PS Form 3189, the Request for Temporary Schedule Change for Personal Convenience, is the document USPS bargaining-unit employees use to temporarily shift their working hours or days off for personal reasons. Signing it means you agree to give up out-of-schedule premium pay for the covered period, and the form only takes effect once you, your union steward, and your supervisor have all signed.
Who the Form Is For
Form 3189 is meant for full-time bargaining-unit employees who hold a regular bid assignment and want to adjust that schedule for their own reasons. It is not the mechanism for changes management initiates. If your supervisor needs to move your hours for operational reasons, that runs through PS Form 1723 and may trigger premium pay rather than waive it.
Three things have to line up for a valid 3189 request: the change is genuinely for your personal convenience, you sign the form acknowledging the pay waiver, and both your union representative and your supervisor sign to approve it.
What You Give Up by Signing
When management temporarily changes a full-time employee’s schedule, the employee normally earns out-of-schedule premium: an extra 50 percent of the base hourly rate for qualifying hours worked outside the original schedule, up to eight hours in a service day or 40 hours in a service week.1United States Postal Service. Employee and Labor Relations Manual – 434 Overtime and Premium Pay That premium exists because the employee didn’t choose the disruption.
Form 3189 turns that off. Because you’re the one asking, ELM Section 434.622 exempts the Postal Service from paying the premium. The back of the form states: “I understand that should this request be granted, I will not be entitled to the payment of out-of-schedule premium for hours worked outside of and instead of my regular schedule.” You still earn your normal hourly rate for every hour worked. You just don’t get the extra 50 percent.1United States Postal Service. Employee and Labor Relations Manual – 434 Overtime and Premium Pay
Filling Out the Form
You can pick up a blank copy from your supervisor’s office or access it through the USPS internal forms library. The current version is dated June 2013 and fits on a single sheet, with the waiver language printed on the reverse.2United States Postal Service. Postal Bulletin 22370 – PS Form 3189 Revision
At the top, a preprinted line reads: “For my own personal convenience, I hereby submit this written request for temporary change in my regular schedule from ___ through ___.” Fill in the start and end dates. Keep the window as narrow as the situation actually calls for; the form is built for temporary adjustments, not open-ended ones.
Below the dates, two side-by-side grids capture the schedules. Under From Regular Schedule, enter your current bid schedule. Each day of the week has columns for Begin Tour (BT), Off Lunch (OL), In Lunch (IL), and End Tour (ET). Mark your scheduled day or days off. Under Change Schedule To, enter the temporary hours you want, using the same BT/OL/IL/ET format, and mark any change to your days off.
The USPS service week runs from 12:01 a.m. Saturday through midnight Friday, so the day columns follow that order.3United States Postal Service. Employee and Labor Relations Manual – 432 General Definitions and Provisions If your hours are the same every day, use the “Primary” row at the top of each grid instead of repeating the entries. If specific days differ, fill in the individual day rows.
At the bottom, enter your eight-digit Employee Identification Number and your Pay Location.4United States Postal Service. Postal Bulletin 22667 – 2024 Tax Information Both appear on your most recent earnings statement and are available through the USPS employee self-service portal. Sign and date.
Getting the Three Signatures
A completed form needs signatures in a specific order: yours first, then your union representative’s, then your supervisor’s. Skipping the union step or reversing the order can invalidate the request.
After you sign, bring the form to your shop steward or another certified union representative in your work location. The steward’s signature confirms the union sees this as a genuinely voluntary request rather than something management steered you into.2United States Postal Service. Postal Bulletin 22370 – PS Form 3189 Revision If you are a steward yourself, a 1985 Step 4 settlement lets you sign in both capacities before taking the form to your supervisor.5American Postal Workers Union. Step 4 Settlement Agreement – Article 8 Hours of Work (1985)
Once the steward signs, submit the form to your immediate supervisor, who weighs the request against staffing and operational needs and then checks “Approved” or “Disapproved.” A disapproval is supposed to include a written reason. Nothing in the contract guarantees approval; your supervisor has discretion. An arbitrary or retaliatory denial can be grieved through the normal union process.
When to Submit It
There is no hard regulatory deadline in the ELM for a Form 3189. As a practical matter, get it in as early as you can, and ideally before the service week you want changed begins on Saturday. Your supervisor needs time to review, and a timekeeper needs to update the Time and Attendance Collection System before your new hours start. Walking in Monday morning with a form for that same week puts everyone in a bind and makes denial more likely.
You may hear about a “Wednesday deadline” for schedule changes. That rule, in ELM Section 434.612, applies to management-initiated changes, not to your personal request. It requires management to notify you by Wednesday of the preceding service week when it wants to change your schedule; if it misses that cutoff, you work your regular schedule and any extra hours become overtime.1United States Postal Service. Employee and Labor Relations Manual – 434 Overtime and Premium Pay It does not govern your 3189.
After Approval
Once your supervisor signs, the temporary schedule is entered into the Time and Attendance Collection System (TACS). A supervisor or timekeeper updates your daily schedule in the Employee Maintenance module with your new start time, end time, lunch window, and days off. Those TACS entries cover only the weeks on your form. When the temporary period ends, your original bid schedule repopulates automatically.
The signed form itself stays on file as the record of the agreement. If a payroll question later comes up about why your clock rings don’t match your bid schedule during that period, the 3189 is the document that resolves it. Keep a personal copy.
When You Should Not Sign
Most 3189 disputes come down to one situation: a supervisor who wants to move your hours without paying out-of-schedule premium and pressures you to “just sign a 3189.” That is a misuse of the form. The whole framework rests on the request being genuinely voluntary. If management is the one initiating the change, it owes you the premium no matter what paperwork you sign.
National Arbitrator Gamser held that management cannot avoid its obligation to pay out-of-schedule premium by characterizing an assignment as being “at the request of the employee.” If you’re being asked to sign a 3189 for a change that benefits the operation rather than you personally, talk to your steward before signing anything. A grievance filed in that situation stands on solid ground.