YouTube posting about Postal Excessing

I came across this link and would like everyone to go and look at it. Then pass it onto their friends. I enjoyed it and I think you will also.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVxBYY8GyWo

Your Rights: Weingarten, Garrity, Kalkines

What Are Weingarten Rights?

All Bargaining Unit Employees of the United States Postal Service have the right to be accompanied by a Union Representative to all interviews with management officials, in which the employee reasonably believes the interview might result in disciplinary action. (e.g. Investigative, Safety, Accident, Mystery Shopper)

The above right is guaranteed by the National Labor Relations Act, reinforced by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1975 in NLRB v. J. Weingarten, and violation of that right has been found to be an Unfair Labor Practice.

Simply stated, your Weingarten Rights provide that you may request and management must provide a Union Representative to accompany you to all interviews that you believe might result in disciplinary action.

However, that right is not automatic. You must exercise your right by notifying management of your desire to have a Union Representative present during an interview. If the management official advises you that no disciplinary action will be initiated against you as a result of the interview, it is not necessary to provide a Union Representative.

Any questions concerning your Weingarten Rights or your rights during a management initiated interview process should be directed to your Chief Grievance Officer or by calling the Local's office for further details.

Your Rights During an OIG Investigation: Garrity and Kalkines

The Postal Service has been transitioning from Postal Inspector investigations to Special Agents in Charge of the Office of Inspector General investigations for over a year now. While Weingarten and Miranda Rights will still be afforded, Special Agents use Kalkine or Garrity warnings in interrogations that everyone should become familiar with.

Garrity Rights:

Protects the employee from having to choose between self incrimination and job forfeiture for failing to cooperate. The individual has the right to not be threatened with discharge in order for the OIG to secure incriminating evidence that would be used against them for arrest and prosecution. Miranda Rights would be applicable here.

Kalkines Rights:

If the individual is given immunity from criminal prosecution, the employee is required to cooperate in the investigation even if the information solicited could be used for discharging the employee.

Special Agents do not have the authority to grant immunity from criminal prosecution. However, if Special Agents provide the form "Administrative Warning: Duty to Cooperate" that means that the OIG has obtained such a waiver of prosecution.

** Your Key Right Is You Always Have The Right for a Union Representative To Be Present During An Interrogation. Even if the OIG / Postal Inspection Service says, "If you Cooperate, You Won't Go to Jail". This is to Scare You, Into Waiving Your Rights. The Union Does Have, The Capability of Helping Employees, While Being Interogated, Before You Get Yourself Into More Serious Trouble.

Off Topic and Off color....

Friend of mine sent this to me... I have also seen it on the Web so I thought I would share it with you. Give me some feedback on this.

"Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater.
If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby.
If you give her a house, she'll give you a home.
If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal.
If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart.
She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.
So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit."

San Diego Local 197 Picnic

Good morning, I went to the Local's picnic yesterday and had a very nice time. I saw some individuals that I have not seen in many years. I will say that the food was good and the weather was excellent. I only wish that more Union members and their families could have been there. Enjoyed just being there with my family and friends.

General Excessing Information

I came across some pretty good information that was posted on another locals website that was provided by Mike Gallagher, APWU Eastern Region Coordinator.

This concerns excessing of craft employees. The powerpoint presentation is quite good. I would recommend to all who are or might be getting excessed to watch it. The link to the page is listed below:

http://redbanklocal.com/excessing.html

Many thanks to the Red Bank Local in New Jersey for this information.

MLS Maintenance Tour Re-alignment

This week began the new Maintenance work hours for the majority of maintenance craft employees at MLS P&DC which I list below using standard 24 hour time not postal times:

Tour 1 2200 till 0630
Tour 2 0600 till 1430
Tour 3 1400 till 2230

These times are for the majority of maintenance craft employees that work at MLS P&DC.

So now let us look at the exceptions that are not working these standard hours that the Management in Maintenance have kept:

There are employees that are working a 4/10 work week. This is a work week that has the employee working 10 hours each day for 4 days a week. This gives that employee 3 days off each week. I will list below the hours I believe to be correct for the tours I am aware of:

Tour 1 2200 till 0830
Tour 2 (hours worked are unknown to me can anyone give them to me?)
Tour 3 Noon till 2230 and 1300 till 2330

So looking at the above 4/10 workers I would have to ask why does Tour 3 have two different start times for their workers?

Now then we have some other maintenance craft employees that their hours were not changed. These employees are the MOS clerks in maintenance that are used in Tool and Parts. Why were not these employee's hours not realigned to match their maintenance workers that they support? Management thought that maintenance employees on the floor only needed a 30 minute overlap for any interaction between the tours. So why is it that Management did not do the same with the MOS clerks? Instead, of 30 minute overlap in some instances you are looking at 1 1/2 hours of overlap.Why is this? I could only guess at one of the reasons like not wanting to change any of the level 7 MOS clerks to correspond to the Tour 2 that they are currently on. It might just be inconvenient for some of them. Well this whole realignment for MLS maintenance tour hours has not been convenient for many individuals. So why should they be singled out for not being affected? Any ideas on this?




Now then let us look at what is called

Numbers Speak up

USPS EMPLOYEE STATISTICS FROM 2000 - 2008

2000 2008 -/+ Percentage

USPS Headquarters 2279 2892 +21%

USPS Field Support 5566 4429 -20%

Inspection Service (Field) 4190 2890 -31%

Inspector General 664 1159 +42%

USPS HEADQUARTERS TOTALS 12699 11370 -10.50%

Postmasters (Installation Heads) 26121 25250 -3%

Supervisors / Managers 38797 31787 -18%

USPS SUPERVISORY TOTALS 64918 57037 -12.14%

Tech Personal 9959 8010 -20%

Clerks 281956 194773 -31%

Nurses 191 134 -30%

Mail Handlers 60851 55812 -8%

City Carriers 241079 211661 -12%

Motor Vehicle 9347 8558 -5%

Rural Carriers 57111 68900 +17%

Maintenance 42284 40248 -5%

Vehicle Maintenance 5546 5419 -2%

USPS CAREER CRAFT 708324 593515 -16.21%
EMPLOYEES TOTALS

I am letting the numbers speak for themselves. If the Career Craft employees numbers are down a total of -16.21% then why is not the Headquarters and Supervisory numbers not down at a similar percentage? Is not their numbers based on the number of craft employees?

Information for anyone

I would like to be able to give individuals ways of looking up new and interesting items that can be found on the web. So I will provide some links and information for all individuals to use as they see fit.

One of the first ones that I like to use is http://php.app.com/usps/search.php look up basic salary information concerning any USPS employee from Postmaster General Potter down to the lowest custodian.

Another sight I like to use is Zabasearch to help you locate individuals and addresses. If that one does not give you enough information you can also use Zillow to look up about individual homes. On Zillow you can find out when the house was built, square footage of the home, and even the parcel number of the home for the county it is in.

For all of you San Diego people there is another website that is fun for you to look up information on yourself, friends and neighbors. That website is run by the San Diego County Treasurer-Tax Collector. All you need is either an address and zipcode or the parcel number to look up information about who owns what property, pays the taxes, and how much the county thinks the property is worth.

I do hope that these tools I have shown you can provide you with many hours of entertainment or information that you may need.

Pictures I have found to be funny

I have found over time a few pictures I would like to share with you that I have found to be funny. I freely admit to taking a little bit of artistic license to them before sharing them with you. I look forward to hearing comments concerning these pictures. They are here for humor and to bring smiles to people.

I tried seeing your point of view.

But, I couldn't get my head that far up my ass.

I believe this one picture speaks for it's self.

So do either of these two pictures remind any of you of people you have worked for or currently working with now?

Responses being brought forward so all may read.

I would like to bring these two post forward to the current posting that I have so that I can try to answer them or any of the other readers of this blog. I think I actually touched a nerve finally with a few individuals.
So I would like to share this with all of you.

On Thursday, July 9, 2009 I did this posting concerning "Personalization of your work area in the Postal Service" and on 14 August I got these two responses to this posting that I am showing below.


Anonymous on August 14, 2009 8:14 PM said...

Seriously, do you have nothing better to do? If you are so fed up with management, why are you not active in becoming one? I know why. Because it takes "Huevos", discipline,character,integrity,unbiased to the bigger picture of earning a pay check without feeling entitled to stickers,because you work for the goverment.

Welcome to the real world, in which managers call the shots. I do not work for the Govt,but I can assure you that nobody denies your patriotism. Though, your believe that pics, stickers ,posters, etc.,make you a better employee, you are sadly mistaken.

Yes. Managers are entitled to decor their space, since it is obvious they have earned their stripes baby sitting all of you entitled govt. workers.




cal vet on August 14, 2009 8:29 PM said ...

It sounds like these Managers, (Lee Miller, Dave Decker, Ray Meanor,Gary Hill)are the leaders because they have proven them selfs in numerous times defending our rights, and freedom.
So how dare you, question their integrity.

Information concerning RMSS

I just came across this information on www.21cpw.com ran by Randy Zelznick and Frank Wilson in the Maintenance Business area. I felt would be of interest to many of you so I am going to post links back to www.21cpw.com for you to read for yourself.

http://www.21cpw.com/maint.html 21CPW.com Maintenance Business

http://www.21cpw.com/RMSS%20scoring.pdf RMSS Scoring Resolved

http://www.21cpw.com/RMSS%20Q&A.pdf RMSS Questions and Answers

I also thank Frank and Randy for keeping up a very informative website that many individuals read.

"Band of Brothers"

Nationwide Memorial Service

One of the "Band of Brothers" soldiers died on June 17, 2009.

We're hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.

I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he'd been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said "Yes. And it's real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can't make the trip." My heart was in my throat and I didn't know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I'd take his in coach.

He said "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.

No big event in Staples Center.

No wall to wall back to back 24x7 news coverage.

No weeping fans on television.

And that's not right.

Let's give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

"A nation without heroes is nothing."
Roberto Clemente

Authored by Mark Pfeifer

Note: This e-mail has been making the rounds of the Internet and has been tagged as having been authored by several different persons. The actual author is Mark Pfeifer.

Continuing Congratulations (or not)

I would like to extend my congratulations to our fine Maintenance Management team that is currently headed by Lee Miller (directed behind the scenes by Charles Sweet)for their unswerving bullheadedness and blind loyalty to the inane ideas that show lack of forethought and inspiration.

Like right now all indications are that they are planning to move the 5 junior ET's from Tour 2 MLS P&DC to Tour 1 MLS P&DC. Why should management be doing this? What reason do they have for it? The current maintenance window for the AFCS's is for Tour 2 to do the work. So with 5 fewer ET's available on Tour 2 to do maintenance work on the AFSM, TACS, Merlin, AFCS, DIOSS, DBCS's, and CIOSS how will this affect the other ET's on Tour 2? What will the ET's that are going to be moved to Tour 1 be working on? Will it be the AFSM or doing area assurance on the automation letter sorting machines at MLS? Who knows what management has in store for them?

So my condolence's go out to the five ET's who management is looking at moving to Tour 1 that I have listed below:

1. Espiritu
2. James
3. Abalos
4. Abraham
5. Hoang

If I have made any errors on this posting please either contact me at MLS or leave a correction on the blog.

Congratulations......

I would like to start this off with "Congratulations" to a few maintenance employees. First to Nilo, who is going from Tour 3 MLS to Tour 2 MLS. I wish him the best of luck working on the 100's on Tour 2. Myself and others will miss him when it comes time to play cards on breaks. Next, like to "Welcome" Bruce from Tour 1 to Tour 3 at MLS and to Bernie who is going to take over his Bruce's old job on Tour 1. I look forward to working with him on Tour 3.

Now I would like to add some questions that I hope someone can answer. Who or when will Maintenance Management promote to fill in the position that Bernie vacated on Tour 1? If no one is on the Promotion Register that is willing to accept this position what is going to happen to this position?

Anyone have any answers to these two questions?

Personalization of your work area in the Postal Service

What does everyone think of about individuals personalizing their personal workspace on postal property? Like some of the examples that I will provide:

1. Lee Miller's office with his golf memorabilia and his other personal items.
2. Charger and Zena cutouts on the MLS plant floor by the printshop.
3. Supervisor's desk on the workroom floor with family pictures and flowers.
4. Mules on workroom floor with stickers and flag's on them.

So what is wrong with maintenance personal having family pictures, American Flags, or other items on their toolboxes? Are we not all Postal employees? Why is there such a disparate treatment between the employees? I do not care if the Postal employees are managers, supervisors, or craft employees. "All Postal employees" should be treated when it comes to personalizing their personal workspace. All of us work inside or on Postal property so the same rules should apply to all employees on personalization of their workspace. Not for Management to capriciously and randomly enforce their views on employees.

New Owner of Blog

I just recently took this over. Little about me, I work at MLS on T-3 as a MPE. I look forward to trying my hand at this. I do not know how long I will have it. But, that I will do my best to keep it going and interesting. I hope that others out there will also add content to this and make it even better.

Let the fun begin....

Marion Williams

Time for a change

Here in the near future I will no longer be working on this blog. I am going to pass this onto some other individual who would like to take this over. I am looking at within the next two weeks. Any takers?

Mail Handlers???

Recently it came to my attention that some more mail handlers from Tour 3 are looking at having their jobs excessed over in the ATU and robot cutting area. So, how will the clerks be receiving their mail over on the DBCS's? Will it be now by the pallet? Or will more clerks be excessed from Tour 3 and have to move to Tour 1 or become PTR clerks? Has anyone heard about what is going on?

I would love to hear about what is going on out at the different stations around the city and county of San Diego. Don't be shy about letting everyone know how things are going both good and bad.

New EL-304 Maintenance Selection System dated June 2009

I know that many of you are interested in the new version of the EL-304 Maintenance Selection System. So I took the time to find it and upload it for anyone to download. It can be found at the URL listed below:


http://www.adrive.com/public/d9c858854bc0f24d4de1bba4e3dbc3c8be20288695b88c1bd8fa482a71a89fa2.html

Six Boys And Thirteen Hands... (A Story to think about)

Each year I am hired to go to Washington , DC , with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI where I grew up, to videotape their trip .. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable. On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima , Japan , during WW II. Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial.. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, 'Where are you guys from?' I told him that we were from Wisconsin. 'Hey, I'm a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story.' (James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who had passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington , DC , but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.) When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

'My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin . My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called 'Flags of Our Fathers' which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me. 'Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player ... He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called 'War.' But it didn't turn out to be a game. Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are people who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old - and it was so hard that the ones who did make it home never even would talk to their families about it.



(He pointed to the statue) 'You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph... a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. It was just boys who won the battle of Iwo Jima .. Boys. Not old men.



'The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank.. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys.. They called him the 'old man' because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese' or 'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.' Arizona Ira Hayes was one who walked off Iwo Jima .. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?' So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together .. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes carried the pain home with him and eventually died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32 (ten years after this picture was taken).



'The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousley from Hilltop, Kentucky . A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night.' Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. Those neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

'The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley, from Antigo, Wisconsin , where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say 'No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back.' My dad never fished or even went to Canada . Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell Soup. 'You see, like Ira Hayes, my dad didn't see himself as a hero.. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic.. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima , they writhed and screamed, without any medication or help with the pain. 'When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.' 'So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima , and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time.'



Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero.. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless. We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom. Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world.. STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's sacrifice. God Bless You and God Bless America ...

REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day. One thing I learned while on tour with my 8th grade students in DC that is not mentioned here is . . that if you look at the statue very closely and count the number of 'hands' raising the flag, there are 13. When the man who made the statue was asked why there were 13, he simply said the 13th hand was the hand of God. Great story - worth your time - worth every American's time