State Convention pt 4: Sunday Density
Sunday morning, bright and early, we gathered again for breakfast before the business because we knew it would be a shorter, but very dense day. Here we go.
Back in the conference room, next up was the subject of the Postal Service Health Benefits! If you don’t know what that is, you are really in for a surprise. This Open Season there is a massive change to our benefits that you definitely want to google and get a hold of. I’ll make an overview here that is not remotely as detailed as the subject matter is.
This Open Season you will need to choose a new health care plan under the PSHB, which you can do on Lite Blue.
This is a result of the Postal Reform Act in which the pre-funding mandate was axed and six-day delivery was codified.
You can compare plans here at OPM.gov, but I don’t know how well that will work on mobile devices. Check it on desktop for best results.
This is a pretty wild change and premiums are being shaken up quite a bit. Compare plans that are right for you, but I know I’ll be making a switch and saving like $200/month by going to the NALC plan. Yeah, the changes are significant enough.
*If you do not make your own change the Post Office will make the choice for you! You know that’s not going to be good, so do some research and be ready to make the change.
That includes making sure your password is up to date in Lite Blue! If your password for Lite Blue is not up to date get that taken care of asap so you can be ready for the changes ahead.
This was a long session with a ton of info that is too big for a single blog. Luckily there is a lot of info out there to learn about it from people who know a lot more about it than I do.
Then Patrick Baker took the floor. He is our Regional Grievance Assistant, and he had a presentation about noncompliance from management. Believe it or not, noncompliance with the National Agreement is a much larger issue than just in our branch, it’s all over the place. This has been difficult on all of us, and with no word from National levels about this, our Regional team is attempting to arm us with the best info we can have for our grievances. Smaller and more remote branches may not have known what to do with management’s noncompliance, so they got a ton of info. In our branch, we’re getting a lot of practice, so we are nose-to-the-grindstone on filing grievances so our higher levels can back us up.
This was a deep dive on concepts, contractual language, and we all learned a lot through the process. The Regional office further went on to explain their process and position on how to support our claims of noncompliance, which was fantastic to hear.
We’ve heard lots of rumblings from different corners of our Union about certain elements of the grievance procedure being undermined such as remedies, escalation, and resolutions at the Step B level. It was great to hear our NBA’s commitment to representation in the midst of a lot of doubt nationally. Our branch has been offered proof of Teegarden’s support through escalated remedies and stacks of arbitration certifications that our NBA believes in filed by your local steward team.
Lastly, NBA David Teegarden took the floor again and hammered home his support of our branches. This is an important move because, as I’m sure most of you know, the activity of the NBAs are loudly being called out by voices in the membership. While there has been a demonstrated division within the Union recently our region is, quite frankly, seeming to take a real stance on the climate of the Union.
Here’s Teegarden’s update on the backlog of grievances at regional:
A few months ago we had 1000 cases at the Step B level. That number has been reduced to 750.
A few months ago we had 500 cases queued for Arbitration. That number has been increased to 700+.
The cases going forward are largely noncompliance grievances, and while it would be easy to settle for weak language, the regional team is pushing good cases to arbitration to get escalated noncompliance on the record.
He believes the noncompliance is out of control, and it won’t go away without a fight.
The cases scheduled for arbitration would take 9.7 years to go through according to the math. Teegarden believes this is criminally unfair, and is working on a process to get through them more timely.
I mean, the math certainly checks out; the ones impassed at the Step B level are certified for Arbitration, which we can see from Step B level cases reducing and Arbitration cases rising. Not everything can or should go to arbitration, he wants to send the ones that he believes we can really win and make ground with.
Further, Teegarden doubled down on the training efforts he and his team have made. Again, the accusations about NBAs not taking action to empower their members are everywhere, so he wanted to set his record straight. He highlighted his efforts to educate and include members in their Union, and it was really an impressive list. Honestly, check this out (it’s long):
Virtual Training with Margaret Parker that’s an intro to steward training that’s a 4 week course
Yearly Rap sessions with class training at each one
State trainings in 4 states and Fall training in 2 states
Training for Chapter 2/6-Day route inspections
Virtual Training for route inspections is on the way with route counts increasing
Steward College, a year-1 style of education for stewards with year-2 style coming soon
Virtual Branch training to strengthen and activate dysfunctional/nonfunctioning branches
National level for training for branches
Phone calls with local stewards on strategy and development
RGAs go into the field to help stewards organize and file grievances
Regional grievance starters that differ from national grievance starters for needs specific to our region
OWCP specialized training
New arbitration advocate training (Teegarden teaches the national level classes, this will be scouting for national level)
While some of this I haven’t seen in my time being active as a steward, there is a LOT of this I have seen our branch and membership benefit from, and plenty I have taken part of personally. I have benefited from regional support, and that means that you have too every time I’ve filed a grievance for you. It’s wonderful the way this stuff manifests and makes its way into our workroom floor from a conference room in a place called Margaritaville.
Lastly, Teegarden made a commitment stating that if we wanted someone who would just settle grievances so we didn’t have a backlog, we’ve got the wrong guy in business agent’s office. He has committed to taking on more cases and increasing his staffing if needed to help combat the amount of work that needs to be done. He has stated he has no interest in reducing remedies or losing ground of any kind that we’ve made in the grievance process. That’s music to my ears because your local steward team files several grievances every single week and we need that backup down here.
All right, that was a lot to write up. This was the first state convention I have attended, and it certainly won’t be the last. It was great seeing all the activists in our region getting the work done and seeing our regional Union representatives putting their cards on the table for us to show how they’re working for us.
I hope these write-ups have helped you see what’s going on in your region, show you what some of your Union dues are going towards, and show you how some of your local representatives are working hard for you. I want that transparency to empower and engage the members to get involved and find out how the labor movement works for them. After all, it’s something I’m learning about by diving in myself.
Thanks for the read, I hope you enjoyed it. There will be more to come in the Mountaineer soon, so check in every once in a while.