Member of California Committee to Prevent Subcontracting of PVS

CALIFORNIA MODE CONVERSION TO HCR

In 2012 the USPS sought to convert the entire MVS craft in California to HCR private contractors. I was privileged to be appointed to the California Committee to prevent subcontracting of PVS in California.  Our committee worked very hard, brainstorming, working with the lawyers, getting affidavits from members, and formulating plans of attack on defending our jobs.  We went to federal court, and were able to sucessfully prevent this illegal action.  

Being the sore losers that they are, immediately after our victory preventing the USPS from contracting out the state of California, the USPS gave notice that they now wanted to contract out the entire nation, and the movement of mail at  all 162 PVS sites would be given to Highway Contractors.

It is not hard to see that this move is in retaliation for the victory in California, but  we should not panic and lose hope.  Contracting out our jobs is not a sure thing, and we do have the means to fight back,  our fight has just become a little more difficult.

I believe fair cost comparison of all reasonable costs will be what saves the MVO craft.  We will need to identify all opportunities of contractor runs that we can do cheaper, and that have segments that we can run at a cheaper rate, locally and nationally. 

The locals will have to stay vigilant and document every run that they feel the MVS craft can do, and the experts can then  analyze the savings. We would then be able to  put in competitive bids to get entire runs, and segments of runs back that we can do cheaper.

It does not matter if the USPS believes our numbers or not; they will not accept our word anyway.  This case will be going back to arbitration where expert testimony, and documented evidence will convince the Arbitrator that we can do our work cheaper than highway contractors, as a result of analysis provided by the SJ Consulting Group with the help of the locals. 

The USPS uses a form called PS Forms 5505, to make cost-comparisons between PVS and highway contractors, but these 5505’s do not accurately tell our story.  Most of the time they raise PVS costs, while giving false claims of much cheaper costs  by the contractor.By putting costs that should be borne by highway contractors on the PVS drivers, the Postal Service makes the Motor Vehicle craft look much more expensive.

When management first created the 5505 for the California PVS contracting out to HCR, they claimed on line item # 29, that getting rid of California Motor Vehicle work would save the USPS 89 million dollars per year. 

Union analyst determined that was not the case, and that USPS numbers were false.  The union found that USPS was double billing us by billing per mile, and per hour for the same runs.  This one line item correction to the USPS 5505 resulted in a miscalculation of savings by the USPS and reduced their estimated savings by 65 Million dollars. 

Now that the USPS is being forced for the first time to give the Union an accurate accounting of all reasonable costs associated with contracting out the Motor Vehicle Craft, the Union will be able to analyze these costs for accuracy and show where we can perform the work cheaper. 

As a result of the strong representation that MVO craft employees have received for many years, we make a pretty good per wage, but even after you factor in the contractor per hour rate, and the profit for the contractor, we still have a slightly higher cost to move the mail.

PSE wages bring down our total costs to slightly over the cost of highway contractors, and our new contract provides that 75% of the new work coming back into the craft can be performed by PSE’s, further bringing down our costs.

In addition, our contract calls for the Postal Service to designate 600 PVS routes to be assigned to the Motor Vehicle Craft.  The USPS must also review 8,000 existing Transportation Highway Contract routes to be considered for conversion to PVS routes.

PVS and Post Office leased trailers that Private Contractors are pulling are giving Highway Contractors  significant savings that are not added to their cost.  Only in emergency should a contractor pull a postal trailer, whether it is leased or Postal property.

In addition, contractors are storing their trucks, and vans on postal property which cuts down on their storage costs, gas, and maintenance that would be necessary to bring their equipment onto postal facilities.

These are some of the issues that we can bring to the table to prove that we can compete with anyone if given a fair shake.  We must stick together, and work together to save our craft.  It will not be easy to save the Transportation Craft but it can be done.

MVO craft members came together on the Oakland California court house steps, to listen to Lead attorney Darryl Anderson discuss the California PVS case at the conclusion of testimony.

In the words of lead attorney Darryl Anderson:

"It was a very good day".