We recently held our State convention, we as most all State conventions had a National Representative present.
They of course were given the opportunity to take the stage and give us an update on the State of the State of the NRLCA. It was during that speech that an item of interest piqued my attention.

That was the Eischen award on 'fletters" and whether or not we will readdress that issue as now the USPS has determined that a dumping ground for letter sized mail. I would like to give a brief history.

Feb. 27,2003 Former NRLCA President Gus Baffa refers this issue to National handling, which begins the discussion of the issue at the National level with the USPS.

Former NRLCA President Dale Holton Appeals the issue to National Arbitration on June 23, 2005.

 Opening Statement from William Daigenault to Randy Anderson, " The Union cannot achieve a new credit for these letters in the Grievance/ Arbitration procedure when it has not bargained for this credit in collective bargaining."
Thus began the grievance process.

At this time it fell upon the NRLCA to prove that these "fletters" created a burden on the carriers and required a adjusted time credit. The USPS tried to convince that the NRLCA had no right to argue this case before an Arbitrator as the Wells decision covered the fletters issue. Arbitrator Eischen determined that this was not the case and our Attorneys squared off.

During the course of the events this statement was made " Though it concedes the Postal Service has not altered the way it presents "fletters" and at this point in our reciept the amount of fletters was not unreasonable, yet enough to argue.

The NRLCA argued " The Postal Service is not contractually permitted to deliberately commingle such letters(fletters) with flat sized mail"

Of course there was much more than these arguments, but you get the picture. The NRLCA argued that those that "taco" mail that it took much more time to process that mail, this is all documented in the (Standard Training Program for Rural Carriers Course) most of which a large amount of us have never seen. Also in that training course is the 'Stand up method"

Needless to say Arbitrator Eischen determined that because of the training in both methods of casing mail, the grievance was denied. I must tell you from what I've been able to read there is no room for play in this document and any hope for the opportunity for readdress of the fletter issue would be mute.

I know that you know my interests does not stop there, after further research there are some questions that still persist. We need to look at some of these.

 First I'd like to bring to your attention is the( M38 342.1 Management will decide the type of case) if we are provided with a case that is designed for a 1 bundle or "taco" method of mail casing then the decision by Eischen of Training Course 44503-00 is irrelevant as we are not using a " stand up method" of casing.

Second is the argument that the USPS has not altered the way it presents these "fletters"  to us as most are aware that now we receive whole buckets of same. So where does that leave us? The next National Board meeting will not be held until after the National Convention. At that time maybe a determination will be made to look into this issue. WE that have been issued equipment for a "taco" method of delivery will battle these buckets of letters mixed with flats.

This will undoubtedly be an issue that will be decided by those that we chose to represent us for the next year. We have some of the most difficult choices our Association has had to make in recent history, by deciding if were happy with the direction our leaders have taken or whether we will break the mold that has been the norm for so long.

Choose wisely.

And Thats The Way Jay Sees It