Five Year Struggle Ends

This all to familiar story starts in January, 1995. A senior clerk retired in a small rural office and management decided to revert the duty assignment. Management was eight days late in sending out the notice of reversion. Article 37.3.A.2 provides a specific time frame for notifying the Union of a reversion.

 A grievance was filed and the Union sought to get the job posted. Their position was that once that period expired management had no contractual basis to revert the job and it now must be posted and filled. Management argued this is only a technical violation, an oversight, a simple mistake. We just don't have the work for a full time job. We were going to revert the job when the senior clerk retired and simply forgot to send the letter to the Union for a week or so. If you make us convert that flexi we will excess someone from the office. The Union pressed the case, however, and argued the contract is clear. If you don't notify us of the reversion on a timely basis the job must be posted and filled. There is no Article 12 in place and we have only 1 regular and if he does not take the bid you must convert the senior PTF. So that is the dilemma the local Union in Vermont faced. Unable to resolve the dispute the case eventually went to arbitration. 

When the hearing opened in February of 2000 exactly five years had passed. Management now started to realize this was an important case. Over that five year period the senior PTF had not made regular and for a good deal of the time the senior PTF was averaging 25 - 30 hours a week. I was assigned the case. When we showed up at the hearing the Postal Service admitted they violated the contract five years earlier but they argued again it was only a technical, minor violation. Realizing the Union was seeking substantial damages for the five year period the Postal Service argued the error was unintentional and harmless. The Postal Service advocate claimed the office was small and although the reversion was late it was justified. We countered by claiming no contract violation is harmless. If the arbitrator did not impose a penalty he would, in fact, be allowing the Postal Service the right to violate the contract with impunity. Management knew they violated the contract at Step 1 in 1995 and they refused to correct it. They also knew it at Step 2, Step 3, and here at the hearing five years later. Because of that violation this PTF was denied regular status for five years. Every week she did not get 40 hours of work she was paying for management's contract violation. The remedy we sought is to retroactively convert her to regular back to 1995 and to go back over each week for the last five years and pay her for all hours due her each week she did not get 40 hours. Management argued that the request was absurd and would result in an unnecessary windfall to the clerk. 

On July 31, 2000 the award came in. The arbitrator agreed fully with the Union. He ordered the Postal Service to post the job and it DID IN FACT go unbid. As a result the senior PTF is now being converted to regular retroactively to January, 1995. He further ordered the Postal Service to go back over the five year period and compensate the senior PTF for any week she did not get 40 hours and compensate her for those hours (Arbitrator Sirefman, B98C-4B-C 95045421). This was a very small office and the clerk in question was represented by the Vermont State organization. 

Congratulations to them for their persistence!