President

Presidents Article for Jan. 2025

First and foremost, I would like to thank John Crader for the work he put into updating the website and making it much easier to navigate. As President, I will try to post every month.

One of the things that we need to get better at in SC is finding and training new advocates. Last year, the NBA’s office was having to send in union reps from Georgia to help offices that didn’t have stewards. I can say that it looks like we have been doing well in that area. We now have some young stewards that have been trained and are stepping up and going to other offices to represent carriers that need top notch representation.

While we are getting stronger as a state, we still have a lot of work to do. Our NBA (Eddie Davidson) has two upcoming weeklong training classes for both beginners and for experienced stewards that want to learn how to do Formal A’s. If anyone is interested in the training, please contact me. I know that my Branch will be sending stewards to both training classes.

By now, everyone should have received a ballot to vote on the tentative agreement. If you have not, you need to call the ballot committee at (202) 393-0614. The cutoff date for returning ballots has been extended to January 27th. No matter which way you plan to vote, just make sure you vote.

We also have the SC state convention coming up April 18-19 with stewards training on Thurs April 17th. We are hoping for a good turnout and look forward to seeing everyone there.

Wayne Harlow

864-363-3559

Wayne Harlow

April 4, 2025

Last week I was called to Washington DC, as with all the other state Presidents, and wanted to pass on the info to you.

The major concerns are the attack on the Federal unions. Two bills that made it out of committee last week were regarding unions no longer being able to collect dues straight out of members paychecks (they don’t expect it to make it to the floor) and a bill to force federal unions to pay for union time (unlike now when it is done on the clock). These two bills are serious threats to the NALC as a whole and especially to the Branches regarding the union time.

Then last Thursday night, Trump signed an executive order that eliminated 65% of Federal unions with just the stroke of a pen. While we do know that the unions have and will continue to challenge the rulings through the court systems, the attacks are a clear sign of the next 4 years to come. We cannot afford to sit back and wait to see what happens. We need to be proactive in contacting our Congressmen and making the public aware of what is at stake for them.

Regarding privatization, while there seems to be no appetite to privatize the USPS, there are still other ways to drastically alter our jobs and security. Such as selling off the parcels to UPS and only delivering mail and allowing Amazon to use our mailboxes. Both of those things could drastically reduce routes and certainly affect the junior carriers.

I want to urge every Branch to be proactive and get the word out to your members and get them signed up for the Letter Carrier Political fund. We already know that UPS and Amazon have a much bigger war chest than we do. We need to try to level the playing field now because if we wait a year or two, it could be too late. With the new pay raises going into effect shortly, giving $5 a PP won’t be missed. For those that already give, please consider upping it at the state convention. While I already give over $20,I will still be upping mine.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the convention in two weeks.

Wayne Harlowyour text here...

Notes from the 2025 National RAP Session:

These are the “tentative” proposals that the NALC will be looking to try to negotiate into our next collective bargaining agreement. These are tentative and are subject to change. Also, management would have to agree to these proposals, and we all know that management rarely wants to agree to anything. This is in the interest of transparency and in 20 years of going to National conventions and RAP sessions.

Article 1:

· Addressing management delivering city territory.

Article 7:

· Eliminate CCA’s classification

· Shorten CCA time to convert.

· Staffing

· Maximizing CCA’s as we can maximize PTF’s

· Maxing out ODL’s before bringing in CCA’s from outside installations

· City/Rural issues

· Being able to combine aux routes to create full time positions

· Being allowed to request an inspection on an aux route

· Creating a hiring timeline

· SDC issues

Article 8:

· The right for CCA’s and PTF’s to refuse OT at 11.5 hours

· The right to for non-ODL’s to refuse OT at 10 hours (Article 8.5.F)

· Equalizing the PTF’s and CCA’s

· Weekly work limitations for CCA’s and PTF’s

· Sunday premiums for CCA’s

· Mandating the use of CCA’s/PTF’s before mandating non-ODL’s to work off of their bid assignment

· Penalty OT for CCA’s/PTF’s on the 7th day of (Fri) of a work week.

· Same guarantee time for all CCA’s/PTF’s (currently 4 hours in Greenville and 2 hours for all other offices)

· An additional 10-minute break when carriers work OT

· No mandatory OT when a carrier reaches a certain age or years of service

· Eliminate the December exclusionary period for December

· Joint OT tracking (we do this in Greenville)

· No make up quarter for equitability

· Allow the option to sign both WA list and the NS day list

· Change the word “may” to “must” in Article 8

· No mandating on NS days

· Pay at penalty rate for any OT that is mandated

· Allow leave credit for working an NS day (you would get credit for a day of leave over OT)

· Reinstate the 10-hour preference

· Additional pay for working in extreme conditions (heat or extreme cold)

· Increase night differential pay

Article 10:

· Advance SL issues

· PTO for childbirths

· Blood donations on the clock

· Expansion of leave sharing

· Increase SLDC hours

· Allow SLDP per individual (mom/Dad/child)

· Additional leave for OT worked

· Expand bereavement leave

· Removing 204B’s from leave calendars

· CCA pay for Act of God/National day of observances

· Sick leave for CCA’s

Article 11:

· Remove section C (not getting paid if you are scheduled to work but call out

· Pay OT for working a holiday

· Add more holidays for CCA’s

Article 12:

· Regarding Probation time:

· No 2nd probation period (for those converting in under a year)

· Drop probation to 90 days total

· Lowering the excessing radius

· Regarding 204B’s

· Include them in the ORNA compliment

· Must have 5 years’ service to be able to 204B

· Limit them to 90 days

· Must return for a full PP to route to keep the union from taking it

· Transfers:

· Looking at the ratio

· Reducing the lock in period (currently 18 months inside the district and 12 months outside the district

· Local reassignments

· CCA local reassignments (when CCA’s are forced to move)

· E-Reassignment process

· Mutual exchanges:

· Allowing CCA’s to mutually swap

· Issues with the time and process

Article 13 (Safety and Health):

· Cold Weather/hot weather issues

· CCA’s requesting light duty (USPS currently does not have to honor those requests)

· Dog safety

· Conflict De-escalation

· JWIP (Joint Statement on violence in workplace)

· Case configuration:

· SDC cases to close to each other

· Packages blocking work area

Article 15 (Grievance Procedure):

· DRT MOU:

· Activation of back up teams

· Compliance

· Train/develop teams-two year commitments with teams

· DRT expectations

· Step B not responsible for building files (management adding to files)

· Arbitration scheduling

· Defining “Expedited” criteria

· Speeding up the arbitration process

· Back pay

· Transfer cases

· Compliance of repetitive issues

· Delaying the implementation of route inspections/start time grievances until the B Team resolves the grievances

Article 16 (Discipline):

· Admin pay for those on 16.7

· Admin pay until final disposition of removals

· Require union notification of discipline

· Include CCA’s in Article 16

· Lower max time for discipline from 2 years to 1 year

· Address appendix B:

· All career work force

· Carry over AL (for CCA’s)

· Allowing CCA’s that transfer to carry over seniority

Article 17 (Union Reps)

· Steward formula

· Labor management meetings

· Weingarten rights

· Information within 24 hours

· Outside stewards on the clock

Article 20:

· SDC parking

Article 25:

· Additional pay for instructors and facilitators

Article 16 (uniforms):

· USPS provide uniforms

· Using one vender

· Full uniforms for new hires

· Price control

· CPI increases for allotment

· Eliminate one year gap in rollover

· Allowing the switch up from seasons to the carriers

· Ties optional (currently must wear with long sleeves)

· Allow hoodies

· Maternity uniforms

· Visible attire (clothes under our uniforms)

Article 27:

· Lowering the threshold for filing an employee claim

Article 28:

· Debt collection procedure

· Statute of limitations

· Repayment process

Article 29 (Driving Privileges):

· Occupational driving permits (allowing to drive if license suspended)

· CCA’s losing driving privileges

Article 30:

· Making sure the union has adequate office space

Article 31 (union requesting information):

· Electronic information system

· Cybersecurity

· Providing copies of documents

Article 41 (carrier rights):

· Requesting special inspections on aux routes

· Cut 204B time from 120 days to 60 days

· Must have 5 years to be a supervisor

· Route adjustments:

· No implementation until grievance is settled

· Moving the inspection grievances to the front of the line

· Carrier choice of break locations

· Lunch time anywhere/anyplace

· Restrict changing starting times

· Requirement to clean vehicles monthly

· Joint training

Sunday was the President’s speech regarding collective bargaining. The following were some of the bullet points:

· Each subcommittee is meeting weekly

· Went back and look at past resolutions all the way to 1970

· 30 rank and file members whom are regular letter carriers met in DC for a week and gave input

· They will be sending out a survey to ALL the members seeking input on what needs to be prioritized

· There will be a second group of rank and file members meeting in DC in January

· Final draft proposals will be done at the end of January

· Call to action rallies in Feb.

· In 2025, USPS lost $9 Billion ($9.5 Billion in 2024)

· $2,5 pay out for works comp alone

· Number of new deliveries are $200 million per year

· Total volume down 4% last year and 49% since 2006.

· In 2006, we average 5 pieces of mail per stop, now down to 2.5 pieces

· First class mail down 7 billion since 1070 (strike year)

· Parcels have dropped 6& in last year (down 400 million parcels)

· Amazon will deliver more parcels than the USPS this year

· Opening bargaining starts on Feb. 25th