Starting April 25 through May 26 2023, the USPS is pushing its annual Postal Pulse Survey. The APWU leadership urges you to not let the Postal Service take your Pulse! APWU is set to begin contract negotiations with the Postal Service in 2024. In the past, management has used surveys as a weapon against us in negotiations, while not producing any real positive change for employees at the Postal Service.

The survey will arrive in mailboxes and via email, sent by Gallup. Nowhere in this survey is there a disclaimer that it is voluntary. Regardless of pressure from supervisors or managers, letter correspondence, excessive emails, or other tactics, employees are not required to participate in this survey. APWU urges you to not participate in the Postal Pulse.

We have a negotiated grievance process, a negotiated labor-management cooperation process and national negotiations to address workplace issues. As we address the toxic work environment at the USPS, it is more important than ever that we deny management an opportunity to present an inaccurate picture of the state of our workplaces.

On April 28, we kicked off our public campaign to bring awareness to the unsafe and toxic workplaces that our members face, and demand postal management to be held accountable. The membership has mobilized nationwide to demand dignity and respect, and continues to take solidarity actions such as recording a video, wearing a sticker, or taking APWU’s clearly marked workplace environment survey – look out for the union logo. For more information, visit apwu.org/respect.

Stay united, and don’t be fooled by management’s tricks created to divide us. Over years of struggle, we’ve won a negotiated grievance process, a labor-management cooperation process and national negotiations to address workplace issues. These are the proper channels for management to seek input from postal workers, not a management survey put together without any input from the APWU or the other postal unions.

On March 29, 2023, the APWU and USPS agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that will immediately begin to allow PTFs or PSEs assigned to Level 4 Remotely Managed Post Offices (RMPOs) to decline a career or full-time conversion opportunity if they choose to do so. The decision not to convert to career or full-time is strictly limited to those PTFs and PSEs in Level 4 RMPOs. There are approximately 306 PTFs domiciled in Level 4 RMPOs as a result of receiving an exemption to remain in their offices by the POStPlan MOU and Addendum agreed to in 2014. 

In those circumstances in which the opportunity to convert is declined, any PTFs or PSEs in the same installation/bid cluster will have the opportunity, by PTF installation seniority or PSE relative standing on the rolls, to elect to be converted to full-time/career. Following that step, the pecking order to fill the career or full-time vacancy is identified in the 3-29-23 MOU.  

PTFs and PSEs within 50 miles of the office where the vacancy exists will be given the opportunity to accept the residual vacancy or PTF vacancy. These opportunities will be offered in the canvas posting in regular eReassign for preference of PTFs and PSEs within a 50-mile radius of the residual vacancy/PTF vacancy. The order of selection will be by PTF installation seniority and PSE relative standing on the rolls. If the position remains unfilled after this step, it will be filled by the external career hiring process. Based on the most recent report from the USPS on the Small Office Complement (3-24-23) – 5,175 PSEs are staffing the Level 4 RMPOs. PTFs are currently numbered at 306, although the Postal Service is required to maintain a number of at least 318 PTFs in the Level 4 RMPOs. 

A resolution was introduced at the 2018 National APWU Convention that proposed to allow PSEs the opportunity to decline conversion to career, but that resolution was defeated by the delegates. A similar resolution was reintroduced at the 2022 National APWU Convention that originally asked for all PTFs and PSEs to have the right to decline a conversion opportunity. It appeared the resolution was headed for defeat; however, the resolution was amended to include only PTFs and PSEs in Level 4 RMPOs. Level 4 RMPOs are in small rural communities and are several miles from their Administrative Post Offices (APOs), even though they are considered a part of the same installation/bid cluster. POStPlan eventually allowed RMPOs to be as much as 50 miles from their APOs. There was heated debate relating to the resolution before it was passed, as amended, by the delegates. As a result, leaders at the national level were obliged to negotiate with the Postal Service over this issue, which led to the signing of the MOU.  

The Clerk Craft officers at the headquarters level struggled with the concept of this resolution because we continue to support the creation of an all-career workforce. In order to protect our position of an all-career workforce, the parties added language in the MOU that requires the filling of the career position even if the end result is an external career hire. 

Paula D. "Lala" Barker-Harless

( February 23, 2023 )