02/17/2015 – WASHINGTON – Contract talks between the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the U.S. Postal Service for a new contract start Thursday, Feb 19. This will be the first time in four-and-a-half years that APWU and postal management have bargained for a new collective bargaining agreement. It also will mark the first labor negotiations for new Postmaster General Megan Brennan.
Along with issues such as fair wages and benefits, the APWU will be proposing bold improvements in customer services, such as postal banking, the sale of licenses, and the addition of public notary services, along with a proposal for longer and more convenient hours for customers to allow USPS to capture a greater share of the growing ecommerce market.
WHO: Danny Glover, Actor and Activist
Mark Dimondstein, President of the American Postal Workers Union
Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO
WHAT: Press conference prior to the opening of labor negotiations
WHEN: Thursday, February 19, 2015
9 – 9:30 a.m.
WHERE: Hyatt Regency hotel on Capitol Hill, Thornton Room, 11th floor
400 New Jersey Ave NW, Washington, DC
“There are two competing visions of the future of the Postal Service,” said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. “Postal management’s policy has been to severely degrade service, dismantle the postal network, and engage in piecemeal privatization.
“A congressional mandate that forces the agency to pre-fund retiree healthcare benefits 75 years into the future is being used as a pre-text to destroy a national treasure. Management has shortened hours at neighborhood post offices, closed mail processing centers, lowered delivery standards, and slowed mail delivery.
“But the Postal Service earned an operating profit of $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2014, more than $600 million in 2013, and more than $1 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2015.
“The Postal Service must take advantage of the explosion in ecommerce to modernize and better serve the people.
“That is what we are advocating. That is what we need. We don’t need the slash and burn, shrink and outsource schemes of recent years.”
The APWU is not alone in its desire to see the Postal Service expand services and reverse many of the destructive practices of former Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. Just last week, 64 organizations formed “A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service.” Actor-activist Danny Glover, the son of postal workers, released a two-minute video endorsing the Alliance.
Glover will join APWU Pres. Dimondstein at the Feb. 19 news conference that precedes the start of negotiations.
For more information on the Grand Alliance visit www.AGrandAlliance.org.
For more information on APWU, visit www.apwu.org.
Is this the same Hyatt Regency that President “5 day delivery” Obama was just speaking in front of the DNC winter meeting? Friday, 2/20/2015. He is NOT a USPS supporter!
“But the Postal Service earned an operating profit of $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2014, more than $600 million in 2013, and more than $1 billion in the first quarter of fiscal year 2015.
Wait for it…During negotiations management will say “see, all our cost cutting measures worked and it just shows we need to do more of it.”
These idiots we have negotiating for us actually think wearing stickers will help!!?? We’re all not brainwashed morons..
It is important that the workers stand up to Postal management, not only for pay but also working conditions. Why is it that workers today are told that they are “greedy” and should work for free? And that they should be glad to be treated like a slave! Why is it that the American ” free enterprise” system is only for business men, investors, and athletes? Workers are to only make only sustenance wages, only enough pay to remain healthy so one can work. If people in management are man enough to make a living wage, the are man enough to pay a living wage!
Oh for crying out loud, nobody says the workers should work for free. That is just plain dumb. Look at your paycheck and show your friends what you make in salary and benefits.
And tell them you are underpaid and over worked. See what kind of response you get.
And the end result…binding arbitraion.
What exactly does Danny Glover bring to the table? Why not Al Sharpton?
Knock off the gimmicks and propose what is best for the Postal Service.
Sure, let us forget about plant closures and slowing the mail down. Now the union focus is to try and get new business. Let’s put wine delivery on the table too. As long as you order it by July 4, you may get it by Thanksgiving.
Let’s also not forget how postal employee’s stepped up this past Holiday
season with 28 million packages and 463 pieces of mail delivered on
December 22nd our busiest day. 524 million packages were delivered
in the month of December which is an 18% increase from Dec 2013. We
shouldn’t be held hostage for the Bush administrations “Ball & Chain
mandate to prefund (5.5 billion a year) Which in realty was implemented
to be another “cash cow” for the government to pay for projects! This
country needs our mail service and by the grace of God we have provided
that through at times incredible adverse conditions and have never skipped
a beat! From the first step to the last we work in unison to deliver the mail
that is so critical to our customers. Whether it be an important document,
a check to pay the rent or go shopping with, a medication that is so dire,
we have been there to provide that and deserve to be rewarded for it.
Thank God Guffy and Company are gone