No Relief SCS, 12 Hours a Day, Is a Concern

No Relief SCS, 12 Hours a Day, Is a Concern
By Dee Perez
NAPS Northeast Region Vice President

Summer is over with the official kickoff of Labor Day. It has been a long, hot summer for all EAS employees who have been willing to put in the extra necessary hours to cover their offices. However, when it’s six days a week, open to close, and on an Amazon Sunday, working alone for 12 to 15 hours, it’s a major problem that local USPS leaders fail to address.

RADAR programs alert leadership to everything that takes place under the sun. Why are they not worried about EAS employees working excessive hours in a day or week? They turn a blind eye to this.

I’m not talking about the occasional T-time, which can last for a week or two, every now and then, for 10 hours when the office is short-staffed. I’m talking about the no 204(b) rule and not having relief supervisors Customer Service (SCS) in associate offices (AOs). According to the USPS-APWU Joint Contract Interpretation Manual, Article 1:

“The usage of 204-B assignments in the USPS is governed by specific guidelines and restrictions. These assignments are typically limited to no more than 90 days in duration, except in certain situations such as supervisory absences or vacancies of 14 days or more. The 204-B assignments are subject to the same restrictions regarding the supervisor’s absence or vacancy as within the Clerk Craft. Additionally, employees from other bargaining unit crafts may be utilized as 204-Bs to supervise Clerk Craft employees, but this usage is also limited to no more than 90 days.”

Having relief SCS in AOs has been discussed for over a year; rarely has anything been implemented other than in mail plants. These mail plant managers believe they can abuse relief supervisors and place them on any tour they want. The understanding of the USPS and NAPS was to use them as relief on days off and to cover vacations—that’s it! If a tour still is uncovered, they should be paying T-time to cover the tour.

Regarding Customer Service, there is no reason today why a relief position cannot be established in most offices. I understand some offices are not geographically aligned, so it makes it difficult to find five days of work
for a relief SCS.

However, if there are three offices in a normal proximity range, why not create a Level-17 relief SCS to cover these nonscheduled days? The other two days, they can assist the three offices with administrative duties, street observations, walking routes, and/or covering a vacation slot or place them on an inspection detail for two days.

We all know there is work available. Postal Service Headquarters needs to have the will to create these positions and implement them now. Working 12 to 15 hours a day, open to close, no longer is acceptable. Local district managers have gotten away with this in FY25, but it cannot be allowed to recur in FY26.

Too many EAS employees are stressed and have complained about this; they simply are exhausted. They have families, yet all they do is go home to eat and sleep, with very little interaction with family concerns. This abuse, in the long term, is not healthy.

Relief supervisors in Customer Service positions would provide coverage during prime time while avoiding the lack of coverage on Amazon Sundays. Help is needed as soon as possible because SCS and postmasters are burning out!

MM—membership matters!