Remedy for disparate treatment

[RammerJammer]

Besides things like my salary, my paid leave, and tsp matching being affected by route adjustments there are other things. The most adverse consequence is that my high 3 for retirement purposes was lowered going back almost approaching 2 years now. They cut my 48K in July 2024 while others since have been left to grow their high 3 at 48K pay with no cuts. As I am only interested in how it would benefit me and not just to see other carriers with current 48Ks suffer cuts, what would be the remedy I would ask for in a grievance?

 

[Dominator]

Can the union establish that management has an obligation to cut a route within a range of time/following a "trigger" event, or are route cuts an "as soon as administratively practicable" thing?

 

[RammerJammer]

What about financial redress or equitable relief?

 

[U caught my attention]

The route gets the volume is how I understand the evaluated system. What grounds would you file a grievance? 48's are supposed to be adjusted.
Carriers seem to like the high wage at the expense of the integrity of the system.

How I understand this, and I might be wrong, but 48k route volume is excess volume that is not meant to be continually credited onto one route. Its volume that should be adjusted down and shared with other carriers (aux building toward future full route for example).
What I find troubling is, why do we bother doing evaluations at all if we are slacking on getting them to adjust 48k's?
Isnt keeping a 48k for years the same as allowing a 43k route carrier to perform through the volume of a 46k for years on end without an adjustment ? There is no logic to support not adjusting routes. We should not be performing volumes in excess to the proper pay scale for years on end. The volume and territory needs shared with other employees to allow proper pay be reflected with the extra volume. The grievance isnt your lost wage, the desperate treatment is them not adjusting 48 volume toward additional routes and a future larger rural workforce. Some areas are booming in growth but it is easier for management to do nothing. The carriers like the money and help hide the growth typically by not grieving adjustments and the aux building process.
Kind of sad, but expected.

 

[RFD]

The route gets the volume is how I understand the evaluated system. What grounds would you file a grievance? 48's are supposed to be adjusted.
Carriers seem to like the high wage at the expense of the integrity of the system.

How I understand this, and I might be wrong, but 48k route volume is excess volume that is not meant to be continually credited onto one route. Its volume that should be adjusted down and shared with other carriers (aux building toward future full route for example).
What I find troubling is, why do we bother doing evaluations at all if we are slacking on getting them to adjust 48k's?
Isnt keeping a 48k for years the same as allowing a 43k route carrier to perform through the volume of a 46k for years on end without an adjustment ? There is no logic to support not adjusting routes. We should not be performing volumes in excess to the proper pay scale for years on end. The volume and territory needs shared with other employees to allow proper pay be reflected with the extra volume. The grievance isnt your lost wage, the desperate treatment is them not adjusting 48 volume toward additional routes and a future larger rural workforce. Some areas are booming in growth but it is easier for management to do nothing. The carriers like the money and help hide the growth typically by not grieving adjustments and the aux building process.
Kind of sad, but expected.

Unfortunately, you are 100% correct. It shouldn't be this way, and until the rank and file start a mutiny, I am afraid absolutely nothing will change.

 

[Dominator]

What about financial redress or equitable relief?

These are potential solutions "if not for the wrong". Is there an obligation management is failing to perform or a restriction they are bypassing?

The "wrong" needs identified before fashioning its remedy.

If you could go back in time before the cuts, and dictate what you believe should have happened, what should management have done and how would it have played out?

Answering this may help more precisely identify where you sense you were wronged.

 

[RammerJammer]

Is it not obvious what the wrong is? They don't consistently treat every carrier fairly and equitably upon a "trigger" event such as a route evaluating above 46K after an MMS. My route was cut back in summer of 2024 during the wave of route adjustments that was happening across a lot of the country back then.It was cut back & froze at a 43K while others are allowed to keep a 48K and increase their high 3 when there is a route adjustment process in place now. They will always be able to use that cop out excuse that it is not administratively practicable at this time. So they have a license to treat carriers unequitably. So they have discriminated against me in not allowing my high 3 calculation to increase like the carriers who don't suffer being cut

 

[U caught my attention]

Is it not obvious what the wrong is?

You were not personally wronged.
Your route was done right.
Its the routes that are not being adjusted that are wronged. The grievance is with them.

 

[U caught my attention]

Its set up.so carriers and management can decide whether a grievance gets filed for adjustment. Its currently set up to not auto adjust.
Is that for protection....I dont know, but it seems to make a mockery of the system. Some get adjusted and others dont.

 

[Shannonboy]

You were not personally wronged.
Your route was done right.
Its the routes that are not being adjusted that are wronged. The grievance is with them.

In this case I might politely disagree....anytime po mgmt treats some carrier in a way that they are not treating others. They are personally wronging all of us. Unfortunately RJ, trying to get po mgmt to recompense what you feel is not right, or in other words RIGHTING A WRONG, it's always an uphill battle. Many, many a time I have been wronged by po mgmt, and our worthless union, and sad to say, most of those times, there was no pathway to holding those people accountable for the evil they committed, without becoming evil like them to make them pay. It's not worth it to stop to their level of evil, just to get revenge, when you have morals, ethics, and are ultimately determined to do right, even at great personal expense, sometimes it can handicap your ability to make evil people pay. In the end they will pay, as God holds all things in His hands, and sometimes I just have to leave it there.....evil people gather evil around theirselves, and eventually it accumulates to the point that they are usually crushed under the consequences of their own actions. I've been around a while, and seen several very deserving evil people get it back in spades what they had been dishing out to others in life....its hard to not send them a letter, or a text saying....I TOLD YOU SO....sad people, and wasted lives.....

 

[U caught my attention]

So, what could be the remedy of a desperate grievance in this case?
RJ's pre-adjustment wage is reinstated with back pay until all the other routes get adjusted down?
The point is, those other routes need adjusted down per contract. You cant complain desparate and not then have them adjust everyone.
The point is to get them treating everyone the same.

 

[RammerJammer]

Its set up.so carriers and management can decide whether a grievance gets filed for adjustment. Its currently set up to not auto adjust.
Is that for protection....I dont know, but it seems to make a mockery of the system. Some get adjusted and others dont.

I want to address first off, what did you mean by protection? To whom or of what?

 

[RammerJammer]

You were not personally wronged.
Your route was done right.
Its the routes that are not being adjusted that are wronged. The grievance is with them.

How close are you to retirement? I guarantee you’ll feel wronged when you are done differently than the carrier working right beside you if it affects your benefits like your pension.

 

[RammerJammer]

This is not an issue where you can point to a specific contract rule that has been broken. It is like a Rosa Parks civil rights violation. The USPS is not consistent in treating all employees with equity and fairness when it comes to cutting routes. I’m surprised this issue has not been addressed in the worthless union convention and contracts before.

 

[Dominator]

Is it not obvious what the wrong is? They don't consistently treat every carrier fairly and equitably upon a "trigger" event such as a route evaluating above 46K after an MMS. My route was cut back in summer of 2024 during the wave of route adjustments that was happening across a lot of the country back then.It was cut back & froze at a 43K while others are allowed to keep a 48K and increase their high 3 when there is a route adjustment process in place now. They will always be able to use that cop out excuse that it is not administratively practicable at this time. So they have a license to treat carriers unequitably. So they have discriminated against me in not allowing my high 3 calculation to increase like the carriers who don't suffer being cut

Obvious or not, the "wrong" needs articulated in order to identify the issue. Management isn't going to concede to a question-begging argument that converts their option into their obligation.

As frustrating as it can be, "fairness", "reasonability", and "equitability" concepts are synced under Article 19. When the union grants management a blanket green light to the "as soon as administratively practicable" rationale, arguing disparity becomes a rough go.

To my understanding, management has an obligation to perform adjustments, but no time limit to perform that obligation. As you implicitly indicated, the obligation loses all enforceability, granting management the unstated "right" to kick the can down the road for... "as long as administratively practicable."

If management had a time limit to perform, and then exceeded that limit, I'd be on board with the inequity argument. Minus that though, it will come down to what specific rule management is violating.

You could try it anyway with hopes that it would land a step 4 decision or award clearly identifying what constitutes "timeliness" in adjustments.

Maybe file on the issue of interpreting "timeliness" in route adjustments. Once that mystery is resolved, you'd have better footing on this issue. You could try filing on both; i.e., "what constitutes timeliness" and "was this timely"?

The "harm" is the (agreed upon) unenforceable obligation. Sadly, the carriers are receiving the collateral damages.

 

[RammerJammer]

So, what could be the remedy of a desperate grievance in this case?
RJ's pre-adjustment wage is reinstated with back pay until all the other routes get adjusted down?
The point is, those other routes need adjusted down per contract. You cant complain desparate and not then have them adjust everyone.
The point is to get them treating everyone the same.

The word is disparate, I’m not desperate although I have reason to be!

The remedy I would like to see happen would be that all route adjustments triggered by reaching an overburdened status are mandated to occur within the same timeframe across the nation or else no adjustments at all.

 

[Dominator]

This is not an issue where you can point to a specific contract rule that has been broken. It is like a Rosa Parks civil rights violation. The USPS is not consistent in treating all employees with equity and fairness when it comes to cutting routes. I’m surprised this issue has not been addressed in the worthless union convention and contracts before.

I am quite convinced that internal corruption has eroded the union. Even if carrier-centric minds somehow made a majority of the Delegates, (or even the National Board), the tools they have to use to challenge management are rusted and busted because previous National Delegations and Boards neglected the tools and left them out in the elements. My "dues payments" go to my TSP where I can seriously invest in my future.

May we consider your objection from another angle?

1. What does equity in your scenario look like to you?
2. What does fairness in your scenario look like to you?

 

[neciat]

You can take a gander at the RDSOP , pages #4 and #12 , and see if perhaps management is in violation of its' own guidelines.

https://www.ruralinfo.net/shared-files/104116848/?Rural-Delivery-Standard-Operating-Procedures-(RDSOP).pdf

 

[U caught my attention]

I want to address first off, what did you mean by protection? To whom or of what?

Protection from auto adjust was what I was talking about. Going all in on auto adjustments might be bad in certain situations.
I assumed the grievance procedure for adjustments was a safer mechanism to take into account route specifics.
Just one example is getting hit hard with volume and then loosing that volume, resulting in an overburdened route award only because that heavy volume didnt get washed away yet.

 

[U caught my attention]

How close are you to retirement? I guarantee you’ll feel wronged when you are done differently than the carrier working right beside you if it affects your benefits like your pension.

10 years-ish to retire. I have 100% been wronged and felt angry about the unfair nature of the evaluated system.
I wont go into details. I still cant talk out loud about it without getting all emotional and bitter. Best to leave it in the past.
The real fun part.....I suspect this particular scenerio might show up again.
Nothing to be done.....its all by contract.
I desperately () try to stay grateful about this job regardless of the blows that come along with it.