2007 In Review And A Look ToThe Future

 

Please add my voice to all the other voices beckoning the best for you during the holidays and wishing for a prosperous New Year for you and your loved ones. 

 

Americans mark this time of year by celebrating holidays of great importance, both religious and secular.  These celebrations as almost all celebrations are, by their nature, unifying and they give us many things.  Important among these is a rare chance for reflection.  During the holidays most of us pause to evaluate our lives, our goals and (probably most important) our relationships with others. 

 

We take these opportunities to center ourselves—inspect the balance sheet of our lives and approve or disapprove of our positions and our pursuits—our past and our future.  The fact is these choices face us every day.  So we make choices.  One important choice we make is to be a Union.

 

Even without the aid of a scientific poll, I daresay the first priority of most Postal Workers is not their job at the Post Office.  I believe it is safe to say that most folks don’t place it (the job) at the very top of their list of priorities. Like any other group of hard working Americans, family, friends and time for recreation occupy the top of the list.

 

But your job is the most important to me and to your Union.  It’s what we do.  The American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO---National, State and Local, your Union is about your job (what it means to you and your life and the loved ones who depend upon you) and nothing else.  This is not only true for John Olive but also for every officer and shop steward working for you at every level every day.

 

I am very proud today of the Officers and Stewards who serve our Local.  They work very hard for us every day.  They not only work hard but they are also very accomplished at their tasks and apply considerable skill on our behalf---day in and day out. The achievements of the APWU in 2007 were astounding!! 

 

In February Jovita and I went to Gainesville for schooling on skills and strategies for local negotiations.  You sent me to Atlanta in April for a round robin (so-called because the school travels around the country) for information (in depth information) about the proposed new 2006 National Collective Bargaining Agreement.

 

We have held meetings throughout the year with USPS District Labor Relations Specialists for the purpose of resolving grievances and, of course, we have advocated for our members in arbitration.  In these efforts we have achieved outstanding success.

 

Beginning In the spring you sent me to Advanced Arbitration Training---an intense week long classroom styled seminar which unexpectedly prepared me better than ever before to successfully battle local management when Pensacola’s rules for Incidental Annual Leave were unilaterally revoked.  We won this fight for the 14% (details below).

 

In March and April, APWU teams met locally with our management counterparts to negotiate new Local Memoranda of Understanding (LMOU’s) in Pensacola and Gulf Breeze.  Certainly improvements were made to these documents (Maintenance Craft portions of the Pensacola LMOU underwent a vast change in areas which had long needed attention) but possibly the most good came from the negotiations themselves for these meetings carried us a long way toward getting to know one another and bargaining in good faith.

 

This was our first opportunity in 6 years for a full-blown opening of these agreements with regular access to the appeal process and your negotiating teams took full advantage of the process on your behalf.  We also updated our LMOU’s in several other Associate Offices---Milton, Cantonment, Century, Jay and Holt.

 

In the Fall we hosted the APWU of Florida Fall Seminar.  This was a landmark meeting for our Local.  Because it was local many members (not just officers and stewards) availed themselves of this great opportunity to attend.  President Burrus and Vice President Guffey led a large contingent of resident officers down to Gulf Breeze---field officers were in 100% attendance and, of course, our State Officers and the Auxiliary were there. This seminar was a huge success and truly a great benefit to every member of the Pensacola Area Local. The success we have enjoyed as a Local Union is outstanding; but, our National leaders really outdid themselves in 2007.

 

In 2007 the APWU membership ratified our new Collective Bargaining Agreement which includes several of what were formerly pie in the sky proposals that Union activists like me have dreamed of for decades and have, all of a sudden, become reality.  The two most dramatic changes---

 

1---200 man-year offices (including Pensacola) are no longer allowed to employ part-time flexible workers. We’re all full-time and

 

2---All workers represented by the American Postal Workers Union (even scabs) will be upgraded in February (level 3 to level 4 and level 6 to level 7, etc.) are incredible gains.

 

Most people who know me as a Union Officer know that I had a very close relationship with former President Moe Biller.  Moe was a friend and (to say the least) a mentor and I enjoyed many years of friendship with him.  Moe was great, probably the greatest APWU leader ever.  But brothers and sisters no person on earth has done more for the American Postal Workers Union than President Bill Burrus.

 

Certainly we must recognize Bill as the best negotiator of our time.  Moe achieved many things for you and me.  The APWU might not exist, as we know it today, if we hadn’t had Moe Biller. But Bill Burrus (with some kind of magic) gives us a union-wide upgrade and an almost full-time workforce. These improvements to the everyday life of those we represent are life changing by anyone’s measure. I’m amazed.

 

So this is what the APWU, and the APWU alone, brings us. Bounty.

 

 

Postal Management Makes A Grab For Our 14% -- The Union Wins

As inexplicable as it seemed to us Pensacola Postmaster Stanley Walker abrogated his management’s obligation to approve leave for our bargaining unit and, over the course of the past year, fully supported his supervisors’ denial of legitimate requests for annual leave all over town in what has continued to be a clear violation of our Local Memorandum of Understanding (LMOU). The rules he chose to ignore are over 35 years old.

 

Of course we filed a grievance (many grievances which were eventually combined for this issue) appealed it to step two and then met four times for discussion after step two. Thanks to the efforts of many, many APWU Members (almost every worker in Pensacola provided a written statement regarding the practice in the past), Shop Stewards and especially Ken Baker, Director of Industrial Relations, we were able to present a case which overwhelmed the employer and Stanley came around.

 

Thanks also to Mike Morris, Richard Boutwell and John Kelly (instructors at the Advanced Arbitration School) for providing graduate level instruction to me on Past Practice in the Grievance Procedure at a crucial (perfect) time during this struggle.

 

We now have an agreement (page 4) which agrees with the agreement we already had. At least, it is safe to say that we can depend upon the 14% rule for Incidental Annual Leave for the foreseeable future (most likely forever). This agreement is a new and very good example of the accomplishments we enjoy because of the power of your local union. We are strong and we demand our rights on a daily basis.  If you don’t have a Union on the workroom floor, you don’t have a Union.

 

It’s hard to know what motivates a Manager or a Supervisor to first begin, and then continue in a reckless path designed to strip employment rights from us (the Workers); especially, when basic and already mutually-agreed-to contractual language is ignored. This is even a more onerous action when the rights taken from us illegally are of such great value to us.

 

 We settled this issue at step 2 because Stanley Walker’s superiors told him he had taken a foolish path and they insisted he settle locally. So we don’t thank Stanley or the US Postal Service---we thank the APWU and the strength we have in numbers and the work rules we have negotiated over many years. What a Union.

 

The Future

 

So take a deep breath and appreciate our accomplishments but not for too long.  Successful labor unions always look to the future and our future is indeed bright but we have many challenges on our horizon in 2008 and we shall face them successfully together.  In the coming year we will deal with everything from threatened re-alignment of tours at the Pensacola Plant to possible downsizing/excessing in Pensacola’s stations and branches and our Associate Offices.

 

Machines will come and go.  Downsizing will occur as well as overcrowding (Pensacola’s Downtown Station is already exploding its walls since 2 ½ extra carriers were moved into a space already too small).  We will face problems with posting and bidding the likes of which we are now just touching the tip of the iceberg.

 

We will aggressively protect our work---we will insist that jobs be posted and where the contract requires that Part-time Flexibles in our Associate Offices be promoted to full-time.  MS-47 staffing will be an important struggle in the Maintenance Craft and, yes, there will always be discipline to fight.

 

Be proud of where we have been as a Union but look forward with the greatest of optimism knowing without doubt that with the members’ support our officers and stewards are well-armed and more than adequately prepared to pave the way for a 2008 at the Post Office that just might be your best year yet.

 

Remember what Samuel Gompers said we want:  “What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.”