The information below is NOT what is in the new contract. These are things being considered for rural carriers in the new contract. Again… None of the items below have been agreed on. These are just things being considered!
Ronnie Stutts
Hopes the contract could be tentative in the next two weeks.
70% of routes have no or little Amazon. Letters/Flats down. A traditional mailcount would hurt. He kept saying ” we have the numbers”.
Mentioned items he felt were agreed upon and items being considered.
Wanted wording for implementation of formula to change. He felt the union can’t stop formula with current requirements.
Would like to change advertising to pulling hiring lists. If formula is implemented, must create PTF position. Threw out number of 10% PTFs. Currently would create 4000 PTF positions.
New RCAs can only work assigned route first 2 pay periods.
Holiday worked, regular carrier: option to get a day of annual to use later instead of pay.
Mentioned USPS didn’t try to get rid of Xmas overtime.
Trying to get some wording for RCAs getting sent to other offices. Can’t stop it. But want some clear guidance.
Mentioned there might be a MOU regarding casing methods. His example was allowing carriers to jackpot flats.
Attempting to get RCA’s one hour of annual for every 20 hours worked.
There was some scenario breakdowns that they want to include in the contract that deals with use of annual that may be concerning with saying something like a 60 or 30 day max notice to submit leave slips unless it was dealing with a trip that requires planning like a cruise or wedding.
David Heather–
Seemed really positive on RRECs . Felt the standards are accurate.
Volume will be over 52 weeks. Letters/flats/parcels,etc…
He said RRECs will have no input from local management. This was a positive. The only local input is distances in office. Done with the carrier and management.
The panel added around 10% to every standard. 7% for fatigue and delay. And 3.3% break time. The 3.3 % would equal 15 minutes/day on a 40K.
Mileage and boxes are about 60% of a route’s evaluation.
Stated how drive time would affect different routes.
Said for all routes the average drive speed is 18-19 mph.
The USPS has already collected a year of data. The Union and consultant have reviewed the data. They are convinced it’s accurate and unbelievably complete.
You will have the ability to go on the Union website and look at your daily numbers.
Amazon Sunday parcels are not included in evaluations.
Expects 40-50 % of routes to either lose/gain an hour when RRECs is implemented.
Stayed positive on standards. Didn’t mention the DPS standard loss.
Gave an example on new parcels standards impact: May 2020-May 2021 the average
for all routes (86,000) was going to the door 35 times a day.
Current standard would be 17.5 minutes/day. New standard could be 2.5- over 4 min for each parcel to the door ( depending on distances.)
He came up with 92 minutes/day. So a gain of almost 75 minutes/day from the new parcel standards.
They have goals: Start scanner function in January.
Start data collection in March.
Evaluations by middle of year.
First year, evaluations every 3 months. The volume data would still be the previous 12 months. Then either every 6 or 12 month period.
85% of most points for routes are already populated.