The Postal Service has provided the APWU with an updated list of 1,500 post offices [PDF] where custodial work that had been subcontracted will be returned to the Maintenance Craft, Director Steve Raymer has announced. The return of subcontracted work complies with the 2010-2015 Collective Bargaining Agreement, Item 1.A, of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Maintenance Jobs.

An earlier list, provided to the union in March, was replete with errors, and included stations, branches and other facilities of larger independent installations. The custodial duties at these facilities will be returned to the Maintenance Craft as well, based on Item 1.B of the Memo, Raymer said.

The March list also included sites where custodial work hadn’t been contracted-out, although the MOU stipulates that a minimum of 1,500 post offices where custodial work was fully subcontracted would be assigned to the Maintenance Craft.

Establish Positions Now

Maintenance Craft officers are urging the Postal Service to immediately assign the work to the craft and to establish custodial duty assignments at the post offices on the list, Raymer said. “This differs from the position we took in March, when we insisted that the USPS had to correct the list. The stalling has to stop,” he added.

Maintenance Craft officers are encouraging locals to identify small offices that may not be on the list and to contact management about combining duties at the small offices with offices on the list to establish full-time duty assignments. “The jobs must be full-time if they are going to provide ‘landing spots’ for any excessed Maintenance or Clerk Craft employees,” Raymer said.

Cross-installation duty assignments can be created under the terms of the MOU. It is possible that the drive-time between installations could be considered a commute and therefore non-compensable, he said. “This is because in offices of this size, the Postal Service may establish 8-hour work days that are completed within 10 hours.”

Under current regulations, an employee can be given a break in service of an hour. In addition, a meal break of a minimum of 30 minutes must be included. “This accounts for 1.5 hours of the possible two hours between shifts, leaving 30 minutes for the employee to ‘commute’ to the next post office,” Raymer said. “This does not apply to stations, just to the cross-installation small office combinations,” he noted.

Please contact your National Business Agent if further guidance is needed.