(October 2019)
A recent effort by the USPS to change mail delivery protocols has met with resistance and legal action by the National Association of Letter Carriers.
The Annandale, VA post office was chosen as the test site for the launch of the Consolidated Casing Initiative (the initiative) in May of 2019 with plans to expand the initiative into seven more post offices in Phase II, and an additional 58 in Phase III.
Traditionally a letter carrier’s morning begins with office work during which casing, or sorting of the mail, is done, followed by street work wherein the mail is delivered. The initiative would change the job descriptions so that letter carriers are either a casing carrier who performs the bulk of the sorting tasks, or a street carrier who performs the bulk of the delivery.
Because a letter carrier’s day is eight hours long, the casing carriers and street carriers would have staggered starting times with street carriers starting work one to two hours later than office carriers. This arrangement causes the street carriers to deliver mail later in the day – putting carriers out in the heat of the day in summer, and after dark in the winter. Additionally, street carriers are subjected to additional hours of both physically demanding work and inclement weather than they were prior to introduction of the initiative.
Other objections by the NALC include that the changes at the Annandale post office were made unilaterally, that the initiative hurts work-life balance for street carriers, and that the union contract prohibits changes to job descriptions.
The NALC is asking for arbitration of this dispute and has asked for an “injunction requiring USPS to halt implementation of the initiative pending resolution of the arbitration.” The NALC states in its request for injunction that “the arbitrator will be unable to remedy the harms that the letter carriers will suffer pending arbitration.”
The USPS cited cost reduction, improved efficiency and increased usable workspace as reasons for the changes in carrier’s routines and job descriptions.
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