PS 1767's Can Save Custodial Positions

By Bill Pick, Maintenance Steward/National Staffing Advocate

USPS maintenance miscreants. . . uh, I mean management, is mounting a full-scale assault on reducing the career custodians workforce, with their introduction of the new MS-47 handbook.  Why should you care?

Because, with the new MS-47, the cleaning and policing frequencies are not spelled out.  This leaves the cleanliness of a facility up to management's subjective judgment (what is best for their EVA).  This new handbook is the perfect response to the VOICE OF THE BONUS.

Management will now be able to apply that keen deductive reasoning they are known for.  I can hear their reasoning: "If my office is clean, then the building must be clean," and/or "My toilet is clean, therefore, the workroom toilets are clean."

In the long run this misapplication of cleaning standards will have a negative effect on the health and safety of all employees.  You only have to look at how management has treated employees at the anthrax contaminated facilities to get an idea of how much they care about your well-being.  Management's new motto should be "Attrition through death is ideal."

Employees in most of the stations where management has contracted the custodial services have long suffered from inadequate cleaning, due to the fact that management does not hold the contractors to the same standards as they hold career employees.  If a station's contract calls for 30 hours a week and the contract's employee only shows up for 3 hours a day, even if they show up 6 days a week that comes to a total of 18 hours, that leaves 12 hours of cleaning that was not performed by the contractor, but they will be paid for 30 hours.  Call it what you want, but that is fraud, and management could care less, but, let a career employee be late a couple of minutes coming back form break and watch the discipline fly.  Then again, this is the same corporate mentality that spawned the Martinez & Lenn graft that allowed the "Postal Pirates" of South Florida to flourish.  

In performing Maintenance Staffing Surveys around the country, I have had managers of stations where custodial services have been contracted, ask how they can go about getting career custodians in their facilities, because they are not happy with the contractor's performance.  Yet, in stations with career custodians, management has them perform everything from maintaining the carrier vehicles, running errands, delivering Express Mail, and changing P O Box and drop box locks, everything but their cleaning duties.  Management then tries to discipline the employees for failing to keep the building clean.  And management wonders why nobody wants to be a team player.

During mid-March 2002, maintenance management at the Fort Lauderdale P&DC performed a new custodial workforce by approximately 5 positions.  This can only lead to an increase in the number of issues that will be cited during the Safety & Health Inspection of the plant.

The USPS corporate line is in the need to reduce staff to save the USPS. When speaking with a manager I pointed out that any reduction in staff would downgrade his pay level, he stated that he would be "saved grade." The USPS will be paying him a higher level for filling a lower level position.  That is the kind of stellar business decision that has the USPS in such dire straits.

Section 1-1 of the EL-801, Supervisor's Safety Handbook, states: The Occupational Safety and Health Act requires employers to provide a safe and healthful workplace free of recognized hazards and to follow Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards."

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Last modified: July 13, 2007