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Step 4 Grievance Settlement: City Carriers Assigned to Collect Parcels From Rural Route Customer

The issue in this grievance concerns city carriers being assigned to collect parcels from a customer on a rural route. The parties agree that collecting parcels from customers on a rural route are generally craft specific duties, unless operational issues exist. Download via News Info ...

Post Plan – The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

A Ruralinfo.net Editorial In July 2011, the Postal Service announced that nearly 3700 post office's would be studied for closure.  There was major public outcry, especially from small rural communities who did not want to lose their post office.  Public meetings were held, and from the feedback received at these ...

Postal Déjà vu

Most people do not think of the job of a Postal worker as being a dangerous job.  In reality, there are a lot of dangers Postal workers face both in the plants and post offices and on the street delivering mail.  This brings me to the Ricin laced letters sent ...

Some USPS Saturday Delivery History

From the start, letter carriers delivered mail six days a week, usually Monday through Saturday.6 In May and June 1947, Saturday deliveries were temporarily eliminated in some cities due to budget shortfalls. In 1957, Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield decided to end Saturday deliveries nationwide because of a budget crisis ...

Solving the Rural Carrier Relief Identity Crisis

I wanted to help clear the fog on all of the rural carrier relief designations and titles. Most of today's rural carrier relief carriers fall under one of these four designations Rural Carrier Associates (RCAs)—(Designation Code 78) - Rural carrier associates are those employees hired from a register or reassigned ...

L’Enfant Plaza – We have a spontaneous combustion problem

I have noticed a very disturbing thing in the last few years.  LLV fires - Lots of them..  The aging fleet seems to be becoming a huge problem in regards to the safety of mail carriers.  I looked at only the last year or so and specifically for LLV -Postal ...

Step 4 Grievance Settlement on Waiting for Mail that Requires Casing Before Strapping Out

Step 4 Grievance Settlement on Waiting for Mail that Requires Casing Before Strapping Out The issue in this grievance concerns waiting for any mail due to late arriving transportation which may or may not include DPS letter mail. The parties agree that when a rural carrier is required to wait ...

Step 4 Settlement on Requirement to Case (DPS) Letter Mail during DPS review

The issue in this grievance involves management requiring rural carriers to case Delivery Point Sequence (DPS) Letters during a DPS letter formal review request for 12 days. The Parties agree that when rural carriers are required to case DPS letter mail, appropriated compensation will be provided in accordance with Handbook ...

Step 4 Grievance Settlement on Being Denied LWOP on Saturday

The issue in this grievance involves management denying LWOP on Saturday due to the unavailability of a leave replacement, when the leave replacement was assigned to express mail and collection runs and is not servicing a route. The Parties agree that a leave replacement assigned duties per Article 30.2.Q., will ...

Step 4 Grievance Settlement on Retrieving DPS Letter Mail When Not Staged by Route

The issue in this grievance involves rural carriers retrieving DPS letter mail from conveyances when DPS letter trays are randomly mixed between routes. The Parties agree that when DPS letter mail is not properly staged by separating routes and this requires rural carriers to move trays to retrieve these trays, ...

The Neutral Engineer for the Rural Carrier Time Study

Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega is the Dean of Engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. With more than 8,500 students, 700 faculty and staff, and $129 million in annual research expenditures, NC State’s College of Engineering is internationally recognized for the excellence of its research, education and ...

Let’s talk about the Elephant in the room

Elephant in the room" is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is either being ignored or going unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss.[2] It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would ...

The only thing we have to fear is ourselves.

I spend a lot of time online and there are a lot of pages on the internet that I look at while scouring for news and information to share with everyone.  I see a lot of crazy things posted by rural carriers, but there is nothing that gets me riled ...

The Evaluated system, the Guarantee period and the Christmas OT period. What does it all mean and how did we get here?

There are a lot of questions floating around lately about X days, the Guarantee period, and the Christmas Overtime period.   Which is not surprising because the Evaluated system itself is confusing.  I have been a rural carrier for quite a few years and still find things that surprise me ...

Handbook PO-603 Revision: Compensation Adjustments

Effective October 20, 2012, Handbook PO-603, Rural Carrier Duties and Responsibilities, Section 541.41, Addi­tional Compensation, is revised to reflect the change to the delivery point sequence (DPS) letter mail standard for those routes assigned a right-hand drive (RHD) employer-pro­vided vehicle. Handbook PO-603, Rural Carrier Duties and Responsibilities * * * ...

The Piece Work Trap

 An OLDIE BUT GOODIE!! The Piece Work Trap by John Dziubek  former CTRLCA State Steward (written sometime after the Wells arbitration) Since 1896 rural letter carriers have been paid by an evaluated type system. After the wildcat postal strike in 1970, some very important things changed for postal workers. First ...

NRLCA: Formulas to Determine Additional DPS Compensation

When a carrier on a route being compensated under the DPS standards (letters and/or flats) is required to case all or a significant portion of its DPS letters and/or flats, due to circumstances that have left all or some portion of the DPS letters and/or flats in an out of ...