Opinion ID: 204770
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The USPS-APWU Bipartite Grievance Resolution Procedure

Text: Separate and distinct from RI-399's tripartite procedure for resolving jurisdictional disputes is a broad bipartite grievance resolution procedure contained in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between USPS and APWU. That procedure is contained in Article 15 of the CBA (Article 15) and is designed to resolve any grievance between USPS and APWU, with grievance defined as a dispute, difference, disagreement or complaint between the parties related to wages, hours, and conditions of employment. (App. at 205.) On its face, Article 15 applies only to disputes between the partiesi.e., between USPS and APWUand, therefore, Article 15 is inapplicable to jurisdictional disputes involving both APWU and NPMHU (which is not a party to the CBA or Article 15). Instead, as noted above, all jurisdictional disputes must be resolved pursuant to RI-399. For those grievances governed by Article 15, a four-step resolution procedure is defined, commencing with a discussion of the grievance with a local supervisor and escalating as needed through more formal local, regional, and national procedures, culminating in binding bipartite arbitration. Article 15, of course, allows for the grievance to be settled at any point prior to arbitration.
The Trenton, New Jersey mail-processing facility (the Trenton Post Office) employs two groups of workers represented by the two union parties to RI-399: members of the mail processing clerk craft (clerks or mail processors) are represented by Trenton Metro, and members of the mail handlers craft (mail handlers) are represented by NPMHU. As mandated by RI-399, an inventory of undisputed work assignments is maintained at the Trenton Post Office (the Trenton Inventory), outlining which union has jurisdiction over various jobs at the facility. Included in the Trenton Inventory are work assignments for the Automated Flat Sorting Machine 100 (AFSM-100), of which there are three in the Trenton Post Office. The Trenton Inventory specifies that the AFSM-100 will normally be operated by five clerks. It allows, however, that heavy volume might periodically require a sixth person to be added to the machine and that that person would normally be a mail handler. If reduced volume then requires that a person be removed, the Trenton Inventory does not state whether the mail handler must first be removed or whether a clerk may be removed. As a result, clerks were sometimes removed from the ASFM-100 prior to mail handlers being removed, and, on March 22, 2003, Trenton Metro filed a grievance under Article 15 protesting that practice. Because the grievance was filed under Article 15, it invoked only a bipartite dispute resolution process involving USPS and APWU, but excluding NPMHU. When the grievance was not resolved at the first two steps of Article 15, it proceeded to regional arbitration at step three. On September 26, 2005, the regional arbitrator sent a letter to the representatives for USPS and APWU stating that his first impression of the case is that it is a R.I. 399 matter, and, consequently, there was a question as to whether or not the Mail Handlers should be invited to intervene. (App. at 300.) He asked the parties to clarify for him why the dispute was not well beyond the scope of bilateral Regional arbitration. ( Id. ) Ignoring the concerns expressed by the arbitrator, on October 28, 2005, USPS and APWU, without including NPMHU, entered into a full and final settlement of the grievance (the AFSM-100 Settlement). That short agreement stated: The Trenton Inventory . . . designates work performed on the AFSM (see inventory) clerk work up to 5 Mail Processors per machine. The inventory allows a MH to be a sixth person during heavy volume. If reduction in work occurs, personnel will be moved in reverse order. The result is the Mail Processors will not fall below the 5 required positions prior to the extra Mail Handler being taken off the operation. (App. at 92.) Thus, under that agreement, and pursuant to the Trenton Inventory, any mail handler added to the AFSM-100 during times of high volume would be removed first when there was a reduction in work.