The Union met with the employer on Wednesday August 14, 2013 to review some of the issues that have been plaguing the restructure at Depot 74/99 and from that the impact on the MSC’s.
The Union raised the issue that this might conflict with childcare or transportation and the Corporation has agreed that if this is an issue the start times will be reviewed to accommodate individuals.
The Corporation is also moving a part time inside assistance position which is currently vacant from Depot 32 to Depot 74 to help with householders and delivery assistance. Although this doesn’t appear enough this is currently the band-aid fix the CPC is applying.
The Corporation will also be creating AM/PM splits on some routes that have heavy sort and prep and have not been able to get their relay bags up for the 9:30 departure. These routes will have one route number for the AM portion and a different route number for the PM portion.
Routes 4, 19, 20, 21, 30, 32, 36, 136 will get this treatment and there may be more in the future. We have asked if this means that we will have a late relay run for the PM bags but the Corporation has said that this is not necessary and believe that the AM/PM route splits will take care of relays being put up late.
The Corporation is also bring in five A-62’s for walks that have requested them as they feel that these cases will make a difference to the sort and prep for these walks.
The Union questioned the sort time given to directs and whether some of the directs that were taken off the MSC runs and given to Letter Carriers were in fact incorrect and should be returned to the MSC’s. It was clear from the information that we had gathered from the relay runs that some “Casual Directs” should be regular directs as they were getting several tubs of mail and the letter carrier was expected to deliver this.
We also raised what was the criteria that was used to evaluate the amount of mail that constituted a direct in this restructure. Management and Urban services could not answer that except to say that the 50lbs of mail to one address was not the limit. This is contrary to what was said to our observers and the Union hall when the volume count was done and the routes built.
We raised the issue of what householder data was used in this restructure as it appears that it was the data for last October rather than the April data. This would mean that a true picture of the time for householders on the routes is incorrect.
Starting next week all the old directs that were used prior to the restructure will be reviewed and weighed to see if mistakes were made during the volume count. They will be weighed again in the September 9 week to see if volumes are remaining constant.
The MSC’s have been told to return to the carrier any bag or lobby drop that is not on their route sheets so that the carrier’s supervisor can properly add it to their routes and credit will be added.
We also raised issues with elevator times, case strips, improper help, large call PM with no collation of flyers, boxes or lobby drops missing for the weight of the mail to be carried, change of address cards and the edit books.
We also raised transportation problems that have occurred and ones that might occur in the future.
We have also raised the issue of 15.08 forms and supervisors harassing members for putting in overtime.
The Union and the Corporation are still in discussions as to how to fix these and other problems with this restructure. It is the Union’s position that the Corporation cut too deep and needs to redo this restructure.
The Corporation position is that carriers have not adjusted to the new routes and with a few tweaks the restructure will work out.
Members can fill out article 50’s starting this week and start the process of filing Appendix LL overtime on your own route complaints. We need to have members that are doing overtime on an ongoing basis to begin these processes.
We will be meeting with the employer over the next few weeks to update the progress of fixing this restructure.
In Solidarity,
Pat Bertrand
1st Vice President
la/CUPE-3338