The issue in this National Level Arbitration was the appropriate Remedy in reference to previous National Award Q06C-4Q-C 10005587 Global Settlement. Pursuant to paragraph (3) of the Merits Award, the parties jointly requested that Arbitrator Das now decide the issue of what remedy was appropriate for the time period between the Global Settlement MOU and the date of the merits award.
Supplemental Award Summary:
For the reasons set forth in the above Findings, I conclude that:
(1) The provision in the Q06C-4Q-C 10005587 Global Settlement which states:
All time the supervisor or Postmaster spends staffing the window during the day will be counted towards the permissible bargaining unit work limits, applies to all time the supervisor or postmaster is covering the window, which, in the absence of a clerk, includes all time the window is open.
(2) The provision in the Q06C-4Q-C 10005587 Global Settlement which states:
Any office that is downgraded in level will remain at the bargaining unit work standard that is in place at the beginning of the Agreement through the life of that contract, is subject to an agreed exception for an office without a clerk that is downgraded under the DUO initiative on or after November 21, 2010 to level 13 or below.
(3) Issues relating to remedy are returned to the parties for discussion and resolution. I retain jurisdiction to decide any remedial issues that the parties are unable to resolve.
Resolve:
Time spent by postmasters "staffing the window" (as defined in the Merits Award), particularly in offices with no clerk, is information far more readily available to the Postal Service than to the Union. In light of the instructions from USPS Headquarters to the field regarding the meaning of "staffing the window," which triggered the filing of this Step 4 grievance by the Union, the presumption must be that more likely than not there were a substantial number of violations of the Global Settlement as subsequently interpreted in the Merits Award. To the extent the Postal Service has access to the information needed to document this, it is to be made available to the Union within 90 days of the date of this Supplemental Remedy Award, absent a showing that this reasonably cannot be accomplished within such time period. Once the total hours of bargaining unit work performed by a postmaster in a particular office during a particular week have been established - consistent with the provisions of the Global Settlement - the "bright line" rules in the Global Settlement should enable the parties to quickly determine whether the agreed limits established in the Global Settlement have been exceeded.
Here, the parties have spelled out in the JCIM the appropriate manner in which to make injured employees whole for violation of the Global Settlement: Where bargaining unit work which should have been assigned to employees is performed by a supervisor and such work hours are not de minimis [sic], the bargaining unit employees who would have been assigned the work shall be paid for the time involved at the applicable rate. Thus, there is nothing inherently speculative in determining from available data whether the limits set forth in the Global Settlement were violated in a particular office in a particular week, and, if so, what the extent (work hours) of the violation was. Pursuant to the JCIM, a monetary remedy then is to be paid "to the bargaining unit employees who would have been assigned the work" if it had not been performed by a postmaster in violation of the Global Settlement.
Document Type: National Arbitration
APWU National Grievance Number: Q11C4QC11311239
Craft: Clerk
Arbitrator Name: Shyam Das