January 2025 Update
2025 is off and running with several interesting developments. The most well-known, of course, is the announcement of the Voluntary Early Retirement (VER) or Early Out. In addition, the Union has received a favorable arbitration decision in the Minneapolis Branch and the St. Paul Branch has recently received notice that Terminal Handling Services being performed by a subcontractor will be "insourced" into the St. Paul Plant. Indeed, these are some big-ticket items.
The Union and the Postal Service have agreed to a VER for Mail Handlers which comes with a $15,000.00 tax-deferred payment that will be paid out in two installments. $10,000 will be paid this August and $5,000 in August of 2026. All Mail Handlers wanting to take advantage of this VER must declare by 03/07/2025 and then retire on 04/30/2025 (unless you submitted your retirement paperwork prior to 01/13/2025 with an earlier retirement date listed on the paperwork). The Union does not advise anyone whether they should or should not retire. We have, however, coordinated a retirement seminar with the Federal Employees First Alliance (FEFA). Information concerning the seminar dates is available on the home page. Early retirement is not for everyone, so make your decision carefully.
The Minneapolis Branch recently received a favorable arbitration decision involving a Mail Handler who was issued a first offense removal for alleged improper conduct. Several people worked hard to achieve this result. Among them were Dean Abatte and Jarred Hoover who testified at the hearing, and Anab Mohamed who assisted with the presentation of the case. We fought hard and it’s always a pleasure to welcome a Mail Handler back to work.
We’ve probably been working for close to two years to get subcontracted work back into the hands of Mail Handlers. This involved the Terminal Handling Services (THS) located adjacent the Minneapolis/St. Paul international airport. The work in question involves the transition of packages from a private carrier network (in this case FedEx) to the Postal Service. Prior to the excessing from the Twin Cities L&DC, Mail Handlers from that facility had been assigned to work at the subcontractor’s site. When that stopped, St. Paul Branch President Edward Yun filed an installation wide grievance which sought the return of the work. That grievance paid dividends, and it was announced on January 29th that, “... the Postal Service intends to insource THS work into the Saint Paul, MN Processing and Distribution Center.” Equipment should start arriving in early February with the insourcing scheduled to occur on July 21st.
I would like to express my gratitude to all the Officers, Representatives, and Members, who took the time to submit or participate in the submission of contract proposals. I’ll be in Washington, DC the first week of February serving on the Field Negotiating Committee and I’ll make sure your proposals are given due consideration.
Local 323 has hit the ground running quickly this year, there are many challenges that lay ahead, and we are committed to moving things forward in 2025.
JL