Memo from Greg Bell, APWU Director of Industrial Relations- click here for the full text of the award in .pdf format.

Re: Award on Subcontracting AOI Installation and Maintenance

Enclosed you will find a copy of a recent national award regarding the APWU’s challenge to management’s subcontracting of Associate Office Infrastructure (AOI) installation and maintenance work. (USPS #Q94T-4Q-C 97031616; 2/11/2010) Arbitrator Das sustained the APWU’s grievance and ruled that management violated Article 32.1.B by not giving the union an opportunity to meet with it regarding AOI installation and maintenance work involving cabling and AOI servers. Das ordered that the Postal Service assign maintenance of “AOI
servers – to the extent they remain in operation – and the LAN cabling within the AOs to the maintenance craft.” In addition he directed that the parties discuss “the possibility of additional LAN maintenance work in the AOs being assigned to the bargaining unit.” With regard to a retroactive remedy, Arbitrator Das ordered that the issue be returned to the parties for discussion of a remedy taking into account the remedy discussion in Das’s 2002 national arbitration award in USPS #Q94V-4Q-C 96044758.

This case arose in 1996 after the Postal Service informed APWU at the national level of deployment of AOI in the largest 7,836 of approximately 34,000 Associate Offices.

Management indicated that deployment consisted of individual site surveys, wiring installation, hardware/telecommunication installation, acceptance and testing and related activities by a contractor. Subsequently, the union requested a meeting to discuss the work and its impact on the APWU bargaining unit, as well as a deployment schedule of installation and maintenance work. Management didn’t agree to meet with the union and instead wrote that the impact on the APWU bargaining unit is “both negligible in the immediate term and unknown in the future.”

Thereafter, the union initiated a Step 4 grievance stating that the work was bargaining unit work and should not be subcontracted. In its response to the grievance, the Postal Service said “’the contracting out of these services and products is not work that has ever been within the jurisdiction of the bargaining unit.’” In addition management claimed that since there was “’no significant impact [on bargaining unit work], there was no requirement to notify the national union of the change as called for in Article 32’” and it merely notified the local union of its decision as a “’courtesy’”. Moreover, it asserted that management determined it would “’be more efficient and economical to meet … needs [of the Postal Service] with this contract.’”

At the arbitration hearing, a Postal Service witness testified that the AOI was the beginning of the Postal Service intranet and was part of a management network services contract in which the contractor provided data services, Local Area Network (LAN) services, Wide Area Network (WAN) services, voice services, satellite services, and other items for the postal intranet including security and firewalls. This witness said also that he recommended contracting out the AOI deployment because employees at the National Network Service Center (NNSC), which was the predecessor to the Telecommunication Service, were all EAS, not bargaining unit employees. He conceded, however, that maintenance craft employees could have been taught to pull cabling used to install the LAN and agreed that several years earlier two management officials had indicated that maintenance craft employees would support the wiring on both the MPI LAN and ALAN, two separate LANs in the plants that are joined together.

The APWU presented testimony of several witnesses that before implementation of AOI bargaining unit employees in the plants were responsible for several computers that collect data communicated by modem and dedicated phone lines to national data centers. These individuals testified that they maintained everything including wiring and the CSU/DSU, which translated computer data for transmission to the point where the carrier’s phone line left the building, and they were responsible for both hardware and software troubleshooting for PSDS and ACDS.

They further indicated that plant ETs or other maintenance craft employees traveled to AOs if problems arose there. Additional testimony established that in 1996-97 there were approximately 6,000 ETS who could have been assigned to AOI work, and there were 9,000 other maintenance employees who could have done cabling and other work. In addition, union witnesses indicated that ETs are highly trained and possess knowledge, skills and abilities to install and maintain AOI work, which falls within their job descriptions. Moreover, the union introduced into evidence maintenance work orders to establish that maintenance craft employees regularly are assigned to perform telecommunications computer system work.

The union argued that the installation and maintenance of AOI constituted maintenance craft bargaining unit work which maintenance workers were available to perform. To support this contention, we argued that maintenance craft position descriptions and qualification standards as well as work orders and similar documents showed that maintenance employees could install and maintain Postal Service systems and equipment including telecommunications and computer systems equipment. The union further contended that AOI not only has telecommunications and computer functions, but also collects and transmits mail processing, time and attendance, and retail terminal information in addition to transmitting voice messages. We maintained that before AOI, this data was contained in computers installed and maintained by maintenance craft employees and was transmitted in telephone lines installed and maintained by these employees.

The union contended that the Postal Service violated Articles 32 and 19, by not providing the union with advance notification and by not giving due consideration to the factors listed in Article 32.1.A. We also asserted that management violated ASM 535.111 since that provision requires that maintenance of postal equipment be performed by postal personnel whenever possible with the exception of two cases that don’t apply in these circumstances. The union requested that the Postal Service be directed to assign AOI maintenance work to bargaining unit
employees immediately after issuance of the decision in this case, and that the issue of monetary damages be remanded to the parties.

The Postal Service countered that Article 32 doesn’t apply in this case since the installation, operation and maintenance of AOI didn’t constitute bargaining unit work. It asserted instead that such work involved telecommunications and computer information systems which historically have been excluded from the bargaining unit. Management further argued that ASM Subchapter 530 assigns maintenance, and not installation or operation, of “postal equipment” to maintenance craft employees and “postal equipment” doesn’t include telecommunications and computer information systems. It also contended that when seven existing networks, including the PSDS network, were combined into a bigger network (PITN) in 1988, the maintenance craft had no role in installation or even operation or maintenance of PITN. Further citing MMO-21-91, which concerns maintenance staffing, the Postal Service argued that the order’s listing of postal equipment contained no mention of LANs, WANs, routers, patch panels, modems, wiring or cable. It further maintained that position descriptions don’t establish that the maintenance craft has work jurisdiction over all computers. Also, work orders offered by the union post-date AOI installation work and therefore don’t support the union’s claim to the AOI work. Also, management contended that it complied with Article 32, even though it didn’t have to satisfy the terms of that provision. It argued that it provided the union with notification of deployment of
AOI in advance of the final decision to subcontract and instead of the union requesting a meeting promptly, it waited a few weeks to request such a meeting. Finally, management contended that even if a violation of Article 32 is found, no remedy is warranted because the maintenance craft has shown no harm. Therefore, any remedy should be limited to a meeting with the parties to
determine what part of the work prospectively should be assigned to the maintenance craft.

Arbitrator Das ruled that the Postal Service violated Article 32.1.B when it didn’t meet and discuss the matter of subcontracting AOI work since “at least some of the AOI work was within the scope of duties performed by the bargaining unit.” He found no merit in the Postal Service’s contention that the union was dilatory in requesting a meeting after receiving notice of the AOI program at the national level, noting that management didn’t respond to the union’s request for over a month.

Das then indicated that though “designing and configuring WAN and LAN networks using IP protocol is a critical component of Postal Service telecommunications and the postal intranet, and as such, is within NNSC’s responsibility”, the record showed that “bargaining unit employees (as well as vendors) had installed, replaced and/or maintained telecommunication
wiring or cabling within postal facilities that connected various data-producing equipment, including mail processing, timekeeping and retail operations equipment, through modems, etc., to the carrier’s punchbox.” In addition, he found that “[m]aintenance craft employees (as well as vendors) also installed, replaced and/or maintained computer equipment that was a part of or connected to mail processing and retail and other postal operations equipment.” He further
reasoned that AOI servers are “computers, with keyboards and monitors, that evidently were intended to be used to aggregate data from retail and other Postal operations at AOs prior to transmission of that data to other Postal Service facilities” and they have not be shown to be “telecommunications equipment.” Moreover, he found that the bargaining unit “had the skill and capability to install the cabling for the LANs and the AOI servers set up in the AOs.”

“If the Postal Service had met with the Union, as requested, before finalizing its decision to contract out all the AOI work,” according to Arbitrator Das, “the Union may have been able to persuade management that at least some of the AOI installation and/or maintenance work involving cabling and the AOI servers could be assigned to the bargaining unit, consistent with Article 32.1.A.” He concluded that since the union was not given that opportunity, an appropriate remedy should be provided.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 10:21 am and is filed under APWU, arbitration, outsourcing, postal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.