Discipline Letters
The first thing that any letter carrier should do if management has issued you a “Discipline Letter” is to go to their immediate supervisor and request time to speak to their Shop Steward and advise that manager they want to file a grievance.
The filing of the grievance should be done “on the clock.” This means that you and your shop steward should be in a pay status and be paid for the time you take to write the grievance and present it to your immediate supervisor.
In most cases, your supervisor may delay you from “immediately” granting time to do the grievance. In that case, you should ask them, when are you going to get the time to file the grievance. If you do not get the time immediately, in my opinion, management should not delay you more than 48 hours. If time is not granted and you do not want to delay filing the grievance, I recommend you call the Branch office (631-789-1616) for assistance.
You have 14 days from when you were issued the discipline letter to file a grievance. Make sure when you receive the “letter” you write on the “top” (Date received). Sometimes a letter has a date on it which is different from the date you received it and it could be as much as a week ago. Someone viewing this from the outside might use that as the 14 day period from when you have to file the grievance. If you do not file a grievance within 14 dates of receipt and do not get an agreed to extension of time limits, you might have your grievance ruled as “untimely.” If this happens, you could be stuck with the discipline letter(for two years) because “you failed” to file a grievance within the time limits! This would be call a procedural matter. The merits of whether the grievance was for “just cause” may not even be considered.
“Just cause” (as referenced in Article 16) is the standard by which management is required to prove that the discipline has merit and should be upheld against the letter carrier.
Management is also required to follow what is called “progressive” discipline. If you have an attendance problem, management normally must show that they attempted to correct it through “discussions” and written discipline. Again, it could be a Letter of Warning, a 7 day suspension, 14 day suspension, etc… until after there has been “no improvement,” a final “Notice of Removal.”
Many letter carriers have legitimate reasons for “absences” and are protected by the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Unfortunately, many letter carriers do not avail themselves of these protections until they are sometimes being issued a “Notice of Removal”. Family Medical Leave is available for you, a spouse, a child and parents who have “serious” or “chronic” medical conditions. You will need the cooperation of that person’s “treating” physician to complete paperwork in order to get an approved FMLA case. Once you have such a case, you will be protected from being disciplined as long as you don’t exceed a 12 week period in a given calendar year. You also need to have worked at least 1250 hours prior to getting an approved FMLA case.
Too many letter carriers from my experienced allow themselves to get into “attendance” related problems when they could have protected themselves by exercising their Family Medical Leave protections.
Please remember though it is the individual carrier who has the responsibility to challenge any discipline that they are issued by requesting time to speak to a shop steward and filing a grievance within the 14 day time period.
Many letter carriers believe that if they are issued discipline, the shop steward is “automatically” aware of the problem and do nothing. That is a mistake in their part!
Some local agreements do provide that the “shop steward must be given a copy of any discipline that is issued.” In that case, your shop steward might approach you and ask you “what do you want to do?” That is when you should be prepared to say you want to file a grievance. Once you have established that, you should then approach your immediate supervisor and tell them you “want to file a grievance.” I would write that date on the “discipline” letter and then ask when will you get the time. If the supervisor says tomorrow or the next day, write that down on the letter and the name of the supervisor. In the event, you do not get the time within 48 hours, tell your shop steward and notify the Branch office (631-789-1616) and speak to your full-time Union Area Rep. If you do not know who it is, tell the person who you are speaking to where you work. They should then be able to direct you to your representative.
Please do not “lose” a grievance because of untimeliness. Please also remember, however, that you will be either a part of the solution (if you file a timely grievance) or part of the problem (if you fail to file a timely grievance).
Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to ALL!
