Not surprisingly, the information provided in the Service’s impact notice received on March 2 turned out to be inaccurate.  What was originally listed as a date of March 2019 for the excessing event has now become June of 2018. There are many other details in the impact report that are incorrect that we have brought to the Service’s attention.  

The recent change to a June 2018 date has caused an acceleration of the timeline for getting issues like seniority, jobs, and many other concerns completed prior to the move into the new building. We have been meeting with the Service concerning all of these issues – and more.  The merged Clerk seniority list was provided a few days ago and will be posted here as soon as it is reviewed. A merged Maintenance seniority list should be completed and posted soon.

The withholding of residual duty assignments is now occurring only within the installation. The Service claims there are enough jobs within the installation to prevent excessing to another installation outside of Portland.  The Associate Offices should not have any duty assignments withheld, and any residual AO duty assignments should be placed into the process for filling residual vacancies.

We have already seen a reduction in the number of clerks to be excessed outside of the Clerk Craft.  Attrition through retirements and transfers are helping to reduce the impact. We still have a long way to go, as the number of potential excessed Clerks is still near 200. Those Clerks that are excessed shall remain in the installation, but in other crafts. Duty assignments may be offered in the Maintenance, carrier and mail handler crafts.  Excessing is done by inverse seniority. After the excessing event is completed, and as Clerk duty assignments become available, retreat rights to the Clerk Craft from these other crafts shall be done by seniority.

Local Portland management has determined that the new parcel sorting machine is mail handler work, and intends to post jobs in May or June for this machine that will not be running until October. We have raised the issue that this work/machine has not been awarded to the mailhandler craft, and that posting the jobs would be a violation of an agreement between the two Unions and the USPS.  The APWU at the Regional and National level are involved. We believe that the Service is now “re-grouping” to assess their plan.

The Portland Local will be available to meet with any Members, and we plan to schedule caucuses to share information and answer any questions. Watch the Poker, Facebook page, Local website and bulletin boards for dates of meetings.  

Our next membership meeting is May 20, 2018 at 6:30 pm.  More shall be revealed, watch this space.