Bob Hope First-Class commemorative stamp

One of the nation’s most revered entertainers and humanitarians was immortalized by the Postal Service when it dedicated the 44-cent Bob Hope First-Class commemorative stamp on the flight deck of the USS Midway, where “G.I. Bob” twice entertained service men and women during his nearly six-decade commitment to boosting military morale. Hope’s daughter, Linda, and his son Kelly joined U.S. Postal Service Pacific Area Vice President Michael J. Daley in dedicating the stamp on what would have been Hope’s 106th birthday.

I didn’t have the chance or luck to see Bob while I was in Viet Nam but I am always grateful for men like him. Thank you Bob Hope!

Bob Hope USO Tour video: http://www.usngondemand.net/video/32/Postal-Service-Salutes-GI-Bob-Hope

Welcome to the machine (part three)

The Class Action Grievance has been settled.

I received this email from Robert Rodriguez, Assistant Clerk Director (A).
I met with Donna in Labor; we settled the grievance to have a Union steward present at all safety talks/ stand up talks for the DBCS for 90 days from the date of signing (5/9/2008).

Management will coordinate with the Chief Steward on Tour 1, or his designee, and will sit in on all meetings. This will translate into four distinct meetings per week (one meeting per each auto).

If Management does not comply with this settlement, then I will contact Donna Dunker and she will contact Bruno to ensure compliance.

I have placed a copy of this settlement inside the bulletin board at the GMF.
You can read it here.

How does this affect us? I’m not sure but it does bring Safety Issues back on the front burner and that’s where it needs to be. The last two weeks, I attended Safety Talks. Let’s see if it continues. If not, there should be a flood of grievances flowing in to Bruno’s office.

Safety talks (meetings), with your Safety Captain or supervisor in the room has the opportunity for feedback from you to them with all of your co-workers present for validation and encouragement. It’s the only time available to us for this because the last three or four meetings that the plant manager had with us in the cafeteria held no opportunity for Q&A. He dismissed us rapidly and it was obvious that he did not want to entertain any feedback from us.

I encourage each and every one of you to get involved with the Safety Issues that we face working these machines. Don’t just complain to your partner or the supervisor that you may have a certain night. Bring these issues to the forefront at your Safety Talks. This is where it’s not just you complaining but countless others that are experiencing the same ordeals. And I encourage each and every one of you to speak up when another brings up an issue for the validation of his or her complaint. We are in this together!

Welcome to the machine! (part 2)

Class Action Grievance on Safety Issues on Tour 1

What does it take to get safety talks back on the ‘front burner’? I’m waiting to see. But if you want to at least get them on the ’side burner’, file a grievance.

As I stated in my last post, I filed a grievance that I was not afforded a safety talk the week of March 15-21, and two days later a safety talk was held. The following week, no safety talk. So on April 9th, I filed another grievance for no safety talk the past week. Two days later, we had a safety talk. What does it take to get a safety meeting in automation? File a grievance!

There are many reasons why we need to emphasize having consistent safety talks. At first glance, many would say “What’s the point. They’re useless because they never talk about the real workfloor issues.” And that is probably right 70% of the time. But this is the only time that you can give feedback to management with your co-workers in attendance. And many times, their support and input can be valuable. It just might be enough to change things.

I remember when the workfloor was filled with manual cases. It was like a maze and it seem to stretch on forever. The work for clerks wasn’t that physically challenging. You sat at your case and pitched letters or stood at your case to pitch flats. But today’s clerks are very physically challenged. From the moment you clock in, you are pushing trucks, pulling post cons, shoving tray racks in all directions, unloading hampers of heavy bulk mail, emptying towers, bending and lifting trays of mail two feet over your head, not to mention the repetitive motions of loading and sweeping these machines and it doesn’t stop for the next 7 1/2 hours.

Asst. Clerk Craft Dir. Robert Rodriguez has filed a class action grievance on this subject which is now at step 2 so to help in this case, filing grievances will only help to improve our chances. File, file, and file again and talk to your co-workers to get them to file.

If ever there was a need for weekly safety talks, it’s now. But management doesn’t want to stop the production. Welcome to the machine!

Welcome to the machine!

Have you had your safety meeting this week?

 

If you work on Tour 1 in automation, probably not. You probably didn’t have one the previous week either. Or for that matter, it’s been so long you can’t remember the last time a safety meeting was even held.

 

I’ve written about this in the Dispatch before but it seems that safety meetings are a thing of the past. I seem to remember reading on the Union Bulletin Board back a few months ago that management was going to break up automation clerks in to four separate groups to hold our safety meetings. Something like, Automation 1, Automation 2, Automation 3, and Automation 4. Asst. Clerk Craft Dir. Robert Rodriguez has filed a grievance about the so-called safety talks that were given at the machines and most of the time they were written papers you were to read and sign. But since then, there have been zero safety talks.

 

That was until two weeks ago. I finally had decided it was time to file my own grievance, so on a Tuesday I filed.

 

It was fairly simple. I just stated that according to the Supervisor’s Safety Handbook, EL-801, that it states, “All line supervisors are required to conduct safety talks at least once a week with their employee groups, including temporary, casual, and relief personnel.” And that I was not afforded this requirement the week of March 15-21, ‘08.

 

Two days later, guess what. Myself and about 6 other clerks went to room 1011G and had a safety meeting. Of course I came to the conclusion that it was the grievance that I filed that caused this but I can’t kid myself that my filing had that much influence. Probably just a fluke, because the next week, no such safety meeting was held. But I will ask to see a steward and spend more time in the union cage filing another grievance for this past week.

 

I guess they think we just don’t care. We get use to not having safety talks weekly as required and nothing happens, so why would they pull a 20 to 30 of us away from the machines to hold a safety meeting. They can get away with it, that’s why. But what if a few other clerks were to ask to see their steward also? What if 20 or 30 were to do it? What if 50 or 60 all joined in? That would be incredible!

 

Above I stated that Asst. Craft Dir. Robert Rodriguez has filed a grievance on the safety talk issues for Tour 1. He just sent me a copy of the Step 2-Article 14 grievance for the violation of no safety talks on the DBCS. You can read it here. Why they couldn’t settle this at Step 1 is a mystery. But let’s remember that “Safety is our Number 1 priority”.