Collective rights and their legal frameworks

Collective Bargaining and Civil Rights

Postal Service (USPS) entered into a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) in November of 2000. This CBA addressed issues such as wage increase and promotion procedure, reassignment and reduction in force protection, as well as accommodation for deaf and hard of hearing postal employees. Specific measures for accommodating deaf and hard of hearing employees were established. Instituting the use of training videos with captions and using sign language interpreters during meetings, especially safety meetings, are a couple of measures outlined in the 2000 CBA.

With the events that occurred on September 11th, 2001, and subsequent mailings of the potentially deadly biochemical Anthrax, safety of our U.S. Postal Service workers became a top priority. Numerous meetings were held to inform and instruct employees of potential hazards and proper handling procedure for packages suspected of containing anthrax. Vital information and procedures that, according to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Task Force, a division of the American Postal Workers Union, many hearing impaired employees may not have understood.

Under the CBA contract between the USPS and the APWU, the Postal Service is required to provide interpreters for hearing impaired employees. As a result of the United States Postal Service to provide a proper number of qualified interpreters to convey Anthrax information and safety policies, five deaf employees of the USPS sought help from the courts. On May 14th, 2003, members forming the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Task Force sued the USPS. They alleged that the USPS had violated their civil rights under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The APWU also contended that the United States Postal Service had violated the Memorandum of Understanding on Reasonable Accommodation for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

This Memorandum requests the use of certified interpreters to be used when addressing formal training issues dealing with all biochemical exposure. However, the U.S. Postal Service maintained that there was no violation of the National Agreement (2000 CBA). They claimed that under the Memorandum of Understanding, the USPS could fulfill their obligation using volunteer interpreters, as opposed to on-call interpreters. By leaving the option to use certified on-call interpreters, or volunteer interpreters that were not required to be certified up to management, and allowing management to base their decisions purely on cost effective measures, the USPS did not dishonor their contract to the APWU. However, the Postal Service did violate the civil rights of the deaf and hard of hearing employees.