In the past there has been problems all over the country regarding time integrity. Simply put, local management has been found to illegally change letter carrier's clock rings. But under some circumstances, they are required to input clock rings. The question is, if you have the choice, would you prefer to enter the times that you know are right or leave your clock rings to the discretion of your supervisor?

When someone enters a clock ring, the system automatically records a marking as to who entered it. There have been cases where management was caught shaving off five minutes on each carrier's time. There have also been cases where carrier's time was shaved to get a carrier under penalty time. While the latter mentioned examples of clock ring changes are(we hope) the exception, the number one reason for clock ring changes happen daily.

Everyday, the supervisor is required to match the appropriate time worked on each funtion to it's prpoer place. For instance, if you case on another route for an hour, the other route should get credit for one hour's worth of work. If you hit the clock correctly, it will place whatever time you worked on that route where it belongs. If you don't hit the clock yourself, management is obligated to put a time in the system. They might not know how long you worked on the other route. So, they will have to guess. If they overestimate the time you worked on the other route, it will short the time you actually worked in the office on your route. If you hit the clock yourself it also saves them work(what could be better). If they have dishonest intentions, they can hide behind the fact that they are required to put the time "somewhere". That "somewhere" could be in the category of "other". So, not only does the carrier lose time, but the office could possibly lose time in the route adjustment process. For example, if you come back off the street 5:15 and your supervisor says "don't hit the clock, I'll take care of that for you". You go about your business but the supervisor places you back in the office at 4:55 to avoid the window of operation call he will have to make to his/her POOM. So now your route (on paper) show 20 minutes less. The result is that the supervisor does not have to make a call they don't want to make, but you and the office just lost 20 minutes of street time toward your route. If your suspect this happens, you should tell your shopsteward so that a grievance can be filed. Under article 17 your steward has the right to ask for those clock rings and they can be changed. In another situation if the supervisor changed your clock rings it will show up under their social security number. That way we can identify if they changed or shaved your time incorrectly.

It is always best to have control over your destiny than not. To make you own clock rings benefits you and potentially your office. Besides, you do get paid to do this! This way it's one less thing we have to wonder about in the ever mistrustful relationship between the supervisor and the worker. There is no reason we should not be doing this and exercising one of the few rights that we have.

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