Support Services Division Battles Outsourcing

The Postal Service has taken subcontracting of Support Services to new heights and APWU members are fighting back, Director Steve Brooks reported to APWU members at the craft conference held prior to the National Convention.

Management has exceeded the permitted number of subcontracted computer programmers and is even hiring outside of the four IT Accounting Service Centers. This promises to be a huge issue in upcoming contract negotiations, he said.

In addition, the division faces a possible loss of 60 jobs at Mail Transport Equipment Service Center (MTESC).

“The company that currently owns it lost the bid with USPS and the new company is moving it 35 miles away from where it is right now,” he said, adding that despite contacting the Postal Service, the Postmaster General, the NLRB and local Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), “the company is still not responding.

“I believe it’s an anti-union move not trying to accept union employees in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that is in place,” Brooks continued. “By Sept. 15, these people will have lost their jobs, so time is critical.”

Brooks said another battle deals with private-sector trucking organizations. In the Pat Salmon and Sons unit, health insurance premiums are slated to rise 34 percent, and the “company is doing nothing to alleviate the problem.”

Brooks noted that drivers can barely afford the current premium and are threatening to quit.

“The company claims that the claims to premium ratio were at 134 percent and it drove the cost of the plan up,” he said, noting that, “A section of the contract states in the open, that if premiums go up by 5 percent or higher, they have to right to re-open negotiations. We are still going to have problems because we have solicited six health care units and no one has come back with a premium that’s lower.”

Brooks admitted that the division is already short drivers and those that are still working are “very angry.

“The company is in trouble because they are going to lose drivers and are going to lose postal contracts because they can’t fulfill their obligation of timely mail delivery,” he said.