Negotiations with two other unions continue

The Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) have reached a tentative four-year contract agreement. Upon ratification by union members, the agreement will run through Nov. 20, 2010, and affect approximately 272,000 career employees in the Clerk, Maintenance and Motor Vehicle crafts.

In announcing the agreement today, Labor Relations Vice President Doug Tulino said, “We believe this tentative agreement is in the best interests of our customers, our employees and all postal stakeholders.”

The Postal Service and the APWU formally opened national contract negotiations on Aug. 29, 2006. This year was the first time new contracts were negotiated separately at the same time with all four of the Postal Service’s largest unions. Negotiations continue with two other unions, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Negotiations with the National Association of Letter Carriers were not successful and the two parties will now enter the dispute resolution process, which may include binding interest arbitration.

Double click the play button to play videos: 

WMTW TV: 

WCSH TV: 

From the APWU Industrial Relations web site:

(Oct. 25, 2006) The APWU initiated a national dispute over the Postal Service’s announcement of revisions to the AS-805 handbook governing Information Security. The revised handbook restricts employees from bringing personal information resources (e.g. laptops, notebooks, PDAs, handheld computers and USB port devices such as flash memory sticks) into postal facilities. The union is concerned that the new restrictions may adversely impact the union’s ability to perform its duties.

click here to read the APWU letter outlining the dispute.

Statement by Clint Burelson, President, Olympia WA Local, American Postal Workers Union

The Olympia Local of the American Postal Workers Union will hold an all day informational picket on Thursday, October 26, 2006 at the Olympia Post Office to protest the Postal Service’s plans to consolidate facilities and reduce mail service to the public. The Olympia action is part of a nationwide informational picket by the American Postal Workers Union. Postal workers in cities across the United States will be informing the public about consolidation plans that will reduce service to their communities.

The Olympia outgoing mail has already been consolidated to Tacoma. It is worth noting that the Tacoma Plant cannot handle the extra Olympia mail. The Tacoma Plant is using overtime and often sending Tacoma mail to Seattle in order to handle the Olympia mail. In essence, Olympia mail is being worked in Tacoma and Tacoma mail is being worked in Seattle. The consolidation of the Olympia mail to Tacoma has increased costs and reduced mail service for the average citizen.

However, all too often, the Postal Service no longer acts in the interest of the average citizen. Similar to other government agencies, the Postal Service increasingly acts in the interest of large corporations who have been successful in electing and influencing government officials with large amounts of money. The power of large corporations over the Postal Service is illustrated by the fact that James C. Miller III, a long time advocate for the privatization of the Postal Service, is now the current chair of the Board of Governors for the Postal Service. The governing head of the Postal Service is someone who does not believe the Postal Service should be a democratic institution.

In the case of the Postal Service, the corporate influence has the added element of media power. Time Warner, the Newspaper Association of America, and other large corporate media interests are big customers of the Postal Service and have been actively supporting consolidation and other plans in their self-interest, which often comes at the expense of the general public.

It is difficult for postal workers and other advocates for a democratic postal service to get their views articulated when most of the media is corporate owned and in support of a corporate oriented postal service. Therefore, postal workers will utilize picket signs on Thursday, October 26, as one method of informing the public that unwarranted consolidations will reduce mail service and increase costs for the average citizen in the country.

For more information contact: Clint Burelson – clintburelson@comcast.net or 360-970-2965

From the APWU- a commercial the union is running “in cities where APWU activists have already taken steps to inform citizens about the negative effect USPS network consolidation plans will have on mail service for individual postal customers and small businesses.” Click here for more on the APWU’s radio and TV campaign.

Say- maybe Bill Burrus is right- maybe the big bad mailers are getting away with murder. But here’s a suggestion- instead of eliminating those unfair discounts, let’s offer them to everyone! Why shouldn’t Aunt Minnie get the same discount as Capital One? Why not let her mail her birthday cards for 19 cents a piece or whatever? Read the rest of this entry »

The proceedings in the rate case are in the discovery phase at the moment. Part of the discovery process is the submission of interrogatories, or questions by participants. Most interrogatories, naturally, are submitted by intervenors to the Postal Service. But there are also quite a few questions being asked of other intervenors. Many of these are variations on “Where did you come up with those ridiculous numbers in the testimony you submitted?”

And sometimes interrogatories seem to serve no purpose but to make a point- here’s one, submitted to APWU witness Kathryn L. Kobe by the Major Mailers Association. Kobe had testified that “it seems highly unlikely that the mail that is converting to presort mail is equivalent to the average collection mail that is coming from individual households, nonprofit organizations, and small businesses”. The MMA posed the following questions:

Please assume that you are a dutiful niece who for years sent monthly letters to your Aunt Minnie. Assume further that all these letters exhibited the cost attributes similar to an “average” First-Class single piece letter. Now, in 2005 you and your Aunt Minnie discovered the Internet and you substituted your 12 monthly letters with 12 monthly emails. Please confirm that, as far as the Postal Service is concerned, those letters are lost to the system and First-Class Single Piece has lost 12 “average” Single Piece letters. If you cannot confirm, please explain.

Please assume that you also enjoy calling your Aunt Minnie as well, and in 2005 you decided to sign up for a cell phone. The cell phone company sent you 12 monthly bills in 2005, all of which qualified as Automation letters. Please confirm that, as far as the Postal Service is concerned, those letters are new to the system and First-Class Automation has gained 12 pieces that are similar to an “average” Automation letter. If you cannot confirm, please explain.

Please confirm that, as far as the Postal Service is concerned, the 12 “average” Single Piece letters lost and the 12 “average” Automation letters gained represent a “shift” of letters from First-Class Single Piece to Presorted. If you cannot confirm, please explain.

That’s the opinion, apparently, of one APWU member, who has set up a blog entitled ‘APWU Dictatorship’. You can read his complaints against local President Rick Cornelius at APWUDictatorship.blogspot.com, and you can read Cornelius’s side at the official APWU local site, titled, interestingly enough, not APWU197.org, as it once was, but “UnionRick.com“.

The Federal Times says that the four postal unions, currently in contract negotiations with the USPS, expect their members to be rewarded for their contributions to the postal service’s improved financial picture. The story, in the September 18 edition, also highlights continued USPS contributions to postal workers’ health benefits as a prime concern. The story quotes APWU Communications Director Sally Davidow: “We expect health care to be an issue of contention and we will do everything we can to protect and even advance what our members now enjoy.” According to the Federal Times, “Postal Service employees’ share of health benefit premiums is lower than that for other federal employees under current union contracts.”

For all the contention, the story says that the parties are optimistic- it says that the NALC’s Bill Young is confident that negotiations will reach a negotiated agreement, and both PMG Jack Potter and APWU President Bill Burrus expect to sign an agreement by November 20

Newspaper coverage of the various plant consolidation controversies has been sloppy, but this story from the Akron Beacon Journal takes the cake. According to ace reporter Ed Meyer, the plan to shift mail processing operations from Canton to Akron was “put together by the Bush administration and the Government Accountability Office”. Uh oh.

The rest of the story is pretty much what we’ve heard before- the APWU says shifting the work will delay the mail, and the Mayor of Canton says the city will lose its identity if it loses its postmark. (I’ll resist the urge to make a smart remark about what the “identity” of Canton, OH might consist of currently.)

The idea does sound pretty far-fetched- after all, it is all of 23 miles from Canton to Akron! Imagine that! How could they possible get mail from one city to the other (and back!) in less than a week?

Canton letters could get loopy