03/25/2023
For those of you that don’t know, The OIG completed an audit on custodial work hours and line h. Here are some of the thing they found:
1. Between 2015 and 2018, there were 791 grievances filed and 7,949 grievance payments totaling $19.9 million in compensation. Another 409 open grievances dating back to 2015 were pending resolutions.
2. 46% of the recorded custodial work hours were incorrectly charged from non custodial employees.
3. The projected payout for each fiscal year has jumped to $16.1 million. This figure is based on improper hours being recorded, vacancies not being filled, and custodians doing non-custodial work.
Because of these problems the OIG suggested to the USPS that managers and supervisors be held accountable Line H payouts. This has created a war on custodians, and basically a lot of harassment towards custodians.
Custodians are being told they have to go to other stations to help fill abscesses and or vacancies. Custodians are being given altered route sheets that violates the MS-47 MOU. We are not CCA’s and should not be treated as such.
Managers and supervisors are being told to follow custodians and make sure they are following the (altered) route sheets.
Custodians are still told to do non custodial work, but not to move on the clock. Some facilities will even go into TACS and charge clock rings when custodians do move.
Custodians are being denied the right to stand up unless they sign an agreement that their missed custodial hours will not lead to a Line H grievance. These are just some of the things reported to me.
With all of this going on I have to ask the question, “What is our Union doing about this?” Unfortunately the answer is nothing. They continue to allow management to change the custodial staffing package every year which has eliminated over half of the custodial positions since 2015.
There should be nearly 100 Line H grievances filed every year from APWU Local 32, but less than half of them were filed last year. We have four plants that should be getting close to a million dollars a year on staffing issues alone but they get negotiated down to pennies on the dollar or nothing at all.
The next question I ask is simply “Why?” The answer is because we keep voting in the same people that continue to allow this to happen. We fall under that definition of insanity. We keep doing the same old thing and expect different results.
The postal service is paying over 16 million dollars a year for Line H. Atlanta has the 5th largest local in the country, and we are not getting hardly any of that money.
It is time for change in Atlanta. We have two positions to vote on in the upcoming election and this is how we begin to move in a new direction.
Peachtree and Crown Road will have a new Assitant Maintenance Craft Director, Anita Fuller, and The Assitant Craft Director, Gary Walker, at the NDC is basically new to the position. I congratulate both of them and look forward to working with them. We still need to vote for a maintenance Craft Director, and an Assitant Maintenance Craft Director for North Metro.
I endorse Troy Madden for MCD, and Bess Johnson for AMCD, for North Metro. I have constant communication with both of them and if elected their will be an immediate grievance filed on behave of all stations and plants for Non-Compliance against management for failure to follow the MOU MS-47 and to cease and desist with the continued harassment of the custodians. There is also a plan to challenge the MS-1 staffing packages for all of our plants.
If you join me and give both of them your vote we will be on our way to making the Maintenance Craft respected again.
