Branch News January 26, 2025
Fellow Members- Let me start off by correcting a mistake that I hurriedly posted in the last rant. For those of you who haven’t used your President Carter Day of Mourning administrative leave (and there may be a few of you yet that didn’t), you have until September 30th to use it. I had erroneously posted it as August 31st, but you do indeed have until September 30th to use your 8 hours of admin. The Lehigh Valley/Scranton Picnic is scheduled for August 16th at the same pavilion and thankfully with the same caterer. More details in the future. Proposals for the upcoming CBA negotiations are due at National HQ on January 31st. If you have a proposal, get it to me by Thursday at noon and I will fax it in with the others that I have received so far. This is a chance for us to have a say in the process and be a part of tweaking our National Agreement; the worst they can do is say no. Prime vacation bidding for people with seniority numbers 1-90 is now open and will close on January 31st. The bids will then be posted in the hall and from February 6-21 people with seniority #91 until the end of the MHA list will be able to bid on the weeks that they want. Ryan Barna, Thema Dywer-Barnett, Manuel Cruz, Angela Gomez, and Josh Snyder all attended training at Local 308 HQ on January 23rd for OWCP workmen’s compensation procedures. If you get hurt on the job, please ask to see a shop steward so that they can assist you with getting all your forms filed in a timely fashion to protect your pay. Be sure to report your injury/accident as soon as is practicable. If management is screwing things up (which let’s face it, they are 93% of the time), please be sure to ask to see a steward or get in touch with them somehow. During this last round of job bids, there were several people who either missed the application time for manual bids, made mistakes on their bids, or made their mistakes on their online bids. Folks, if you need assistance with bidding or have a question about bidding, please do not hesitate to ask myself or a shop steward. I rather not see people miss out on jobs they want or bid the wrong jobs because of mistakes that could be prevented. Use your Union! If you are a regular and perform higher level work for four hours or more, you are to be paid for 8 hours of higher level for that day. Please monitor your checks and make sure that management is putting you in. If you want to be guaranteed your birthday off in spite of book limits, you must apply for it at least 30 days in advance. You are not automatically granted it off if you put in for it the day before; that is not how the LMOU reads. January 25th was our Union bowling event and it was a fun time. The food was good, drinks were had by some, and people showed off their bowling prowess (or lack thereof). All that matters though is that a fun time was had by all. Ricardo Ramsingh won a TV, Tim Casey and Amrit Singh won $50 gift certificates and no supervisors/204B’s were spotted trying to sneak in. We even had an attendee from Harrisburg and one of our Hazleton Mail Handlers show up. We will be doing another bowling event because this one seemed like such a success. It is nice to get out, relax, and have fun with people outside of the work environment. The USPS announced that there will be a voluntary early retirement package offered this year. Applicants will receive two incentive installments totaling $15,000 and must be retired effective no later than April 30th. For anyone who was going to retire within the next 10-12 months, this is definitely an offer to consider. If you are past your max and were going to retire anyway then there’s plenty of motivation. You need to make the Post Office aware of your intent to retire by March 7th. Please see the National Mail Handler Update newsletter on the bulletin board or the Local and National websites for more information. Conveniently and coincidently, you can also soak in a lot more information and a get better idea of if retiring is right for you by attending a seminar with our favorite retirement pro Patricia Tenney on either February 16th or 17th in Bethlehem. If you have any questions, concerns, or just want to learn about what goes on in retirement, Patricia lays it all out for you and she will even fill out your retirement books free of charge. If you are considering retiring this year or next year, or if you want to know what your retirement financial plan will look like with this incentive then please call and reserve your space in her seminar today. My advice to anyone contemplating taking this buyout or thinking about retiring soon is to attend the seminar because you will still have time before the deadline to notify the PO of a decision. You won’t want to miss out on the cash incentive and wind up regretting what might have been later if you wait and then find out that it would’ve been better to retire. These retirement incentives don’t come along often; good health and tomorrow are promised to no one. Make an informed decision and don’t regret not getting out. Lastly, Plant Manager Greg Miller had several town hall meetings last week to talk about the OTH mail that we have been running on the SIPS and APPS. It is great to hear that we are a standard-bearer for running this mail, but situations are fluid as always and none of us should be complacent. We were told that processing this mail is here to stay for the foreseeable future and that there is more good news coming in the not-so-distant future. My advice, again, is to not rest on our laurels, but to continue showing up and doing our jobs to process the mail timely and efficiently at Lehigh Valley. The Mail Handlers have been kicking some ass over the past few months and rising above mechanical issues, staffing problems, and weather-related nonsense. Let’s keep rolling. Stay United, Stay Strong- Sean Lehigh Valley-Scranton 2022 Picnic |
![]() Branch President Sean Craig Your Union RepresentativesLocal Memorandum of UnderstandingUpdated 2023
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