Seniority, transfers & admail

The draft versions of both tentative agreements have been completed and are at the printers. These will be distributed to the membership as soon as possible. This is a big job and will take several weeks, but you will get them. The National Executive Board (NEB) meets next week and will finalize the dates for the ratification votes. We will continue to provide more detailed information about the agreements throughout this time.

RSMC Transfer Rights

RSMC route holders and permanent relief employees will now have the right to bid on vacant routes and permanent relief position located anywhere in the country. All vacant routes and permanent relief positions will be posted for a period of 10 working days. The route or permanent relief position will be awarded based on the seniority of those who submitted applications. An employee who is the successful applicant for a vacant position will have up to two weeks to report to their new location if it is within 100 km of the installation that they currently work in and up to four weeks to report if it is more than 100 km from their current installation.  When an RSMC obtains a route in a new installation, they are still required to remain in that installation for one year unless they obtain a route with a higher actual wage (which excludes vehicle allowance) or if their spouse is permanently relocated. This gain allows them to use their seniority to transfer anywhere in the country.

RSMC Seniority

All RSMC employees that worked as contractors prior to January 1, 2004, and became employees on that date, will now have their seniority recognized based on their first day worked as a contractor (currently the date used for tie-breaking). There is also a review process so that RSMCs can have their seniority date verified if they have evidence to support an earlier date.

When an On-Call Relief Employee (OCRE) obtains a route or a permanent relief position, her or his seniority will be deemed to be their first date of hire as an OCRE, provided there was no break in service greater than 91/2 months.

Unaddressed Admail – Urban

As reported in Bulletin #81, there will be changes in the way that letter carriers are compensated for the preparation and delivery of unaddressed admail. There will be a partial shift from per piece payments to a preparation time allowance. The preparation time allowance will be calculated based on the number of complete sets that each route delivers. The trigger for this calculation is 1.5 sets per week. This means that the majority of all letter carrier routes will receive this new preparation time allowance. This is not a time value that can be hidden within the GeoRoute software, it is a fixed time allowance based on the number of sets delivered and the number of points of call on a route. The preparation of unaddressed admail includes collating your flyers if you have three or more sets. Adding preparation time at the end of day, means fewer points of call and less time on the street. We will provide more details on these calculations including examples in a future bulletin.