Corey Walton delivers an extended Salted Peanuts episode focused on defending letter carriers against disciplinary actions that appear difficult to overturn. He examines a removal involving 648 hours of AWOL, discussing improper charges, progressive discipline, management’s burden of proof, defective investigations, and the importance of scrutinizing certified mail records and disciplinary concurrence.
Corey reviews several arbitration decisions demonstrating how procedural violations can overturn removals, even when the underlying attendance issues appear serious.
The episode also explores single-track versus multi-track discipline. Corey argues that unrelated offenses should not be combined to accelerate progressive discipline, drawing on arbitration decisions, Handbook EL-921, Article 16, and testimony from former NALC National Business Agent Ben Johnson.
Additional topics include information-request relevancy challenges, scanner-based discipline, locally generated postal forms, and union leadership’s handling of grievance remedies.