THE BULLETIN BOARD
May 2005
[May 10th]Union Wins Another 'Sunday-Premium' Case
APWU News Bulletin #06-05
In a significant win for the union, an arbitrator has ruled that the Postal Service must grant Sunday premium pay to employees who work on Sunday, even if the work is the result of an employee's request for a temporary change of schedule for the employee's personal convenience.
"We have fought long and hard to protect Sunday premium pay for our members who perform work on Sundays," said APWU Industrial Relations Director Greg Bell. "This important victory clearly vindicates our consistent position on such pay issues and rejects another attempt by the Postal Service to deprive postal employees of Sunday premium pay."
Previously, in a March 2004 pre-arbitration settlement, the union succeeded in overturning a Postal Service attempt to eliminate the payment of Sunday premium to employees in a continuation of pay (COP) status, or on court or military leave.
The union has consistently contended that Article 8.6 entitles an employee to Sunday premium if two circumstances exist: (1) management schedules the employee to work; (2) the employee actually works on a Sunday.
In his ruling, Arbitrator Shyam Das relied on ELM Section 434.32 and Section 242.21 of the F-21 Handbook, writing that the absence of any specific language exempting employees who request a temporary schedule from Sunday premium pay— prior to the disputed issuance of ELM 11 in 1988— was "striking."
Read the entire article on the APWU website.
[May 9th]USPS No Longer Accepting Two Medical Waste Containers
Effective immediately, Mailing Standards has revoked authorization for Stericycle’s sharps medical waste container USPS-050-1 (2-2g-2v) and SCS Corporations sharps medical waste container USPS-052-A (2-2G-2V).
This notice only applies to the model numbers listed above. Both Stericycle and SCS manufacture and distribute other authorized sharps medical waste containers.
Employees must not accept containers bearing the model numbers listed above. If containers are identified already in the mailstream, set them aside and contact the addressee to pick them up. If a customer asks why we’re refusing to accept the container, tell them it is no longer considered mailable and they should contact the appropriate company.
Employees can locate the model number on the box. For ease of identification, these containers are always mailed Merchandise Return Service.
Authorization for these particular containers was revoked because testing revealed they did not satisfy all required packaging standards.
[May 1st]White House Not Budging on USPS Paying Military Pensions
By Dan Davidson, FederalTimes.com, (excerpted)
The Bush administration said it remains opposed to a provision in each of two U.S. Postal Service reform bills that would relieve the organization of billions of dollars in military pension obligations.
If the Postal Service is excused from paying for military pensions for postal employees with military service, as both reform bills provide, then taxpayers, not postal rate payers, will be funding employer obligations, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, Dan Blair, said April 21. Such relief would violate one of the administration’s guiding principles of postal reform, namely self-sufficiency, Blair said.
A 2003 law correcting a multibillion-dollar overpayment by the Postal Service into CSRS also shifted responsibility for military pensions for postal workers from the Treasury to the Postal Service. Of the $27 billion in obligations that creates for the agency, about $17 billion would be retroactive, Ralph Moden, Postal Service vice president for government relations said. Those liabilities are properly the government's, not the Postal Service's, he added.
"The military service is the obligation of the federal government and therefore an obligation of the taxpayer and not the ratepayer."
Read the entire article on the Federal Times website.
[May 1st]**REMINDER** Elimination of the TSP Open Seasons: July 1, 2005
Public Law 108-469, which was signed into law on December 21, 2004, eliminates the Thrift Savings Plan open seasons and the restrictions on contribution elections which are tied to open seasons. The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board will implement this law on July 1, 2005.
After the close of the current TSP open season (December 31, 2004), there will be one more open season, April 15 through June 30, 2005. This means that participants may file contribution elections with their agencies or uniformed services at any time beginning April 15. Through June 30, these elections will be processed under the current rules. Beginning July 1, contribution elections will be processed under the new rules— that is, the elections must be made effective no later than the first full pay period after they are filed.
Participants must continue to file contribution elections with their agencies or services, and the agencies and services must continue to implement the elections by deducting contributions from participants' pay and reporting these amounts to the Thrift Savings Plan each pay period.
The law does not affect the waiting period new employees covered by the Federal Employees' Retirement System must serve before they become eligible for agency contributions to their accounts. In addition, the law does not affect contribution allocations or interfund transfers, which can be made at any time by using this Web site or the ThriftLine or by submitting an Investment Allocation form to the TSP.
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