If management orders you to carry part of another route, you cannot refuse. You inform them that it's contractual and you will win. Tell them they will have to pay double for the first violation. Double for the 2nd and penalty.......... and so forth. By the time you are finished with them, you can rack up a couple grand for a few hours work.
1767 due to tiredness (+12hrs)
- Thread starter Static
- Start date
As an leave replacement, you cited an ELM provision that does apply to leave replacements and anyone else who is hourly. Regular rural carriers are not covered by that provision due to regulars being exempt employees. And the NRLCA contract doesn't say limited to 12 hours in a day as other craft's have; even have provision for payment after 12 hours. City carriers have a 12/60 rule and can leave any mail at office without repercussions once they hit 12 hours. (11:30 plus 30 minute lunch) While the contract doesn't protect them, a recent national arbitration case does give them that right.
U caught my attention
Well-known member
Coding the day as sick erases all the hard labor hours put forth, that seems wrong to have them erased. That being said. I had a day where I broke mentally from stress/anxiety from work related issues. I only had couple hours of delivery left. I called management from the route, apologized for my inability to complete the route, and asked if she could find a sub so I could take a sick day. The sub got the full day of pay. My confusion with this particular issue is how can they code the days eval pay to sick when there is no one to get the eval pay? Who finished the route?
Can they just not pay for the work that was given? Coding it that way would suggest a sub should have been called in to finish the route. Did they attempt calling in a sub at that late hour?
Can they just not pay for the work that was given? Coding it that way would suggest a sub should have been called in to finish the route. Did they attempt calling in a sub at that late hour?
possumswerver
New member
What do you mean exempt? From the FLSA?
Edit: I don't think that's the case. Rural regulars are bargaining unit employees. "Non-exempt salaried" is defined separately, with postmaster given as an example for such a position. Also, the ELM says employees can't be required to work over 12 hours, unless their bargaining agreement says otherwise. That still leaves room for a scheme to pay rural regulars who work in excess of 12—I don't think such scheme merely existing invalidates that provision of the ELM.
If my ADHD weren't so bad, I'd be a lawyer... might becone a steward tho once I convince myself I actually know what I'm talking about.
Last edited:
FLSA 7 (B)2 is what rural carriers are covered under. Here's a good read about this section of the FLSA: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WHD/opinion-letters/legacy/ol_1986-07-23_a.pdf
NRLCA contract
ARTICLE 8HOURS OF WORK Section 1. Work WeekThe basic work week for regular rural carrier employeesshall be six (6) days, except as relief days are provided forcertain carriers and for carriers serving triweekly routes.Regular rural carriers may not work on Sunday. Section 2. Work SchedulesDaily schedules shall be established to coincide with thedaily evaluation of the route and adjusted periodically asrequired. The carrier’s work day may vary above or belowthe daily evaluation of the route as mail volume fluctuatesand road and weather conditions change.
NALC contract
Section 1. Work WeekThe work week for full-time regulars shall be forty (40) hoursper week, eight (8) hours per day within ten (10) consecutivehours, provided, however, that in all offices with more than100 full-time employees in the bargaining units the normalwork week for full-time regular employees will be forty hoursper week, eight hours per day within nine (9) consecutivehours. Shorter work weeks will, however, exist as needed forpart-time regulars.Section 2. Work SchedulesA. The employee’s service week shall be a calendar weekbeginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday and ending at 12 midnightthe following Friday.B. The employee’s service day is the calendar day on whichthe majority of work is scheduled. Where the work schedule isdistributed evenly over two calendar days, the service day isthe calendar day on which such work schedule begins.C. The employee’s normal work week is five (5) servicedays, each consisting of eight (8) hours, within ten (10) consecutive hours, except as provided in Section 1 of this Article.As far as practicable the five days shall be consecutive dayswithin the service week.D. Full time employees who are not on an “OvertimeDesired” list or on the Work Assignment list, shall not berequired to work beyond eleven and a half (11.5) hours ofArticle 7.3.C18work in a day or sixty (60) hours of work in a service week,and shall not be subject to disciplinary action for terminating their tour of duty when these limits on hours of workare reached.
APWU contract
Section 1. Work WeekThe work week for full-time regulars shall be forty (40) hoursper week, eight (8) hours per day within ten (10) consecutivehours, provided, however, that in all offices with more than 10021Article 8.3full-time employees in the bargaining units the normal workweek for full-time regular employees will be forty (40) hours perweek, eight (8) hours per day within nine (9) consecutive hours.Shorter work weeks will, however, exist as needed for part-timeregulars.(See Memos, pages 289-301, and 303)Section 2. Work SchedulesA. The employee’s service week shall be a calendar weekbeginning at 12:01 a.m. Saturday and ending at 12 midnight thefollowing Friday.B. The employee’s service day is the calendar day on whichthe majority of work is scheduled. Where the work schedule isdistributed evenly over two (2) calendar days, the service day isthe calendar day on which such work schedule begins.C. The employee’s normal work week is five (5) service days,each consisting of eight (8) hours, within ten (10) consecutivehours, except as provided in Section 1 of this Article. As far aspracticable the five (5) days shall be consecutive days within the and then
8.5.G. Full-time employees not on the Overtime Desired List maybe required to work overtime only if all available employees onthe Overtime Desired List have worked up to twelve (12) hoursin a day or sixty (60) hours in a service week. Employees on theOvertime Desired List:1. may be required to work up to twelve (12) hours in aday and sixty (60) hours in a service week (subject topayment of penalty overtime pay set forth in Section4.D for contravention of Section 5.F); and2. excluding December, shall be limited to no more thantwelve (12) hours of work in a day and no more thansixty (60) hours of work in a service week.
As you can see, all other crafts have language in their contract to make sure the postal service doesn't unilaterally change the ELM. This also declares a work day is 12 hours or less (11:30 actual hours), rural carriers just say each DAY is a DAY as regular carriers are paid a DAILY RATE, not hourly or salary. Each day worked (or day of leave, regulars have to take leave in whole days) is put in TACS.
which is the crux of this topic.
A rural carrier's daily hours fluctuates based upon daily volumes (article 8) and may put the carrier over 12 hours in a day. A regular carrier must either complete the DAILY assignment or take a whole day of leave.
Believe it or not the 12 hour rule was not applied to rca's until around 2010ish. As more and more rca's where having to work over 12 hours to carry all the mail and parcels, the NRLCA board actually started reading and applying the ELM regulation. MHO is that it was brought up by management not the NRLCA during hiring and retention studies done by management as a way to make sure RCA's weren't overworked and might possibly be retained.
Rogtar
Well-known member
Craziest part is that I believe that Management looks out more for the RCA than the union does.
read other reply also; but no other craft has provisions for payment after 12 hour limit. Rural contract does. other crafts no work after 12 hours, no pay provisions....... rurals work after 12 and have pay provisions. BTW Article 19 makes the ELM part of the rural contract.......... so if no working after 12 for regular, then their would be no need for provisions of working after 12 ............ just like the other crafts.
Shannonboy
Well-known member
Are you in the military???? If you are, po mgmt is definitely falsifying your time sheet, and if you arent....wait for it.....
THEY ARE STILL FALSIFYING YOUR TIME SHEET.....this should be REPORTED, in every office, there is usually a poster dealing with fraud, waste, theft issues, and how to report them. This action qualifies for all three in my opinion....
By all means....do your job as directed...and report them.
Static
Well-known member
So there you have it.
When you worked over 70 hours one week, and then over 70 hours the next, when it's a pitch black night, cold and pouring rain and you come in from "completing" (Dps, flats, line of travel) the route, it's after 8pm and today you've already put in over 12 hrs, you are dog exhausted and turn the corner to see a mountain of 2nd trip parcels. You tell your supervisor that you can't do anymore tonight...and boom, they hit you with a Military Lwop (no pay for the entire day). Now we all know, This is what happens.
So many people always quote the Contract; the old language and rules, but sometimes things happen that cause new rules, new language. It depends on how we Rural Carriers want to be treated in the future.
This is a falsifying of documents case. but it's also much more than that, isn't it?
When you worked over 70 hours one week, and then over 70 hours the next, when it's a pitch black night, cold and pouring rain and you come in from "completing" (Dps, flats, line of travel) the route, it's after 8pm and today you've already put in over 12 hrs, you are dog exhausted and turn the corner to see a mountain of 2nd trip parcels. You tell your supervisor that you can't do anymore tonight...and boom, they hit you with a Military Lwop (no pay for the entire day). Now we all know, This is what happens.
So many people always quote the Contract; the old language and rules, but sometimes things happen that cause new rules, new language. It depends on how we Rural Carriers want to be treated in the future.
This is a falsifying of documents case. but it's also much more than that, isn't it?
U caught my attention
Well-known member
This is my opinion through experiences I have had. What I have come to the conclusion on, we as a craft feel desperate to protect something bigger....the evaluated system NEEDS to survive, intact, for the bigger good.
We let individuals sink if they are experiencing something unfavorable or wrong because they are the minority. To keep the integrity of the system, aspects dont get tweeked for a small faction. Use other components to fix your needs, like muscle it out until a route adjustment for example. There is great fear of anything that even remotely suggests an hourly system. Gears turn in one direction for a reason and tweekibg anything might bring us closer to loosing evaluated. Its too early for me to think through how that simple change wouldnt work with evaluated but its there. My first instinct ro why is there is no curfew....the route gets the volume and we dont have a protection from it.
We let individuals sink if they are experiencing something unfavorable or wrong because they are the minority. To keep the integrity of the system, aspects dont get tweeked for a small faction. Use other components to fix your needs, like muscle it out until a route adjustment for example. There is great fear of anything that even remotely suggests an hourly system. Gears turn in one direction for a reason and tweekibg anything might bring us closer to loosing evaluated. Its too early for me to think through how that simple change wouldnt work with evaluated but its there. My first instinct ro why is there is no curfew....the route gets the volume and we dont have a protection from it.
Yes, when you take leave it's for the whole day, if you take it at 14 hours, then you might could win a grievance on the 2 hours OT not paid.
But to answer about who finished. Let's say you were on AL for 2 weeks for a cruise to Alaska. No sub available to carry the whole route and it was split everyday. Isn't this the same scenario as if you called in sick while on route? But if one sub and one sub alone carried the remaining part, they are entitled to the whole day's pay.
Static
Well-known member
Who "took" leave? There is no Form 3971.
Who finished the route? No one did. I redelivered all of them the next day.
Who even did the route at all that day? According to their paperwork, I "took" LWOP. So I wonder if management put there name on it and got paid for it? IT makes you wonder....
Something just seems off about the whole thing. We can rationalize it and explain it with rules and contractual language, but for real......it's as if an invisible, non-existent entity magically came in and delivered the route at no cost. It's a miracle! OH my God,.....I performed a Miracle.
Who finished the route? No one did. I redelivered all of them the next day.
Who even did the route at all that day? According to their paperwork, I "took" LWOP. So I wonder if management put there name on it and got paid for it? IT makes you wonder....
Something just seems off about the whole thing. We can rationalize it and explain it with rules and contractual language, but for real......it's as if an invisible, non-existent entity magically came in and delivered the route at no cost. It's a miracle! OH my God,.....I performed a Miracle.
Last edited:
U caught my attention
Well-known member
But subs are hourly and we are evaluated. Because they are hourly, they get green card time? There is no green card time for regulars. Does it make sense to have a regular receive green card time or a negotiated daca code that would allow for pay of worked actual hours in a day?
We have a yearly guarantee. With that guarantee in mind and the 2080/2240 issues, what would be done with the hours we are collecting as actual hourly paid work? How would those paid actual hours get figured into the guarantee hours? Wouldnt the hourly paid hours not apply toward the guarantee and be paid separate? I dont see how it could work.
So depending on what happened after op clocked out....he/she may or may not have finished the route for the day. Could a sub file a grievance to get paid for the day if they were not called in? If management delivered the second trip or scanned all pkgs attempted (falsifying), is that a qualified employee? If So, 12 hours of hard labor erased from record and not going toward the guarantee.....that also seems wrong.
Op doesnt want to continuosly work past twelve hours in a day...for fatigue and the what not...its exhausting and unreasonable to think a person should be exposed to that daily.
Honestly no one ever wants the day to get thst long, but the way we get paid allows for this. The reverse is true too if we work 5 hours we get paid for 8. I truely believe some of us suffer so others can reap benefits from the system.
Maybe they figure on AVERAGE it evens out. If you are the carrier getting hammered continuously it doesnt seem like a fair system though.
Last edited:
Can he now file for not getting a full day of relief?
If working some time and then taking leave and wanting pay for the hours worked plus leave, then the whole system has to be reworked; which would then basically make rural carriers hourly employees.But subs are hourly and we are evaluated. Because they are hourly, they get green card time? There is no green card time for regulars. Does it make sense to have a regular receive green card time or a negotiated daca code that would allow for pay of worked actual hours in a day?
We have a yearly guarantee. With that guarantee in mind and the 2080/2240 issues, what would be done with the hours we are collecting as actual hourly paid work? How would those paid actual hours get figured into the guarantee hours? Wouldnt the hourly paid hours not apply toward the guarantee and be paid separate? I dont see how it could work.
So depending on what happened after op clocked out....he/she may or may not have finished the route for the day. Could a sub file a grievance to get paid for the day if they were not called in? If management delivered the second trip or scanned all pkgs attempted (falsifying), is that a qualified employee? If So, 12 hours of hard labor erased from record and not going toward the guarantee.....that also seems wrong.
Op doesnt want to continuosly work past twelve hours in a day...for fatigue and the what not...its exhausting and unreasonable to think a person should be exposed to that daily.
Honestly no one ever wants the day to get thst long, but the way we get paid allows for this. The reverse is true too if we work 5 hours we get paid for 8. I truely believe some of us suffer so others can reap benefits from the system.
Maybe they figure on AVERAGE it evens out. If you are the carrier getting hammered continuously it doesnt seem like a fair system though.
The pay for rural carriers is DAILY PAY not hourly nor weekly nor yearly salary. Your salary is based upon your DAILY RATE times the # of days worked. K = 260 J =286 and H 312. Look at the salary chart for you evaluation; we will call it Z. You take Z and divide it by 260, 286, or 312 to get your DAILY RATE. When you work a day, you are then paid that amount, when you work all days and use paid leave Holiday, annual, sick, other, jury duty, ect then you make the salary listed on the chart. That is the rural evaluated pay system.
If rural wanted this daily pay changed to hourly, then you could take partial days off. Even your annual leave and sick leave balance is in days not hours. Which make is hard for leave replacements earning leaving in hourly increments to understand how many hours they actually earned.
Again, that is the pay system. They take almost 6 months to update the salary charts when a contractual increase is done. Could you imagine how long it would take to change to hourly increments for leave?
U caught my attention
Well-known member
I do understand that wouldnt work. Protection from volume would be grand, but it seems the system doesnt allow for that. I am sure if it were possible, it would have been figured out by now
Last edited:
Rt2mailman
Well-known member
You need to put out in the open, in front of someone outside the office the problems of this overburdened route, lack of rcas, and poor management techniques. How can you do this? With grievances. The only mistake you made was ever mentioning any type of "ailment". What you should have said instead is that you were too exhausted to continue working more hours, and to do so would have been unsafe due to drowsiness . Legitimate and not considered a "sickness".
Here's how to fix that.
File a grievance for lack of pay/overtime pay for the day/hours worked, management falsely "assigning" leave that you never requested, management's lack of hiring of rcas to help on those excessively long days, causing undue stress and excessively long days to regulars .
You can break these up into 4 separate grievances. Here's how I would word the grievance questions:
1) Did my manager (name) falsify a leave request of which I never asked?
2) Did (name) not correctly pay me for working my route on (date) in which no one else was paid?
3) Did (name) fail to hire/retain rcas in our office causing undue stress to me on severely overburdened days?
4) Did management cause me to become so exhausted on (date) by working me excessively long hours with no assistance, as to cause such tiredness that it caused me to have a migrain and blurred vision?
This will show that you were not "Sick", but overworked, deserved auxiliary assistance, and have a manager that engaged in falsifying documents to blame you for his ineptness in hiring rcas. Please don't give up this fight, as so many carriers do, you are in the right, you just have to be careful to never give a reason for not following an order, or finishing your route except for SAFETY reasons, or in your case over tiredness.
Shannonboy
Well-known member
This is a good comment...
Volume used to be managed by a real manager, not someone getting management pay for just entering stuff in a computer. The classes of mail never touched in the postal service that functioned until the carrier sorted them. You couldn't touch 3rd class (standard now) until all other mail was up or it was light enough to carry all of it and leave and return by the times on the 4240. The only time you might go over evaluation was if a dated mailing or the 3rd class had been pushed back and had to get delivered. But you usually cased them in the previous afternoon. Things worked better when local management actually managed.
