National President Hogrogian has made the official call for bargaining proposals for our upcoming contract negotiations. Take advantage of this opportunity to help mold the new contract and submit your ideas. Click here for the submission form.
The battles we fight day in and day out on workroom floors, in grievance meetings, and in arbitration hearings across this local and across the country are obviously critically important to protecting the contractual rights we have struggled to gain over decades of collective bargaining. Our National partners, over those many years, have constructed terms and conditions that rival the best in organized labor. To be sure, at every opportunity we strive to improve upon those terms at all levels of the organization. This ability to bargain for better wages and working conditions is in real jeopardy Brothers & Sisters as we face an administration bent on taking from the working men and women of this nation to give even more to the very wealthiest among us. One need only review the recent actions of the President for evidence that he and his ilk aim to reduce our standard of living while they stuff their already obscenely bulging pockets. Read More
As many of you now know, the national parties have resolved a number of ongoing disputes with the signing of the Update of Regional Instruction (RI) 399 Procedures MOU. This agreement in its entirety is available for review on the National website @npmhu.org.
The MOU itself is seven pages in length and signed by NPMHU President Paul Hogrogian and APWU President Mark Dimondstein. At its core, the MOU proports to cure some of the major defects within the mechanism for resolving disputed work assignments along with giving the parties a fresh start in a procedure that currently finds some disputes decades old with no real hope they would see resolution in our lifetimes. Like all negotiated agreements there are aspects that benefit the craft and there are some, not so much. However, Brother Hogrogian has never shied away from the tough decision and has always put the mail handler membership ahead of all other considerations. It is clear to us that in this case the pros significantly outweigh the cons. The Union in negotiating this agreement with the APWU and Postal management has secured thousands of jobs that would have otherwise been in jeopardy. For those who see this as mere hyperbole, one need only review the recent history of the SPSS. The initial craft assignment of the Small Parcel Sorting System gave the entire operation to the mail handler craft only to see the employer change its position and give much of the work away. Prior to this historic agreement the risk of losing jobs on the mere whim of postal management was a very real and dangerous possibility. This risk has been neutralized and jobs saved. Read More 
OPM PROPOSES CUTS TO RETIREMENT BENEFITS
As we have previously reported, the Union has been successful in pushing back on the employer’s most recent proposed staffing cuts in both the South Jersey and Philadelphia Districts. We again thank the fine work of those representatives in the Trenton and South Jersey plants as well as those in the Philadelphia P&DC and the NDC in neutralizing the impacts to our members. Incredibly, we are now seeing an increase in the hiring of Mail Handler Assistants in the two Philly plants. As you all know, there are still many challenges ahead as the “F-U scheduler” retools to unnecessarily screw with the hours and drop days and ultimately the lives of mail handlers. While it appears that around the Local and really around the nation, management has taken their foot of the insanity pedal, we are not of the opinion that they have abandoned their irrational scheduler. This is certainly no time for us to rest as “sure as shootin’” we will be facing additional rounds of staffing and hours manipulation in the coming months. Much of the next wave of “weaponized incompetence” will be driven yet again by Postal Headquarters’ dire predications of cataclysmic drops in marketing mail volume and made up revenue forecasts.
Read More 
Over the last several months we have reported management’s intention to reduce staffing in both the South Jersey District as well as the Philadelphia Metropolitan District, potentially affecting hundreds of bargaining unit members. Following a number of meetings with the employer, Local 308 and our Regional representatives were able to convince management to drastically reduce the impact if not eliminate it altogether. As many of you know, the impact to the Philadelphia NDC as well as the Philadelphia P&DC has been fully mitigated, meaning, aside from the few mail handlers that elected to reassign into the custodial craft, mail handlers are staying right where they are. Although not finalized, we expect the same for our Trenton facility and the South Jersey plant. There are certainly other challenges we will be facing in the coming weeks and months, specifically the continuing effect of the employer’s broken Function 1 Scheduler on the lives of mail handlers.
However, recent news out of both the Philly NDC as well as the Philly P&DC reveal how broken the F-1 really is. Read More Here 
It is certainly no secret that the Service plans to cut staffing and realign schedules on a massive scale in 2018. We have written about the uncertainty we face and the potential impacts to mail handlers across the Local and across the country. As previously reported, we have four facilities that have been targeted for staffing cuts and involuntary reassignment of career mail handlers to other installations. This process requires the parties meet at the Regional level to discuss the impact and potential landing spots for those subject to involuntary reassignment. The Union has held the first two of the four scheduled with a follow-up meeting scheduled for the Philadelphia NDC. It should be noted that the employer has not been completely forthcoming with information requested by Local 308 and we have filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Philadelphia Metropolitan District. As reported to both the Philadelphia P&DC as well as the NDC, the meetings were held back to back on December 14th with the former much more productive than the latter. Read Full Report
The Postal Service has recently announced a number of impacts across Local 308 and across the nation for that matter, as they catapult headlong into their Function 1 driven fiasco. I have yet to meet the postal employee with two brain cells to rub together that thinks this is a good idea. But yet this is where we are headed… right into a crippling reduction in workforce, that will achieve nothing beyond extraordinary rates of overtime and a standard of service designed to keep the mail away from our customers for as long as possible. Our National leadership has met with their USPS counterparts on numerous occasions in an attempt to understand the madness the Post Master General now pursues. Of course, the reality of the mail processing work place seems to be lost on the “best and the brightest” in postal headquarters. Nationally we have filed an unfair labor practice charge, as the employer has failed to provide the Union with relevant information regarding the fatally flawed Function 1 process. Read More
Federal Employee Health Benefits
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Wage Increase
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As the National parties finalize the effective dates of many of the recently negotiated and now ratified contractual provisions, the wage increases effective November 26, 2016 (PP 25-16) and the September 2016 (PP 19-16) cost of living allowance have been implemented and will be reflected on your earnings statement for pay period four. The pay scale reflecting that increase is available on both the National and Local web sites for downloading @ www.npmhu.org and www.npmhu308.org respectively. In addition, the March cost of living allowance has been determined to be $333 annually or approximately $.16 per hour. This increase will take effect on Saturday March 4, 2017 and be reflected in the earnings statement for pay period six. The pay scale that will be in effect on March 4th is also now available on the aforementioned web sites. As you know, retroactive pay adjustments will be necessary for all of the wages earned between pay period 19-16 for the September COLA and from pay period 26-16 for the contractual increase. The exact pay in which those adjustments will be reflected has yet to be announced. If you have any questions regarding your retroactive calculation once it is reflected on your earnings statement please see your Union representative.
Read More of the President's Report 2nd COLA Announced
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