Pivoting - steward resources

Pivoting
Question: Can management have me curtail mail on my own
route to create undertime so that they can give me a pivot
to do within my eight-hour tour of duty?
Answer: Nope.
How many of you have read the column that Jo Ann Feindt
wrote about carriers and management working together ‘to
implement the plan’ in the latest issue of the Great Lakes
Update? When you do, or if you have, please read between
the lines, and apply your past experience with how
management has in the past implemented the ‘plan’.
The recent past has indicated a noticeable change in daily
volume variance that the carrier faces every week. Changes
in transportation of the mail to and from distribution
centers, and the way the mailers send their products,
create drop shipments that have interrupted the steady flow
of mail as in years past. Admittedly, these changes have
also introduced challenges for local management on
particularly light volume days. Fortunately, there is ‘the
plan’.
Unfortunately management has sometimes disregarded the
obvious by ignoring the Article 19 Handbooks and Manuals
such as in this case, the EL-901 (National Contract), the
POM (Postal Operations Manual), M-39 (Supervisors Handbook,
and the M-41 (Carriers Handbook) that, coincidently, are
the real ‘plan’.
Let’s start with defining the term undertime. Natural
undertime for a carrier can only be documented at the end
of the day when a carrier has successfully completed all of
his/her duties as outlined in the M-41 handbook. In other
words, if a carrier is standing in front of the time clock
45 minutes prior to his/her scheduled end of tour, that
carrier has a measurable 45 minutes of undertime that
management may utilize by following the M-39 handbook. It
is this measurable undertime that management may chose to
utilize by assigning a pivot, for example.
However, with the dawning of the POST (Projected Office and
Street Time) management has a non-contractual tool capable,
and I use that word loosely) of predetermining a carriers
‘estimated’ workload on any given day. There are obvious

easons as to why this is, at this time, strictly a
management tool that has not been nationally approved or
recognized by both parties as bona fide. It is this
estimation that the POST provides, that your manager uses
to suggest to you that you should be able to carry your
route and a push or pivot and be back on time. This ‘plan’
is sometimes used to intimidate a small percent of the
carriers not wise to management’s techniques.
As we all have witnessed, there are rare days of very light
mail volume when all of us know well that their day is
short and have no problem offering management assistance by
voluntarily taking a pivot to fulfill the day. We have all
done this. Unfortunately, the trend has been that
management will expect that type of cooperation from the
carriers when it is not warranted or justifiable, or when
the POST has incorrectly indicated, or estimated, a light
day.
Now let’s examine how management sometimes takes this one
step further by having a carrier curtail mail in order to
create or ‘artificially induce’ undertime. First we must
examine management’s reliance or interpretation of the
language within the Postal Operations Manual (POM) that
states the following:
Section 617.2 Employee Undertime Utilization - Pivoting
,II Pivoting is a method of utilizing the undertime of one or
several carriers to perform duties on a temporarily vacant
route or to cover absences. Non-preferential mail may be
curtailed within delivery time standards on the vacant route
and/or on the routes of the carriers being pivoted.
.12 Pivoting is not limited to periods when mail volume is
light and when absences are high but can be utilized
throughout the year for maintaining balanced carrier
workloads.
While this language allows for pivoting, it does not, and
should not be read or interpreted as to allow for
circumvention of Article 41 provisions of the National
Agreement. Article 41.1.C.4 states the following:
The successful bidder shall work the duty assignment as
posted.
Unanticipated circumstances may require a temporary
change in assignment. This same rule shall apply to Carrier

Technician assignments, unless the local agreement
provides otherwise.
This JCAM language is a result of a Step 4 decision as
follows:
Prearbitration Settlement M-01292
July 28, 1997, F94N-4F-C 97005324
The parties agreed that application of section 617.2 Pivoting,
of the Postal Operations Manual (POM) does not change the
provisions of Article 41, Section l.C.4 of the National
Agreement.
Routers must be kept on their bid assignment and not
moved off the duties in the bid description unless there is an
undertime situation, or in "unanticipated circumstances."
Let’s also examine the way that arbitrators have defined
‘unanticipated circumstances’ as used in the National
Agreement.
An unanticipated condition, by definition, cannot be one
which is known, deliberately created, or planned by the
Service prior to its occurrence. C-16483
Unscheduled sick leave does not constitute an
"unanticipated circumstance" within the meaning of Article
41 Section 1.C.4. C-03633 Regional Arbitrator Holly
Unfortunately management does deliberately create and plan
to cover vacancies by creating undertime by instructing
carriers to curtail mail thereby reducing the carriers
workload to less than the bid assignment’s posted eight
hours. This action is a violation of Article 41.1.C.4.
Let’s take for example Branch 100 in Ohio. These Brothers
and Sisters filed such a grievance and Arbitrator Ross
ruled in 2002 the following:
Regular Arbitration C-23458 (June 21, 2002)
Jerome H. Ross, Arbitrator

Management improperly used pivoting to plan around anticipated
circumstances and force carriers to pivot when there was no
indication that the work on their own routes was light.
The grievance is sustained. Management shall cease and desist
from this practice. All affected carriers shall receive one hour of pay
at the overtime rate for each day they were forced off their bid
assignment during the period at issue.
Management’s response to this ruling was they considered
this arbitrated decision to be a fluke and chose to ignore
it. One hundred and fifty grievances later, Branch 100 had
another such grievance sent to arbitration again. This
time Arbitrator Lalka upheld the 2002 Ross decision as
follows:
Regular Arbitration C-25392 (August 15, 2004)
Colman R. Lalka, Arbitrator
The Postal Service ordered Carriers to curtail third-class mail on
their Duty Assignments, and pivot onto vacant routes. The
vacancies were not unanticipated. The grievance is sustained. The
Postal Service shall cease and desist the practice, and all affected
Carriers shall receive one hour of pay at the overtime rate for each
day they were forced off their Duty Assignments.
This past weekend I had the pleasure of discussing this
topic with NALC Nation Officer and Executive Vice President
Fred Rolando. We discussed the POM language on pivoting
and management’s attempts to curtail mail to induce
undertime. If you are instructed to curtail mail and by
doing so will reduce (in you opinion) your daily assignment
to less than the posted eight hours, request to speak to
your steward and file a grievance.
Although this ‘plan’ has not been widely attempted here in
our offices this year as in the past, the article in this
months Great Lakes Area Update should be a heads up to all
members within Local 671. I’m sure that our managers have
received memos regarding this tactic. Be prepared, be
educated.
Robert Bales
Branch 671 Secretary