grievance form. Well, the next step one, there
• 33:55
  is you're going to put your routine contract, Provisions
• 33:58
  articles, and at you, that's the Stewart's job, that's for just
• 34:04
  lowered. What, what does the carrier do
• 34:06
  with the with the 8191? After he spilled out, numbers 1
• 34:11
  through 4 Well, I hope Le hopefully he's going to get it
• 34:16
  initial as timely grievance. He's going to he the the
• 34:24
  grievant is going to either give it to his local Steward or no
• 34:30
  yes well the well you have your step 1, okay.
• 34:35
  You got to do the, you know, you the initial from the supervisor
• 34:38
  there that actually is just saying whether or not, you know,
• 34:43
  they received it. There also has to be, you have
• 34:46
  to fill out the timeliness of it too.
• 34:49
  Because it has to be your timely.
• 34:52
  They want you do the issue or the complaint.
• 34:54
  That's where you going to bring up the copy of the contract
• 34:56
  Provisions. Where the carrier.
• 34:59
  What I have in the carrier's, do is give it to me because of the
• 35:03
  fact that they aren't aware of the contract Provisions.
• 35:07
  So, after my contract Provisions areas, I always put in
• 35:12
  including, but not limited to And then I list the provisions
• 35:18
  to the case in regards to what they refer to.
• 35:24
  Yeah, so once you, once you filled out one through four
• 35:28
  contact, your local union representative, whether it be
• 35:32
  your local Steward, your ADR your Dr. Whoever is your
• 35:37
  contact? You can find that out in your
• 35:41
  union magazine that you get or the NRL see a website.
• 35:46
  And with the NRL, see a website, you do not have to be logged in
• 35:52
  to find out who your Steward is. That is accessible to do spaying
• 35:58
  and dues-paying members. You can figure that out by just
• 36:03
  going to the website and under, what's that, tab?
• 36:08
  The tab on the far, right? And you scroll down to find my
• 36:15
  local steward. Find my Steward is what it's
• 36:18
  called and then you enter, enter your zip code and it will tell
• 36:23
  you who is over your office for that zip code.
• 36:28
  Now be sure to check all the ZIP codes in your office because
• 36:33
  some of us have multiple zip codes and we're only listed for
• 36:37
  one ZIP code in that office, but not the other So if you have a
• 36:42
  local Steward and there are listed under one ZIP code, but
• 36:45
  not the other, you'll go to that local steward.
• 36:48
  Because they cover the entire office, all of zip codes.
• 36:53
  And if you're on a computer looking at it, you're going to
• 36:55
  go not log. You don't have to be logged in.
• 36:58
  You go over to the far right to departments down to Stewart
• 37:01
  operations and it pops up. Find your Steward is the First
• 37:05
  Choice and then it lets you put in your ZIP code after that and
• 37:09
  you don't have to be logged in to do that. and my case itself
• 37:14
  has my Dr listed it for my office, but anyways So x a
• 37:22
  simple process carriers only have to fill out numbers.
• 37:26
  One through four number one and two are the one, two and three
• 37:30
  are a little bit spread out a B's and C's kind of thing.
• 37:33
  Personal item number for personal information.
• 37:38
  Your name your, your Your designation your craft and your
• 37:47
  assignment. You're like, for me, it would be
• 37:49
  real carrier, designation, 71 and the route you run, if you're
• 37:55
  an RCA Kristen, what do you put in that box?
• 38:00
  You're going to be either a designation 78.
• 38:04
  A designation 79, if your home down an ox route or a designated
• 38:09
  74, if you have been the primary RCA on a route for more than 90
• 38:15
  calendar days and have covered form 50 change to a designated
• 38:19
  74 and then you, of course, you know, you put your office and
• 38:24
  your primary route number. Is your primary route?
• 38:28
  Number goes on there. Is your assignment.
• 38:30
  Yep. And then you fill out your phone
• 38:34
  number. You fill out your address
• 38:38
  employee employee identification.
• 38:40
  Number your address, and you fill out the office.
• 38:45
  If you're a hub-and-spoke office, you have multiple
• 38:49
  offices. You'll fill out the Hub office
• 38:51
  in the first slot and the spoke office, you actually work out of
• 38:54
  in the second slot. And then you put the phone
• 39:00
  number to the office you're in in the neck flat where it says
• 39:05
  office phone number because the union needs that number in case
• 39:09
  it moves up further than that, they can call the office for
• 39:12
  more information if they need it for RFI. and then after that is
• 39:17
  your question as to did they violate I mean if you have to
• 39:24
  send that grievance off if you do not have a local stored and
• 39:29
  so you have to send it to an area Steward or an ADR or a Dr.
• 39:34
  Make sure it's always nice to give them a phone call ahead of
• 39:37
  time. Let them know what's coming but
• 39:39
  send it certified that way you have confirmation of receipt.
• 39:44
  Yep, send us in certified or if it's, you know, depending on
• 39:50
  your ATR your Dr. They may say, well, I'll stop by your office
• 39:54
  tomorrow and pick it up and you can hand it to them right there.
• 39:58
  Yeah. That's what either way to do it.
• 39:59
  Always good to you know, call him and least give him a heads
• 40:02
  up that you're doing it or that you have filed that way they're
• 40:05
  not going to get sidetracked that way if they are in the area
• 40:08
  they can get to you from in person or like I said they can
• 40:12
  direct you and weather. If it's something that they're
• 40:15
  not going to be able to pick up right away to sign for, they may
• 40:18
  have you send it Priority with tracking as well so there's a
• 40:22
  but usually you want to send it off certified.
• 40:25
  Yeah, because your Steward has 14 days to from the step one to
• 40:30
  talk with management about 10 days.
• 40:33
  Ten days, ten days, ten days for the step.
• 40:35
  One meeting my bad, I get those confused all the time. 14 days
• 40:40
  to file 10 days for the step 1. Yeah.
• 40:44
  And you can, and the stewards can turn around and ask for a
• 40:50
  delay, an extension that and extension, but they have to get
• 40:56
  Management's approval to do that.
• 40:57
  Some managers are cool with that.
• 41:00
  Some managers are like, let's just get this over with or some
• 41:02
  management flat-out, refuse it and then flat out refused to
• 41:06
  meet in a step 1. And at that time, it then gets
• 41:10
  notated by the steward and sent off to step two.
• 41:14
  Yep. And then step step two involves.
• 41:19
  Mike, you know step two involves Hold on.
• 41:30
  We might need to themselves like mutant himself, build step to
• 41:38
  where to step to go. Usually in the toilet.
• 41:43
  But its purpose is the step to from the local Steward point of
• 41:52
  view is going up to the Labor Relations head in your District.
• 41:58
  In my case, I'm in Delaware PA to and I have a specific image
• 42:03
  gentlemen, that is directed to, I include all the information
• 42:07
  from the grievance and step for Related material which I do not
• 42:11
  have to provide to them and that material is copied and sent on
• 42:18
  to your in my case of Dr. My ADR doesn't handle them.
• 42:23
  And from there it goes into limbo.
• 42:27
  Basically, until I get a settlement of either a payment
• 42:31
  to a carrier, or I get the love the settlement of settling for
• 42:37
  language, which, you know, just drives me up.
• 42:40
  A wall, but you have to send it, you have to send it by certified
• 42:43
  letter up to the district people, and you also send it by
• 42:48
  certified letter to your Dr. And if you are and if you are
• 42:55
  sending it to step 2 as a local or as an area, please let the
• 43:01
  grievant know that it's going to step to stay in contact with the
• 43:06
  grievance. Because if you don't, they're
• 43:07
  going to be wondering what the hell's going on.
• 43:11
  You're supposed to give them a copy of the grievance.
• 43:14
  We always yea form. Yeah, but with me, my-my ADR
• 43:19
  does that for me. I don't have to send it off
• 43:22
  myself. I actually, once I get through
• 43:25
  this tough one, I actually digitize it scan it.
• 43:32
  And PDF it to my ATR who then prints it off, puts it in the
• 43:36
  union file and also sends it on to step 2.
• 43:42
  Then I don't have to, I don't have to mail anything or
• 43:44
  anything like that. Although that's money for the
• 43:47
  Post Office. It's a lot easier and it gives a
• 43:51
  hard digital copy for the union to hold onto as well.
• 43:55
  So they not only if it if there's a fire or something in
• 43:58
  there in their file room, they have a digital copy of it on the
• 44:02
  cloud. So, That's just my personal way
• 44:05
  of doing things with my ADR, but the true way to do it is exactly
• 44:11
  how Bill described it. And I do it the old-fashioned
• 44:16
  way because of the fact that you know, that's still the mandated
• 44:20
  procedures for my district and you know, we can do it
• 44:26
  digitally. But we still have to do it in
• 44:30
  hard copy. Yeah, and you also keep a copy
• 44:39
  for yourself for your Steward records.
• 44:41
  Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
• 44:43
  Yes. I have a four-drawer file link
• 44:50
  already and if you if you become a steward, the union will most
• 45:00
  likely supposedly pay for a storage system for your
• 45:08
  grievances. Now, that means you turn a
• 45:13
  receipt in with an expense voucher and hope you get
• 45:15
  reimbursed for it. Yes.
• 45:18
  And for me for like me, I could have a filing cabinet at the
• 45:22
  office or at home with it. But the key to that is, is when
• 45:27
  you get decertified you, he's the post office, you no longer
• 45:31
  are Steward, you have to turn that quipment back in.
• 45:34
  But when you get the certified or Retire and stop being a
• 45:38
  steward. You have to turn in all your
• 45:40
  files as well. So it really is just load the
• 45:45
  file cabinet up on a dolly and ship it off to him.
• 45:51
  Don't ship it. USPS.
• 46:19
  Two of them and then the other one and that end up going to
• 46:27
  step 2 and then getting withdrawn because that grievance
• 46:32
  which I did not know ahead of time actually took a highway
• 46:36
  contract route in another office.
• 46:38
  Before I had a chance to get her to the step to level, he was off
• 46:41
  the USPS payroll. Okay, so yeah, you know things
• 46:47
  like that happen inside a prince, I became a steward, I've
• 46:52
  only had six, so I got a good management team though, they
• 46:57
  usually listen to me. So it's not a big deal.
• 47:00
  But when you have management like Bill deals with or the
• 47:04
  other, the other manager I talked about, you know, the
• 47:07
  number will be higher if you have a lot more routes in your
• 47:11
  office, the number probably will be higher.
• 47:14
  You know, if you have a very small office-like like Kristin
• 47:19
  was saying, if you have one route, you're the only rural
• 47:21
  carrier and here's a steward, you may only have grievances
• 47:25
  when you have a problem. Now, yep, a lot of people say,
• 47:30
  if it affects, if it affects all rural carriers in the office,
• 47:33
  the class action. But if you're the only Road
• 47:34
  carrier, it's not a class action as much as you want it to be.
• 47:40
  Well, can't can't you cite me myself.
• 47:42
  And I, that would be three. That would be a class action.
• 47:46
  No, it means it's Me. Myself and Irene get it right?
• 47:52
  No. All righty, then all righty
• 47:57
  somebody gave you a rage away. Yeah, I guess I just got done
• 48:04
  watching watching the Mandalorian and picquart so oh,
• 48:07
  yes, yes, yes, great show, great show for anyway.
• 48:14
  Raghu is the man, girl, go is awesome.
• 48:17
  I love that little dude. Yeah sick.
• 48:25
  So if your stuff gets moved up to step 2, it may take longer
• 48:34
  There are, there are maximum time frames on step two is as
• 48:38
  well, but most often they end up continuing them for a later
• 48:45
  date. I have one that's been step two,
• 48:49
  for six months because of all this wreck stuff, they've been
• 48:52
  dealing with at the offices. So they've been holding the step
• 48:55
  twos. All step two is practically in
• 48:58
  my district. but it takes a little bit but once that step to
• 49:06
  moves on, or get settled or stayed or whatever, Then the Dr.
• 49:16
  Should contact your local representative?
• 49:20
  And their local Representatives should step up and say, hey, by
• 49:24
  the way, your grievance just went up to step 3, or with
• 49:29
  settled in. This is what they're going to
• 49:30
  do, but don't expect the payment anytime soon, but that's a whole
• 49:38
  nother topic on itself, gets payments.
• 49:41
  And getting here, Yeah. And then if it moves up to step
• 49:46
  3, this is where it starts getting more fun.
• 49:51
  Step 3 is, what bill. Oh, I don't know.
• 49:59
  Mine mine either. Go to 2 and get settled or to go
• 50:02
  to for. I've got five at for right now.
• 50:07
  I have the machine to step 3. Let's go back to look it up.
• 50:17
  Chris Kristen either of you got it.
• 50:20
  That's where your Regional takes it in and it possibly
• 50:23
  pre-approved at that point. But not necessarily if they
• 50:26
  can't resolve it at a step, three regional levels and it
• 50:29
  will go up to 4. You're like where our executive
• 50:33
  committee people stepped in. Yes.
• 50:37
  That's where you get into National.
• 50:38
  Is it step 4? And that's where you've heard
• 50:42
  it. All through this wreck stuff.
• 50:45
  We've got to step four. Grievance National cannot start
• 50:49
  a step 1. Step 2 or step 3.
• 50:53
  They automatically start at step.
• 50:55
  Four up there. And that is completely pre
• 50:58
  arbitration. Literally, we're going to
• 51:01
  discuss this, or we're going to arbitration.
• 51:04
  And that's when they go to somebody, who's possibly not a
• 51:08
  judge, not a lawyer, not involved in.
• 51:11
  Courts at all but can make a decision.
• 51:14
  A sustained decision that the courts will recognize That's how
• 51:22
  we got Rex was an arbitrator. That's how we know if you want
• 51:29
  ya to tear Pizza. Yep, yep.
• 51:33
  And arbitration is like the last ditch effort.
• 51:38
  Now, we always we always say arbitration is bad, but the
• 51:43
  reason why arbitration is bad and this comes from, actually, a
• 51:47
  friend of mine who the lawyer he went to arbitration over a lemon
• 51:52
  law case. We're let every every state in
• 51:57
  the country, has a lemon law this, this friend of mine,
• 51:59
  actually wrote the book on lemon laws and he went to arbitration
• 52:04
  against one of the big threes. And when they went to
• 52:08
  arbitration, they had offered. Well, it's either zero or this
• 52:13
  amount. They actually had to set
• 52:15
  amounts, they both agreed to. If the arbitrator decided one
• 52:19
  way or the other, they get into the arbitration and the
• 52:23
  arbitrator decides that my friends client gets almost
• 52:28
  double what they had offered to take from this auto
• 52:33
  manufacturer. Arbitration.
• 52:40
  People don't have to follow the rules, don't have to follow the
• 52:43
  laws, they can make a decision on how they feel and that's why
• 52:48
  arbitration is a very scary thing for a lot of people, you
• 52:52
  can get a big windfall, you can lose a lot, you can get a
• 52:56
  program that still doesn't work after 12 years.
• 53:01
  That's the risk. You Take by going to
• 53:02
  arbitration, but that's the only contractual option we have.
• 53:06
  And arbitrators do have the power to remove management from
• 53:10
  their positions? Yes, arbitrators can actually.
• 53:15
  Fire management without cause they can just say we don't like
• 53:21
  you, you're you're out. And that's it.
• 53:26
  And management doesn't have a union, like we do.
• 53:31
  At least, if an arbitrator tells a carrier.
• 53:33
  Yeah, you get out. We have a union to back that up.
• 53:37
  Yeah, of course, I'm managers deserve it.
• 53:44
  Some don't, so we'll go with that.
• 53:48
  So, so in a nutshell, but that's, that is the go back over
• 53:53
  it in a nutshell, that is the how to hold a steward election
• 53:58
  in. I do file a grievance So just as
• 54:03
  a reminder, if you're just a carrier filing, a grievance,
• 54:08
  first thing you do is you have your discussion with Management.
• 54:11
  Try to resolve it at the lowest level a discussion with
• 54:15
  management. Most often, settles it right
• 54:19
  then and there. Yep, most often and if you can
• 54:24
  settle it right then and there and say, hey look, this is
• 54:26
  wrong. Can we do it this way?
• 54:28
  Instead manager goes, I see your point.
• 54:32
  We can do that. Instead.
• 54:34
  If the manager goes no no, I want it this way and that's the
• 54:37
  end of it. And you go.
• 54:39
  All right. This has been our stuff.
• 54:40
  One discussion prep me an 8191 and sign that you we had our
• 54:45
  discussion today and I'll fill it out and give it to her
• 54:48
  steward. You fill out numbers one through
• 54:52
  four and turn it into your Steward and then your Steward
• 54:56
  takes it from there. If you have any questions about
• 55:00
  it, contact your local union representative.
• 55:05
  And if you're looking for assistance and don't want to
• 55:08
  bother your local Steward, you can ask somebody on in your
• 55:12
  office, how to do it. You can ask somebody on online
• 55:15
  that you trust how to do it, but it always comes back to your
• 55:19
  Steward has to be involved. Yep.
• 55:24
  So make sure you know, who your Steward is and have the ability
• 55:28
  to contact them. And hopefully if you're a
• 55:31
  steward, these people are reaching out to you for help.
• 55:35
  You're answering your phone and helping these people.
• 55:39
  We need are stewards just as much as we need our carriers.
• 55:45
  And we need to all work together to make sure management stays
• 55:49
  held accountable to our contract, our manuals and
• 55:53
  everything else. Involving the postal service so
• 55:55
  that we can earn a fair wage for fair work.
• 56:05
  All right, so I know there was a few other topics.
• 56:08
  Y'all wanted to discuss a little bit.
• 56:11
  We got a little bit of time. What's the big elephant in the
• 56:15
  room here guys? The biggest thing I see is we
• 56:21
  need to stick together. There's too much infighting
• 56:24
  amongst the craft mates online. We need to stop fighting with
• 56:31
  each other. Yep.
• 56:33
  We know this systems messed up. We know it's a problem.
• 56:37
  We know there's not an easy solution to it.
• 56:41
  But we can't be fighting with each other over it.
• 56:44
  We can't be saying all it's going to be the way it is and
• 56:47
  that's it or you know we can't we can't support the carriers
• 56:53
  that are getting this pay raise when I'm losing thirty thousand
• 56:56
  dollars. we need to support each other, the people that the 33%
• 57:02
  getting screwed over just as much as the 66%, the 33% been
• 57:06
  getting screwed over since 2018, the 66% that have gone way down
• 57:16
  Some of that can be argued as mail volume this that or the
• 57:22
  other thing, but it doesn't matter.
• 57:25
  We're all getting screwed over with this one way or the other.
• 57:30
  And the thing we need to do is we need to stick together and
• 57:34
  fight with management to get this right.
• 57:40
  If you can show me that my route lost thirty thousand dollars
• 57:44
  worth of Revenue. A year in volume and other
• 57:50
  things. Hey, that's what my Rob did.
• 57:54
  But I'm not seeing the numbers. I'm not seeing the equations.
• 57:58
  I'm not seeing the work. Management's not being held
• 58:03
  accountable for this stuff except in the steppe fours that
• 58:07
  National is filed We need them to answer those step forward.
• 58:13
  We need them to step up and say, yep, you know, we were hiding
• 58:17
  this stuff but here it is. Here's how you can translate it
• 58:21
  into your own numbers. That's what we need.
• 58:27
  To stick together. I definitely have to agree with.
• 58:35
  Yep. Yep.
• 58:38
  I hear a lot of people complain, the union.
• 58:42
  This the union that the unionist was the union doing.
• 58:45
  For me people, we are the union. I know a lot of people when they
• 58:49
  talk like that, they are talking about the leaders at the top
• 58:54
  table. And I understand that, but you
• 58:58
  have to remember, if you are a dues-paying union member, you
• 59:03
  can fight to change that. But you have to be active in
• 59:08
  order to get to help create the change.
• 59:12
  You, you know, it's when it's only the, I have harped on this
• 59:17
  many many times, and I know bill has two is, you know, when this,
• 59:20
  it's just the same, twenty percent voting for the same
• 59:25
  people, they know you're going to get the same results.
• 59:29
  Plain, and simple. yeah, let's Yeah, it's you have to be
• 59:40
  fighting the fight in order to try and make that change and
• 59:43
  when enough people are fighting for the same thing and being
• 59:47
  active for the same thing, change starts to happen slowly
• 59:51
  but changed us start to happen. I mean, we saw a little bit of
• 59:54
  change last year, not a great big Mount but it was a little
• 1:00:00
  bit. And we just need to continue
• 1:00:02
  that momentum and keep picking it up.
• 1:00:08
  Well, unfortunately, the change that we did have last year was
• 1:00:12
  due to retirement and not because of people changing the
• 1:00:17
  direction of the board. Correct, the direction may have
• 1:00:21
  changed with the two new additions.
• 1:00:25
  But like I said, it was due to retirement. excuse me, our G's
• 1:00:33
  are killing me but yeah it was that your retirement If we could
• 1:00:38
  go back to the grievance form. Absolutely.
• 1:00:41
  What one of the things I wanted to put on there was when you
• 1:00:47
  have a full detailed statement of Undisputed facts attachments.
• 1:00:54
  Excuse me. I apologize.
• 1:00:58
  The biggest thing I always like to do especially when their
• 1:01:02
  situation on the floor. I always like to make sure
• 1:01:06
  people get witnesses to the situation that bolsters your
• 1:01:12
  argument, especially when management gets out of line.
• 1:01:15
  And that's helped me win a number of what I call the
• 1:01:18
  hostile work environments because the fact that I do have
• 1:01:22
  witnessed Statements from people.
• 1:01:26
  So when you have situation arise a right and Rising on the floor,
• 1:01:31
  make sure that you know, I always like to be a little
• 1:01:35
  louder without shouting make sure that I have people's
• 1:01:39
  attention in the immediate area and they can verify, you know,
• 1:01:43
  the conversations that we're going on. those witness
• 1:01:49
  statements are gold when you go to the actual steps to Because
• 1:01:55
  of the fact that that gets several real quick because they
• 1:01:58
  don't want CEOs, I have a gentleman in my office that he
• 1:02:03
  has filed three CEOs and won all three and one of them got him 52
• 1:02:11
  days of leave. Wow, yes.
• 1:02:16
  And the funny thing is the first CEO was for the same fret.
• 1:02:20
  Same reason. And he just, you know, had it
• 1:02:23
  settled for, you know, language, he had it settled for language
• 1:02:28
  the second time he had happened, he says, oh the hell with this
• 1:02:31
  and he went and got 52 paid days.
• 1:02:37
  Now, the reason I bring up the witness at the thing is because
• 1:02:41
  of the fact that the rule carrier specialist, Actually
• 1:02:46
  came into the office. After the first settlement where
• 1:02:50
  he was magnanimous and it's just settled for the language and
• 1:02:54
  getting his route adjusted appropriately and the rural
• 1:02:59
  carrier specialist came in and got into his face and four of us
• 1:03:03
  had statements ready. So when it happened two years
• 1:03:07
  later where his route adjustment wasn't properly done and he
• 1:03:11
  filed the second e 0 and 1, he had statements in hand in
• 1:03:16
  regards to the attitude. And misbehavior of the rural
• 1:03:21
  carrier specialist, who is the one dictating the terms for his
• 1:03:25
  routes adjustments and he lost big.
• 1:03:31
  I know there's been questions about grievances, some of the
• 1:03:37
  biggest questions we see, we're kind of going to go through
• 1:03:39
  these a little bit too, before I wrap up tonight, is it a
• 1:03:43
  dispute? If your cherry pick, if you
• 1:03:45
  cherry picking the things you believe are wrong, It can be
• 1:03:54
  depends on how you're cherry-picking, but if it's
• 1:03:58
  blatant contractual. Against the contract, if against
• 1:04:04
  any of the Pea, 603 and it's just a continuous thing, I
• 1:04:09
  definitely dispute it, you know, grievant management always going
• 1:04:14
  to call it cherry picking. Yes, they will.
• 1:04:18
  Yeah guys, will you let this slide you?
• 1:04:20
  Let that slide but now you're grieving this.
• 1:04:23
  Why? They're going to do that, it's
• 1:04:27
  Management's way of trying to keep from getting that
• 1:04:30
  grievance, because that goes on, the office record, the grievance
• 1:04:34
  is attached to the office. It starts in.
• 1:04:36
  Yep. So management going to do their
• 1:04:40
  darndest to try and get you to repeal the agreements from it
• 1:04:49
  was drawn. Yeah, what's wrong?
• 1:04:51
  Yep. Same thing.
• 1:04:53
  Yeah, I don't know. If all areas work the same, I
• 1:04:59
  know in mind, if I Grievant wishes to withdraw a grievance,
• 1:05:06
  then for in my area I have to send it to step to to be
• 1:05:10
  withdrawn. Once the once the grievance is
• 1:05:16
  in your hand, the Stewart You own it, you own it.
• 1:05:24
  The grievant has decided to file it.
• 1:05:26
  But if the grievant was to withdraw it you need to contact
• 1:05:31
  your higher level, Steward to you, you, who you contact your
• 1:05:35
  District, level for guidance on that.
• 1:05:38
  Because once you have that grievance is the district.
• 1:05:42
  Level can say continue with it. Because it's something that
• 1:05:47
  needs to be in writing even though the agreement wants to
• 1:05:50
  withdraw it. The difference would be if The
• 1:05:55
  Grieving wants to withdraw it, your Dr. Goes.
• 1:05:58
  What's it about? All it's about pay for the
• 1:06:00
  carrier because they were not working.
• 1:06:02
  That day, the district rep may say yeah.
• 1:06:05
  Just withdraw it. So it's districts discretion at
• 1:06:09
  that point. Is it a grievance that you
• 1:06:12
  received a pay that you know, isn't verified?
• 1:06:17
  Without more information on that, I guess if you were paid,
• 1:06:22
  when you shouldn't have been, I don't know if it necessarily
• 1:06:24
  would be a grievance. I know if I was overpaid, I
• 1:06:28
  definitely be telling my management and getting up
• 1:06:32
  rectified in one way or another, because if you don't then and
• 1:06:38
  then they catch it later on. Then you're going to get a
• 1:06:40
  letter of demand and then your car shoot, you know, everybody
• 1:06:43
  knows that you grieve a letter of demand.
• 1:06:47
  But even at that case it was some it's like Aaron if it's a
• 1:06:52
  genuine discrepancy that they paid you more than what your
• 1:06:55
  were agreements is going to fall flat.
• 1:06:58
  Yep. Because they're going to have
• 1:07:01
  all the documentation that says well they were paid this much
• 1:07:04
  when they should have been paid this much and so we're trying to
• 1:07:07
  recollect that money. Well we well maybe good like go
• 1:07:13
  ahead. Mike.
• 1:07:14
  I'm sorry I'm sorry. As guys Maybe not a grievance,
• 1:07:18
  but as individual, if you're overpaid, you you need to be.
• 1:07:23
  You need to document some sort of conversation with management
• 1:07:27
  saying, hey, you know what? Especially, you know, I know
• 1:07:32
  it's an RCA. You know, I kept really
• 1:07:35
  meticulous records of the, you know, what routes I worked with
• 1:07:38
  h, i1, h. I should have been paid for.
• 1:07:42
  I mean, you should be able to, you should have your own file on
• 1:07:46
  that. To say, hey, this is what I
• 1:07:48
  worked and you overpaid me. How are we going to fix this?
• 1:07:52
  And so, I would definitely document that discussion somehow
• 1:07:57
  and it doesn't matter how honest your management is Payroll can
• 1:08:02
  mess it up to another install thinking, this too.
• 1:08:06
  Is, if somebody had chosen to lwop, whether it be under FMLA
• 1:08:12
  or Management's, discretion and allowed the lwop, and then they
• 1:08:15
  turn around and paid you out an annual or sick leave then.
• 1:08:20
  Yeah, you would have a grievance in that case because you did not
• 1:08:24
  wish to be paid that Well did they question on this says pay
• 1:08:30
  that year isn't verified? It could go.
• 1:08:31
  We could be uploaded to be. Can be used for teenager.
• 1:08:34
  No overage this is and discuss it with your supervisor and then
• 1:08:39
  have her point out your pixie. Okay.
• 1:08:43
  So that you can go over it. I used to hand out little note
• 1:08:46
  pads and pens the people's. Hey, look, you start here, you
• 1:08:50
  record your hours at, you know, you can use this.
• 1:08:52
  You can use your phone, whatever, I don't care.
• 1:08:55
  But don't Trust management to get your payday right ever and
• 1:09:00
  most of them do use their phones that have recorded it.
• 1:09:03
  You know, the 42 40s on there. So they have a rubbing to tab,
• 1:09:08
  in regards to what days, they work, what route they work and
• 1:09:11
  they're all that information is right there.
• 1:09:13
  So you know is it a grievance? Not until you're not satisfied
• 1:09:18
  with how it's been verified. The next one, being a new RC a
• 1:09:25
  will it make you look bad, filing a grievance.
• 1:09:30
  Yes, it could definitely put a Target on your back, but at the
• 1:09:37
  same time as an RCA, even in probationary, you have a right
• 1:09:43
  to file, a grievance and anything but termination with
• 1:09:48
  when you're within probation. So if you're still a
• 1:09:51
  probationary RCA you can file on anything except for if they let
• 1:09:56
  you go. So if If you're a primary on a
• 1:10:00
  route and they didn't call you in when your regular called off,
• 1:10:07
  and they called the secondary, or they had the aux route
• 1:10:10
  carrier run it because they were already there.
• 1:10:12
  You absolutely do have a grievance.
• 1:10:18
  Trying to think of another one. That's usually the biggest one
• 1:10:21
  right there. If you're in your 90 days and
• 1:10:26
  you file a grievance and you got a bad manager will probably
• 1:10:30
  terminate you. Because I'm not like that it
• 1:10:36
  bad. I said a bad manager and I tried
• 1:10:39
  manager, I said manager not postmaster, not supervisor, I
• 1:10:44
  said manager Because a manager is not a, not a good supervisor
• 1:10:53
  or postmaster. They're just a manager.
• 1:10:56
  They think, they think their top dog and everything goes through
• 1:10:59
  them and everything's perfect. If they say, So well, and that's
• 1:11:06
  the problem with the hostile work environment is that people
• 1:11:09
  are fearful to file a grievance in their probationary period
• 1:11:14
  because you know, they feel that they're going to get blackballed
• 1:11:16
  and be picked on and everything else.
• 1:11:17
  It's like folks as long as I'm here, you know, and you do the
• 1:11:21
  job to the best of your ability. You're not going to have a
• 1:11:24
  problem, they will, but you won't.
• 1:11:33
  Even new ones of filing, a grievance because they didn't
• 1:11:36
  want retaliation to be picked on afterwards.
• 1:11:38
  And I was like, well if that happens and we file on that,
• 1:11:41
  too. Yeah, but I can't do it for you
• 1:11:45
  guys, you know? So going back to, you know, the
• 1:11:49
  news urca like James. The saying if they if they well
• 1:11:55
  I filed a grievance, they terminate you.
• 1:11:57
  Do you have any recourse? If it's in the probationary, yes
• 1:12:05
  if you want to hear if you're if you're a probationary RCA, you
• 1:12:08
  file, a grievance. And then in James and scenario,
• 1:12:10
  he said well management turns, around and terminates.
• 1:12:13
  You do you have recourse? The RCA met outside of the dial
• 1:12:21
  side of the Postal Service System, Postal Service System,
• 1:12:25
  but not through the union but not through Union in the
• 1:12:29
  grievance procedure. Okay, let's find out.
• 1:12:34
  It's a 90-day. Are they're going to say back
• 1:12:37
  off? Yep, the only recourse they
• 1:12:41
  would have legally outside of the Postal Service would be
• 1:12:46
  under the Whistleblower. Our act if they're reporting
• 1:12:49
  something, that's especially something safety-related.
• 1:12:53
  Hmm. Maybe they'd be protected under
• 1:12:55
  the Whistleblower Act and the only other option would be to
• 1:12:59
  file a retaliation claim. That's the only two I am.
• 1:13:04
  Perhaps that's the only two options they have.
• 1:13:08
  And unfortunately, If your managers willing to fire you
• 1:13:15
  over that you and they tell you, well, guess what, now you're
• 1:13:18
  going to be fired for this. You turn around and just say,
• 1:13:22
  no, I resign walk out the door. Apply it another post office
• 1:13:26
  because you don't want to work underneath that kind of a
• 1:13:27
  manager anyway. Yeah if I been on a route and
• 1:13:34
  when it but it changes from like a 44k to a 41k, can I file a
• 1:13:38
  grievance to get my old route back?
• 1:13:42
  No, no. And here's why.
• 1:13:48
  When in the contract it says, once you bid on a route, it's
• 1:13:52
  yours. Now I'll give you an example on
• 1:13:56
  mine. I took over took over my route.
• 1:14:00
  It was a 43k. It had just been cut those.
• 1:14:05
  The mailboxes had to move to aurochs route.
• 1:14:09
  I took it over, I cleared out the cooking in the books and
• 1:14:13
  became a 41k. I couldn't do anything about it
• 1:14:18
  because I had lost of the stops on my route, the two minutes for
• 1:14:24
  box. And so my route became a 41
• 1:14:30
  There was nothing I could do. I couldn't grieve that because
• 1:14:33
  that's part of the route maintenance part of the route
• 1:14:36
  system. Unfortunately, if my previous
• 1:14:40
  carrier had not been cooking the books and kept herself at a 46k
• 1:14:45
  the whole time. To get herself to retirement.
• 1:14:50
  And then when volumes are coming back up with people in the
• 1:14:54
  housing market going up skyrocketing like it did the the
• 1:15:01
  route grew over Forty-Eight K. So they cut it.
• 1:15:04
  And unfortunately, I was stuck at 41k for a while until more
• 1:15:10
  houses are people in them. Now, I have almost 99 percent
• 1:15:15
  occupancy in my house in my route.
• 1:15:17
  With all the houses. So that's a benefit.
• 1:15:22
  I went up to a 42 because of that, getting rid of all, those
• 1:15:26
  vacants put me up to a 42. How you work your route is
• 1:15:30
  important. Now there is a grievance, you
• 1:15:34
  can make If you bid on a route and it says 44k.
• 1:15:41
  And your day off is a specific day on the bid, then you can
• 1:15:47
  grieve that if not what they said, it was going to be if they
• 1:15:52
  cut your out before you get placed on it.
• 1:15:55
  Yeah. If they're going to cut her out,
• 1:15:56
  that yeah be done before. It's posted.
• 1:15:59
  Yeah, that's the only grievance you can do.
• 1:16:01
  If your route was cut when you're placed on it and then you
• 1:16:05
  can bake and they actually have to put you back, make you whole
• 1:16:08
  with a 44k on that. Now, the two options they can do
• 1:16:11
  with that is put the mailboxes back on or pay you for you 4K
• 1:16:14
  until the next count. All right.
• 1:16:18
  Next question. Last one we got on this list is
• 1:16:22
  what can I do about my union rep?
• 1:16:24
  Not doing their job for every grievance I file.
• 1:16:28
  They have private meetings with management before talking to me
• 1:16:31
  and always seem to help management out and finds a way
• 1:16:33
  to dismiss my grievance. If that's happening with your
• 1:16:38
  Local Union steward, you need to go up the chain of command.
• 1:16:44
  Same. If it's going on further up than
• 1:16:46
  that, definitely needs to be brought to the attention of the
• 1:16:49
  chain of command for the steward system.
• 1:16:53
  Yes, because that's that's failure to represent.
• 1:16:57
  Yes. And if you have initiated that
• 1:16:59
  grievance, they cannot just dismiss it.
• 1:17:04
  They have to have you involved to dismiss it?
• 1:17:09
  What happens when the national Steward person is seems to be
• 1:17:14
  helping management out so I'm sorry, I was just talking out
• 1:17:18
  loud. I'm sorry, I'm sorry David.
• 1:17:25
  I hope you're not listening to the podcast tonight.
• 1:17:28
  Well, good. National one would have to go
• 1:17:31
  with the National Labor Relations Board.
• 1:17:34
  You'd have to file a labor charge against the union with
• 1:17:36
  the National Labor Relations boards.
• 1:17:39
  And that gets very messy because I can guarantee you that the
• 1:17:45
  national board keeps meticulous records to prevent that from
• 1:17:51
  happening. They have over over 200 or over
• 1:17:55
  yet, 200 but wait a hundred 100 and 120 years of experience in
• 1:18:02
  the board even though it's not the same people.
• 1:18:05
  But they have 120 years of experience dealing with people
• 1:18:11
  who file labor charges against the national board.
• 1:18:18
  So they know what they're doing up there to protect themselves
• 1:18:21
  from that. It's the same at down at the
• 1:18:24
  district, level state level. It all gets passed down.
• 1:18:31
  The reason the reason why a stewards try to take meticulous
• 1:18:36
  notes during grievances is because we've been burned by
• 1:18:41
  management before. The union has been burned by
• 1:18:46
  management before. You see it all the time to just
• 1:18:51
  now with the wreck stuff, we're getting burned with that the
• 1:18:54
  national boards doing what they can, they don't release a lot of
• 1:18:58
  information on that because unless they have pen to paper,
• 1:19:04
  it's not official. And anybody who decides to
• 1:19:10
  release information early. But for pen to paper, Is not
• 1:19:16
  somebody, you can trust. It's because o, we all.
• 1:19:20
  We've got an agreement, we got an agreement.
• 1:19:22
  Oh, we signed an agreement. That's different from what you
• 1:19:26
  told, everybody it was, didn't we?
• 1:19:30
  So now they look like fools for releasing the information early,
• 1:19:34
  if not accurate. And the other party has a leg up
• 1:19:42
  and next negotiation, because you're still leaking information
• 1:19:48
  to people to try and change their opinions on things.
• 1:19:52
  Well, now that's a negotiation tool and is a benefit actually
• 1:19:57
  in arbitration. Because it makes them look like
• 1:20:01
  a fool in front of the arbitrator.
• 1:20:04
  That's why the national board wait to relief valve, until they
• 1:20:10
  have it with dried ink on paper because it protects them from
• 1:20:17
  management. No matter what management
• 1:20:20
  decides to do on their own. Yeah, yes.
• 1:20:25
  And that's what everything they do is on paper with pen to paper
• 1:20:29
  and written down. So you have a record.
• 1:20:33
  Yes. And that goes the same with case
• 1:20:36
  building for your grievances having proof.
• 1:20:38
  He said, she said, goes nowhere because you can't play a.
• 1:20:42
  He said, she said, well she said this, he said that you got to
• 1:20:46
  have documentation of Who said what when, where, how I mean,
• 1:20:52
  that's about. The only way that you could
• 1:20:54
  build anything to get it to go through.
• 1:20:57
  He said, she said just doesn't work.
• 1:21:01
  I should take him to from, take a cue from the Johnny Depp
• 1:21:05
  trial, objection hearsay. What was that case in point?
• 1:21:12
  And I had a situation our office.
• 1:21:15
  And I spent two hours as eat. I'm questioning everybody in the
• 1:21:19
  Office out of the 18 carriers only one abstain because I love
• 1:21:24
  America I love working. Here are the post office is good
• 1:21:27
  to me. I don't want to say nothing but
• 1:21:29
  the other 17 Witnesses, all verified the information that he
• 1:21:36
  purported the supported the grievance and when I told the
• 1:21:41
  Post Master during the step one process I said I've got 17
• 1:21:47
  carriers here. Yeah so so Wasn't unanimous.
• 1:21:53
  I look down and I said, well, put it this way.
• 1:21:57
  I said when this goes up, the Step 2, I said you're really
• 1:22:00
  gonna look stupid. He's enjoyed your head.
• 1:22:02
  Send it up to step two, I said, okay, sign off on it.
• 1:22:05
  So he signed off as being, you know, dismissed and I turned
• 1:22:10
  around, I walked right to the counter.
• 1:22:11
  He got me an envelope and certified, you know, Tags, I'm
• 1:22:17
  sitting in these break room. Feeling that he comes in.
• 1:22:20
  He goes. Can we discuss this a little
• 1:22:21
  more? I said no.
• 1:22:25
  And he goes what? I mean.
• 1:22:26
  No, I said, no, there's no signature on the papers this
• 1:22:29
  missing it. He goes, I can't have that going
• 1:22:32
  to step 2 and I said too late. Well, my darling.
• 1:22:37
  I time we were done. 17 carriers in our office, had a 200 dollar
• 1:22:44
  gats payment that week. I gave him two days to actually
• 1:22:50
  get them filled out and paid and he did nice.
• 1:22:58
  Actually step up and be forthright on that.
• 1:23:01
  That's close on that. I'll give them that.
• 1:23:04
  Yeah. All right, we got anything else
• 1:23:08
  to add tonight, guys? So we can wind it down.
• 1:23:13
  Pretty good so far. I mean, yeah, yeah, we had we
• 1:23:17
  kind of had a layoff of the Hot Topics right now.
• 1:23:22
  It's but this kind of goes in hand with it just to put lives
• 1:23:26
  just a little bit because I know there's a lot of questions and
• 1:23:28
  people wanting to step up to run for stewards, I applaud you.
• 1:23:33
  It is definitely a thankless position and you'll get heat
• 1:23:39
  from both sides. Yes.
• 1:23:40
  Yes, you will. And definitely those that have
• 1:23:45
  never filed a grievance before and I always get complaints of.
• 1:23:48
  Well, I talked to my Steward but agreements never got filed.
• 1:23:51
  No, they can't file it for you. Where the one crashed that you
• 1:23:55
  have to initiate that grievance yourself.
• 1:23:59
  The Only Exception would be class action which affects two
• 1:24:02
  or more carriers within that office, even if it's the steward
• 1:24:08
  is one of those two correct. That's, that's the only time
• 1:24:12
  that the steward can actually file a Class Act is class
• 1:24:15
  action. Yeah, it's if got to affect more
• 1:24:19
  than one and if it affects more than one, it's definitely worth
• 1:24:24
  it to file, a class-action to get it fixed.
• 1:24:28
  Definitely. So on that note, we're going to
• 1:24:32
  wind it down for this evening. I think I'm going to talk to
• 1:24:36
  James and see if he wants to do something closer to midweek and
• 1:24:40
  mapping. Since we were both facilitators.
• 1:24:43
  I know that's been another Hot Topic lately.
• 1:24:45
  We've been getting a lot of questions on.
• 1:24:51
  Yeah, we can do that. We'll get together on that
• 1:24:53
  sometime this week. Don't know what day, but we'll
• 1:24:55
  get get to it and will let you let you know when we do that.
• 1:24:59
  But my final last final words and thoughts for this evening,
• 1:25:07
  I'll just say this, when I wanted to the day, I posted the
• 1:25:14
  notice for the steward election, I posted in the afternoon when I
• 1:25:19
  got off after I was done with the route that morning, I had
• 1:25:24
  had three carriers come up and ask me three different questions
• 1:25:27
  about the contract and I'm like, you know, really this is my life
• 1:25:31
  now. But but honestly, if You know,
• 1:25:37
  because I see this stuff on social media people.
• 1:25:41
  Well, I don't hear from, you know, we don't have a local
• 1:25:44
  Steward we have to, you know, we have an ATR and they don't
• 1:25:48
  respond to my phone calls it. I tried phone calling, I tried
• 1:25:51
  emailing it. I never hear from them.
• 1:25:53
  And that's kind of the reason, you know, do no disrespect to,
• 1:25:57
  to R8, to the atrs in our area. But it's like, you know, it's
• 1:26:01
  just doing it. Just one of the reasons I did it
• 1:26:03
  was because I wanted Someone who would be responsive to the local
• 1:26:08
  carrier and if I do that, then I think I'm doing my job.
• 1:26:14
  But honestly, if whether you have, whether you're a bigger
• 1:26:17
  office like me or a smaller office, like Kristin, if you if
• 1:26:21
  you don't have a local steward, Don't look around for somebody
• 1:26:26
  else. Look in the mirror, you can be
• 1:26:28
  the steward as Chris and said, I'm sure I'm going to find out.
• 1:26:32
  It's a thankless job and no one's no one's going to be.
• 1:26:37
  I don't I don't know that anyone's going to be happy with
• 1:26:40
  what I did. I all I told them is that I can,
• 1:26:42
  all I can do is my best and that's all of.
• 1:26:48
  That's all I can say. So, Have everyone have a good
• 1:26:52
  week. Yeah, I wish you the best of
• 1:26:55
  luck on your journey is the local Stewart.
• 1:26:57
  Mike. Welcome to the club.
• 1:26:58
  Thank you. Yeah we all do we all do man?
• 1:27:02
  Hey is that they said there was some sort of secret handshake
• 1:27:05
  and they haven't taught me that yet.
• 1:27:09
  Can we talk about that after? Well he threw at Mid State
• 1:27:17
  James, your final words and thoughts for this evening.
• 1:27:21
  Yeah, if anybody wants to step up and be a steward you can it
• 1:27:26
  doesn't take much to be a steward.
• 1:27:30
  All you have to do is know your contract, know your manuals and
• 1:27:35
  know your job. And that's 95% of what a steward
• 1:27:39
  does is knowing all that stuff. And if you know your stuff and
• 1:27:45
  you think you can help the craft and be a steward in your office
• 1:27:48
  and take care of your carriers and care for your carriers.
• 1:27:51
  Then it's the most satisfying position.
• 1:27:54
  You can have in the union. If you're a carrier and you know
• 1:28:01
  your Management's doing something wrong, it is your
• 1:28:05
  responsibility to step up and fix it.
• 1:28:10
  Your responsibility to say to management.
• 1:28:12
  Hey, can we talk about this? And do we do us all a favor?
• 1:28:17
  Try not to talk about it. On the workroom for front.
• 1:28:20
  Everybody be kind. Be kind to management if you
• 1:28:23
  can, if you're Management's kind and talk about it in a break
• 1:28:28
  room or in a conference room, somewhere off the work room
• 1:28:31
  floor, so that way and you guys can have people, peace and quiet
• 1:28:36
  to discuss it where you guys can focus on each other and talk
• 1:28:39
  about it. And don't get angry, don't get
• 1:28:42
  loud, don't get upset. If they're not willing to me.
• 1:28:45
  Meet you with it. Then you file a grievance that
• 1:28:49
  is your responsibility as a rural carrier.
• 1:28:53
  And for all the stuff that we go through, in all the things that
• 1:28:57
  we've done as carriers, our job is the same.
• 1:29:02
  It's been since you apply and got the position since you
• 1:29:06
  started as an RCA, and moved your way up to PDF or a regular
• 1:29:11
  carrier, the job is the same. The difference is Technology is
• 1:29:17
  the only thing that's changed but we all are in this together.
• 1:29:23
  We all need to stick together, dues-paying, and man,
• 1:29:26
  dues-paying. It doesn't matter.
• 1:29:30
  We're all brothers and sisters here in The Craft.
• 1:29:33
  And we all have a job to do and we're going to do it, right?
• 1:29:38
  And safe to get home to our families Bill, the stage is
• 1:29:43
  yours dear. Well, he's right.
• 1:29:49
  It is a very rewarding opportunity to become a Stewart
• 1:29:54
  and representing your office and carriers.
• 1:29:56
  It's I find it even more rewarding when I am able, to
• 1:30:03
  assist somebody who's not particularly fond of me and I
• 1:30:08
  them but it doesn't matter because they're still like you
• 1:30:12
  said, our brothers and sisters and Union and what I do for
• 1:30:15
  them, I do. Ew, for all.
• 1:30:17
  And what I mean is that, if I'm representing that individual,
• 1:30:21
  I'm representing the entirety of our Union across the country for
• 1:30:27
  every time you have an infraction, and you file a
• 1:30:30
  grievance and you follow up and you win it.
• 1:30:32
  You're winning it for the entire Union, not just for that
• 1:30:36
  individual, but they see it as that or your office.
• 1:30:40
  But for the entire Union because that goes like, said it goes
• 1:30:43
  into the database of 120 years, showing that Management is
• 1:30:48
  perpetuating a situation that needs to be corrected.
• 1:30:53
  Whether I like you or not, I'll represent you the same way.
• 1:30:55
  I'll fight for you the same way and I'll do my damnedest to get
• 1:30:59
  the settlement that we want. That's the basis of the Union.
• 1:31:05
  It doesn't discriminate likes dislikes.
• 1:31:08
  Male or female binary, non-binary black, white.
• 1:31:12
  Yellow, green purple, doesn't matter.
• 1:31:15
  We're all the same color were blue.
• 1:31:19
  We're postal blue. And if you don't stand up for
• 1:31:23
  one, then you failed your job. So if you see anything going on
• 1:31:30
  in your office that Just seems a little out of whack talk to the
• 1:31:35
  carrier, talk to management, talk to the steward.
• 1:31:39
  Get the situation address before, becomes aka
• 1:31:43
  cherry-picking the situation where they just take little
• 1:31:46
  nibbles out of yet, little nibbles out of you and the next
• 1:31:49
  thing you know you're doing clerk, work or you're doing
• 1:31:52
  something, you're not supposed to be doing off the clock, on
• 1:31:55
  the clock. The dressy situation before it
• 1:31:59
  becomes a molehill into a mountain.
• 1:32:04
  Put it down right away. I have a situation in my office
• 1:32:11
  that. Yeah right now is infuriated me
• 1:32:13
  beyond belief but tomorrow I'll go in.
• 1:32:15
  I'll talk to the postmaster in the calm fashion will dress it
• 1:32:21
  and if it doesn't get resolved then then I file a grievance,
• 1:32:24
  okay? And that'll be class action.
• 1:32:26
  Grievance, but it'll be classed actually, grievance for
• 1:32:29
  everybody. Not for the people, I like not
• 1:32:30
  for the people. I don't like but for everybody
• 1:32:34
  because it affects everybody. That's my position.
• 1:32:38
  Do you know the an I didn't learn that the first time I was
• 1:32:41
  a steward, I took it personally, it's not personal.
• 1:32:45
  You have a job to do just you know, just remove yourself from
• 1:32:51
  the from the the proposition and say this is my focus, this is my
• 1:32:56
  goal. How do I achieve it and just
• 1:33:00
  focus in and do that? Okay, I can't say enough about,
• 1:33:04
  you know, the people who are locals, they put in like myself,
• 1:33:07
  you put Hours, you're not getting paid for.
• 1:33:08
  You're doing a ton of working, I get paid for, you're doing
• 1:33:12
  podcast. You're not getting paid for your
• 1:33:15
  reading books, you're reading book, angles, and contracts, and
• 1:33:18
  everything else that we're not getting paid for.
• 1:33:21
  And this is time we take away from our families to help you.
• 1:33:26
  So please take advantage of our knowledge experience, the
• 1:33:30
  information, we provide and put it to use.
• 1:33:35
  Because an educated carrier is the most dangerous per person.
• 1:33:40
  In the office, as far as management is concerned because
• 1:33:43
  they can't bully them. Absolutely.
• 1:33:46
  So you don't if you don't have the time to invest in your job,
• 1:33:50
  I don't know what you have time for but if you really are
• 1:33:55
  pressed in situations where you don't have the time and there
• 1:33:58
  are situations understandably that you don't, then come to us
• 1:34:02
  we'll help you. And there's plenty of people out
• 1:34:06
  here that are willing to help you.
• 1:34:07
  All you have to do is ask With that everybody go out.
• 1:34:12
  Have a good week, be safe, do the job to the best of your
• 1:34:16
  ability. Do, more than six cans a day.
• 1:34:21
  Be safe. You're the most important
• 1:34:23
  delivery today. Get home to your loved ones
• 1:34:25
  because they're the people who really matter in your life
• 1:34:29
  besides me. Thank you Val, thank you to
• 1:34:35
  everybody tonight. Yep.
• 1:34:37
  Tomorrow's Monday, everybody be safe out there.
• 1:34:40
  And we met a couple of us, may be back midweek, if not, we'll
• 1:34:45
  definitely see you back next week.
• 1:34:47
  Have a good one.