Dear Brothers and Sisters,

On behalf of Maintenance Division Director Steve Raymer, please find below the current summary of Building Equipment Maintenance – MS 1 Arbitration:

The APWU/USPS commenced the MS-1 Arbitration Hearing on schedule (November 15-16, 2016).

November 15, 2016: Director Steve Raymer and Case Officer Idowu Balogun testified

November 16, 2016: Three Building Equipment Mechanics (BEM) and a Safety Specialist testified;
The Union rested its primary case subject to rebuttal

The Agency is scheduled to put on its case in early February 2017.

Issue:

Does the Postal Service violate the parties’ Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), including Articles 19 and 34, when it changed and/or replaced Handbook MS-1 (TL-4) and MMO-074-00 with MS-1 (TL-5), MMO-011-14, MMO-013-14, if so, what shall the appropriate remedy be?

Background:

The Agency’s proposed changes to the MS-1 Handbook fail the fair, reasonable and equitable standard and will create havoc in our Building-side occupational groups as well as endanger all building occupants by drastically reducing or eliminating preventive, corrective and operational Maintenance hours. Examples include the following:

• The Agency’s new concept of “Run to Failure” is misguided and unachievable because it will result in costly replacement of equipment upon failure, in lieu of performing preventive maintenance (PM) that will increase the life cycle of equipment.
• Building Automated System (BAS) will replace the current human monitoring of building equipment. The Agency’s own investigation revealed that less than half of all installations have a BAS system in place.
• The APWU demonstrated that even with the BAS, false indications of equipment status occurred.

Please feel free to distribute to your email list as you see fit.

Idowu Balogun | Assistant Director A, Maintenance Division
BMC/ NDC Coordinator| American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO | 1300 L Street, NW | Washington, DC 20005

First Name: Idowu
Last Name: Balogun
Email: ibalogun@apwu.org
Union/Local: Greater Los Angeles Area Local
Office held if any: Assistant Director A, Maintenance Division, Washington DC