Settlement Reached in Individual Retirement Counseling Dispute [pdf]

On September 21, 2009, the APWU and the Postal Service reached a pre-arbitration settlement over a dispute concerning management’s responsibility to provide individual retirement counseling for employees. In 2007, the Postal Service centralized its individual retirement counseling process by conducting such counseling primarily by phone utilizing retirement specialists at the Human Resources Shared Services Center (HRSSC). The intent of the change is that postal employees receive consistent information and retirement processing nationwide. The settlement provides that local management must arrange reasonably private space for employees who wish to have individual retirement counseling on the clock. The employee is also entitled to have their spouse and/or advisor present during this process. In addition, employees who cannot begin or complete the process of obtaining counseling from HRSSC without assistance have to be offered assistance by local management. Whether an employee is unable to start or complete the retirement counseling will be determined jointly by local management and the local union on a case-by-case basis.