4th COLA of 2021-2024
Contract
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The Consumer Pricing
Index (CPI-W) rose in
July resulting in a
Cost-of-Living increase
for all APWU represented
carrer employees.
This COLA will increase
wages, for career
employees, by $0.48 per
hour ($998 annually for
FT employees) and will
appear in paychecks on
September 15, 2023.
This
COLA brings the total
increase, to date, under
the 2021-2024 contract
to $2.39 per hour
($4,971 annually).
The next COLA is
scheduled for February
2024 and will depend on
the January CPI-W.
PSEs do not receive COLA
increases.
However, they have
received supplmental
wage increases in
addition to the November
general wage increases.
PSEs will enjoy these
past COLAs upon their
conversion as the
increases have been
added to career base
rates. Their
hourly wages going
forward will include
these COLAs.
It should be noted that
the APWU is the
only
postal union that
ensures FULL COLA for
all career employees.
The Letter Carriers and
Mailhandler unions, in
their last contract,
agreed to "graduated"
COLAs where the amount
of COLA is based on
years of service.
Meaning a newer employee
gets less than a senior
employee. The APWU
does not accept that
rationale and APWU
President Mark
Dimondstein fought for,
and won, full COLA for
all career employees
regardless of sevice
time.
New
pay rates,
includeing the August
COLA can be viewed on
the National website.
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PS FORM 3077 - REQUEST
TO FORWARD PAYCHECK
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Any employee who
retires, or goes out on
an extended absence,
should consider fill out
PS Form 3077, Request to
Forward Paycheck.
When an employee retires
any grievances that have
been filed for them
remain active. If
those grievances are
resolved with the
employee receiving a
payment, the check is
mailed to the office
where the employee last
worked because the USPS
no longer has access to
that employee's records
and does not know if
they have moved since
retiring.
Too often, these checks
sit, unclaimed for
extended periods of
time. Eventually,
management decides to
reach out to people,
however, the checks
often have expiration
dates on them and if not
received in time the
employee has to request
a replacement check
which starts the whole
process all over again.
Sure, employees can come
to the post office to
claim their checks but
first they have to know
a check is there and for
those who have moved
coming to the office may
not be an option.
Usually, employees call
the Post Office, verify
their mailing address
and management send the
check out. They
will not
mail the check without
verifying the address.
By submitting PS Form
3077, employee can do
their part to avoid this
problem. Even if
you do not plan on
moving after retiring /
resigning, you should
still submit this for
before you go.
Local management can
keep it on file and use
it for any checks that
appear with your name on
them. You can
download PS Form 3077 on
the
Forms
page.
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eOPF access
blocked - Employees Can
Request Hard Copies
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The USPS has blocked
access to employee
personell folders (eOPF)
on liteblue due to
concerns about security.
The documents in an
employees OPF contain
sensitive information
(i.e. social security
numbers, former
addresses, maiden names,
date of birth, high
school attended, etc...)
Some of this information
is the kind used for
security questions to
reset passwords for
online accounts.
The Postal Service has
employed an Artifical
Intelligence (AI)
program to scour the
eOPF documents of all
employees. The AI
program is redacting,
and obscuring, sensitive
information.
However, the AI program
cannot identify
hand-written
information. As a
result, the USPS must
review the eOPF for
every employee and
manually redact any
information the AI
program may have missed.
The USPS indicates it
may take six months, or
more, to complete this
process. Until
that time, the eOPF
feature will be
unavailable.
The USPS has indictaed
that employee may
request printed copies
of their eOPF, at no
charge, by contacting
their district office:
From the USPS "Employees
may request a copy of
their eOPFs in person or
in writing to their
district Human Resource
Office.
If the request is made
in writing, they will be
requested to provide
proof of identity. No
charges will be assessed
of active employees for
requested copies of hard
copies of their eOPFs
while the eOPF system
remains unavailable due
to security upgrades." The
Postal Service has
provided the following
contact information for
eOPF requests.
District |
Contact |
email |
Phone |
Address |
PA-1 |
Lori Price |
lori.a.price@usps.gov |
412-359-7687 |
1001 California
Ave
Pittsburgh, PA
15290-9998 |
DE-PA2 |
Julie Campbell |
julie.campbell@usps.gov |
215-863-5034 |
3190 S 70th St
Philadelphia,
PA 19053-9994 |
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IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON
LITEBLUE SCAMS!!
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APWU members are warned of two scams
that have been occuring involving
liteblue. The first involves
scammers that call employees and
claim to be Postal Inpectors.
The inform the employee that their
liteblue access has been locked and,
in order to unlock it, the employee
needs to verify their identify by
providing the employee ID number and
liteblue password. If the
scammers get the info, they log on
to the employee's account and change
thjeir direct deposit information to
send their paycheck to another bank
account.
The second scam affects people who
use Google searches to log on to
liteblue. When they do a
Google search for liteblue, some of
the results that come up lead to
fake liteblue sites. The
scammers hope you input your
information so they can steal it.
More detailed information is on the
APWU website. Read it
HERE
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We have completed negotaitions and
signed-off on the 2021 - 2024
Maintenance Craft Local Memoiradum
of Understanding for the Lehigh
Valley P&DC. We are in the
process of having new LMOU books
printed for every Maintenance Craft
member at the plant. Until
they are ready, we have posted a
copy of the new LMOU
HERE.
Feel free to look it over and ask
any questions you may have.
We are also planning to set up a
number of Zoom meetings, with
maintenance craft employees, to go
over the changes int he agreement.
Keep an eye on the bulletin board
for dates / times of meeting
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PTF / PSE CANVASSING
MOVES ONLINE
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Effective February 01, 2022, the
USPS will be moving all PTF/PSE
Canvassing bids online as part of
eReassign on litbelue. Both
the APWU and USPS realized there
were problems with the current
canvassing processes because some
offices failed (refused?) to share
the printed canvassing notices with
their employees. This resulted
in many PTFs missing out on the
opportunity to change offices, and
PSEs were denied the opportunity to
convert to a career position.
This new, digital, process will
remove that obstacle and grant all
employees equal opportunities to
bid. Postmasters in all
offices have been instructed to give
a service talk and post notices
about this new process. In
anticipation of the fact that some
will "forget" to do it, you can view
the posting
HERE.
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PRE-PRINT COPY OF NEW
CONTRACT
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The APWU has released a pre-print
copy of the tentative agreement.
This is a draft version which is
pending proofreading and final
editing before being printed and
sent out to all members for the
ratification vote. You can get
a head start on preparing for the
vote if you want to review the
document
HERE
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COVID-19 INFORMATION &
RESOURCES PAGE ADDED
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With COVID surging across the
District and the country, we have
created a separate page for COVID
related resources, information, and
forms. This information
includes:
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Information about filing and
OWCP claim when you are out of
work due to COVID
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Step-by-step instructions for
filing a claim using the
web-based e-Comp site
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Links
to carious documents, tutorials,
Memorandums of Understanding,
and other COVID stuff
Check out
the
COVID-19 page
now.
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2022 LOCAL MEMBERSHIP MEETINGS
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JANUARY 09, 2022 |
FEBRUARY 06, 2022 |
APRIL 10, 2022 |
MAY 15, 2022 |
SEPTEMBER 11, 2022 |
NOVEMBER 06, 2022 |
The Local will also be
hosting
Area Informational Meetings
in: |
March 2022
- (Date / Location TBD) |
June 2022
- (Date / Location
TBD) |
October 25, 2022
- Stroudsburg |
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RMD CALL
OFF
877-477-3273
TTY 866-833-8777 |
USPS
EMERGENCY HOTLINE
888-363-7462 |
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LV P&DC JOB POSTING |
MANUAL POSTING
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PTF / PSE Canvassing |
PTF/PSE Canvassing
is available on
liteblue
1st - 10th &
15th - 25th each month |
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DOWNLOADS |
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OFFICER MAILBOX
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