National Arbitration Decision on Universal Sorting System (USS) (pdf)
We are pleased to report that the NPMHU has prevailed in its National RI-399 dispute concerning jurisdictional assignments on the Universal Sorting System or USS.
In an award dated May 24, 2022, National Arbitrator Joseph Sharnoff concluded that the jurisdictional determination originally issued by the Postal Service in 2019 was consistent with the principles of RI-399, and that the Mail Handler Craft is the proper craft for performing all operations on the USS, including the reject keying station. In a lengthy, 82-page decision, the Arbitrator agreed with the arguments presented by the NPMHU and the Postal Service, and rejected each argument put forward by the APWU.
Here are some of the key paragraphs:
The Arbitrator concludes, for the following reasons, that the APWU has failed to meet its heavy burden of proving that the USPS acted improperly and in a manner which has been demonstrated by the protesting Union to have been arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, and that the craft determination constituted an abuse of the USPS’s discretion with regard to its issuance of the Craft Jurisdiction Determination letter for the USS, dated July 12, 2019, in favor of the Mail Handler Craft for all positions on the USS, including the employees performing the dumping, singulating, keying, and removing/sweeping of parcels/packages from the USS, with the exception of the staffing of the “Scan Where You Band” operation when present, which work was awarded to the Clerk Craft, with allied work on that operation assigned to the Mail Handler Craft.