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Friday Message – May 21, 2021

Thank you – Thank you to Jim Dunlap for conducting the Grievance Handling and Request for Information training sessions this month.   If you were unable to get on the calls the past two Thursday’s, but would like to receive the information, you can go to our website to listen to the recording that was made.    The recordings are there for all the sessions we have had so far, PS Form 150, SWC’s, Webcoins and now Grievance Handling.    You can access the recordings from our homepage www.unitedpma.org by clicking on the events drop down menu, the last available selection at the bottom will take you to the recorded message.    I really appreciate the work that all the individuals that have provided these training opportunities have done up to now.   Next month our sessions will deal with what to do if you are facing possible discipline and then in July how to handle job bidding.    The links for those sessions are included in the same events section of the website as the recordings.

Next Month’s Training – Next month our Thursday training sessions will cover the topic It Looks Like I Might be Getting Discipline - What Do I Do? As always, the sessions will take place on the second Thursday in June the 10th at 7:30 PM and on the third Thursday in June the 17th at 9:00 PM. If you go to our website unitedpma.org using the events tab, you can pre-register for the sessions and then the sign in will go that much more quickly on the night of the call.

Postal Reform Legislation – With the passage of H.R. 3076 last week we are looking forward to the bill coming before the full House.   We believe that that may happen before the July 4^th recess.     We will do our best to keep you informed on that as time goes by.    Some very great news happened this week on Wednesday when Senate Homeland Security and Government Relations Committee Chair Senator Gary Peters and Ranking Member Rob Portman introduced the same bill that was passed in the House.   Another positive note on the introduction of the bill in the Senate is that there are a number of members from both parties that have come out in support of the bill as original co-sponsors and this should be a great help as the bill moves forward.   

NPA 2021 – The Postal Service has released the numbers and the plan for Fiscal Year 2021.    I know that there are a number of questions on how this is going to affect you and what the ramifications might be if your district changed during the year and how that will affect the scores.   I have been told that there will be much more information coming out from the USPS in the near future to attempt to answer a number of those questions.   At this point I would encourage you to watch your emails and read as much information as you can get your hands on to stay as informed as possible.    As we receive more information, we will make sure to share it on the website and through these updates.

Pay talks – We held our second round of pay talks yesterday and we were pleased to welcome Kate, Bruce, and James over to the National Office.    We had a good discussion on some of the items and we were given the assurance that Kate and the team at Headquarters are looking at a number of the issues we brought forward and I am confident we will have a pay package that we can present to you by the end of July,

As always, take care and stay safe and follow the guidelines as presented by the CDC and the Postal Service.     

Have a good week!

Dan Heins
UPMA National President