NEW YORK STATE BRANCH
NATIONAL LEAGUE OF POSTMASTERS
CURRENT POSTMASTER ISSUES
NAME
ADDRESS
CITY/STATE/ZIP
Subject: Special Notice of Opportunity to Apply for Postal Support Employee Vacancies
This special notice of opportunity is provided since your current appointment as a Casual, Transitional or Postmaster Relief/Leave Replacement will not exceed August 23, 2011 in accordance with the new labor contract agreement with the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), AFL-CIO, which went into effect May 23, 2011.
USPS is pleased to inform you of opportunities for continued employment as a Postal Support Employee (PSE). PSEs are a new category of non-career employee established to provide the USPS with flexibility. PSEs will be appointed for a term not to exceed 360 calendar days. If there is still an operational need, a PSE may be reappointed for another not to exceed 360 day term after a five-day break in service. PSE employees will enjoy benefits including raises, health benefits and leave. Announcements for these new positions will be posted to all interested persons on usps.com/employment – continue to visit eCareer!
To apply for PSE vacancies announced on usps.com/employment, you must:
1. Create a new external email address (e.g., yahoo, gmail, etc.). You will need it for the Registration process where you create a unique Login ID and Password. (You cannot use your previously-issued applicant User ID(s), if any, because the ID is deactivated when the user is hired.) Be sure to make note of your new User ID and Password as they will be needed for future access to your new eCareer Candidate Profile.
2. Add the following email domains to the safe sender list on your new email address to ensure that communications related to your application are not filtered: @usps.gov; @panpowered.com; @geninfo.com.
3. Create a new external Candidate Profile using your new email address and unique User ID and password.
4. Search for jobs on usps.com/employment and use your new Candidate Profile to apply for PSE vacancies by the closing date. Submit a separate application for each PSE position for which you wish to apply.
5. Follow all instructions carefully and watch daily for further messages from eCareer and our vendors concerning actions required in connection with your application.
Sincerely,
Human Resources
Below is the letter that is being sent out by the Postal Service to all PMR's regarding the new PSE positions. National President Mark Strong has sent a series of questions to Postal HQ to get some answers that should have been shared with us before our employees received these letters. As we receive this information we will post it here.
Updates
*Positions for the current level 15&16 PMR positions will be posted in the next couple of weeks. All current PMR’s in those level offices must apply for the positions on www.usps.com/employment. They must compete competitively for the position and there are no guarantees that they will score high enough on the exam 473 to be considered for the position. A letter will be coming out from the Area office to the current PMR’s in the next few days.
1.Nothing will happen to the current level 15 & 16 OIC’s if they are a lower level on their original form 50. They will remain a PMR unless they actually have a form 50 cut for a PMR position in a level 15 or 16 office, (Not a form 50 for the OIC position at that office).
2.Nothing will happen to PMR’s in level 11 and 13 offices. They will remain PMR’s, but they are eligible to apply for the PSE positions if they choose to.
*The latest word is that ALL PSEs will have to take the exam.They made an error in the document that has been floating around that showed the level 4 Post Office clerk with no exam needed. Keep in mind that this mess is far from over and it could change again but this is straight from the Labor Department.
* Link to PSEOCCCode&PayStructure
OIG says USPS Falsified Pay for Performance Scores
to save Money!
An audit by the US Postal Service Inspector general confirmed what many postmasters and supervisors have long known: managers have arbitrarily and improperly reduced the performance ratings of their subordinates, reducing or eliminating salary increases for those employees.
The audit was requested by the management organizations in the wake of widespread complaints about wholesale reductions in employees’ performance ratings at the end of fiscal year 2009. Some suspect that the arbitrary downgrades were “payback” for the organizations’ refusal to agree to a total moratorium on Pay For Performance increases that year.
The OIG reached this conclusion:
We determined that individuals responsible for evaluating or approving sampled employees’ FY 2009 core requirement ratings were not compliant with PFP policies and procedures. Specifically, we found that managers lowered core requirement ratings in a manner inconsistent with PFP policies and procedures, which state that employees should be rated on these requirements based on agreed-upon objectives and targets and that end-of-year ratings should reflect employees’ individual achievements. In addition, managers used numeric targets to rate postmasters on their core requirements, which they are supposed to base on behavioral objectives.
The report cites some of the more glaring violations:
One evaluator wrote, “On this indicator, the office’s Delivery Point Sequence percent increased by +3.26 percent ending up in the exceptional contributor category in accordance to the goals issued at the beginning of FY 09, thank you for your contributions.” However, the employee in question received a rating of “contributor.”
In another instance, comments on an employee’s appeal reflect that the evaluator and second-level reviewer concurred that the employee’s performance on one of the core requirements merited an exceptional rating of 15, yet the next level reviewer lowered the rating to a three.
A district manager stated the area vice president verbally instructed all district managers in the area to align employees’ core requirement ratings with the average NPA unit score for their districts. As a result, the manager reviewed and lowered the core requirement ratings for 606 employees.
Another district manager stated managers lowered core requirement ratings after reviewing a sample of ratings in that district and determining that they were disproportionate to the district’s NPA score. Typically, a district manager only reviews the PFP of direct reports and employees whose core requirement ratings are identified as ‘non-contributor’ or ’exceptional’ by the PES.
A plant manager who was a second-level reviewer arbitrarily lowered an employee’s core requirement rating to avoid the additional scrutiny associated with giving the employee a rating five points or more over the NPA score.
While the report suggests changes to the postal service’s methods, it makes no mention of compensation for employees adversely affected by the falsified evaluations. (Unlike bargaining unit employees, postal supervisors and postmasters do not receive annual COLA or “step” increases.)
