Update on the Fight Back Against USPS Reductions in Service and Jobs
07/27/2017 – Following strong resistance from the APWU – and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU) – USPS management agreed to a five-month delay in implementing forced reassignments and excessing of employees out of their installations.
However, this may only be a temporary reprieve as the USPS is planning to move ahead with their outrageous and misguided plans to gut the workforce and service, targeting over 12,000 jobs with their three-pronged assault: 
• First, in most facilities postal management is automatically reverting (i.e. doing away with) vacant positions in violation of the contract. Job reversions reduce the workforce and slow or stop conversion opportunities for Postal Support Employees (PSEs) to career jobs.
• Second, management is targeting thousands of bid jobs currently occupied by career employees for abolishment.
• Third, job abolishments can lead to the excessing of career employees out of their facilities and possibly out of their crafts. Furthermore, PSE hours will be significantly reduced if management’s ill-conceived actions are fully implemented.
“Management’s proposed plans will severely disrupt the lives of career and non-career employees alike. We are in a big fight,” said President Dimondstein. “If we stick together and stay united, then I am confident that – just like with the Stop Staples and contract struggles – we will be victorious in stopping these new attacks on the workforce and on customer service.”
USPS Actions are an Attack on Service
These actions by postal management are counter to the Postal Service’s core mandate to “provide prompt, reliable and efficient services to patrons in all areas.”
“The Postal Service’s decisions will reduce employees at offices which are already short-staffed and where customers are experiencing poor service,” said Clerk Division Director Clint Burelson. “Delays in the mail will increase and there will be longer lines at post offices.”
APWU and Mail Handlers Working Together
In response to these attacks on the postal workforce and service, APWU President Mark Dimondstein and NPMHU President Paul Hogrogian sent a joint letter to Postmaster General Megan Brennan voicing the unions’ deep concerns. In the letter, the two presidents challenged, “why the Postal Service would choose to declare war on its unions and its employees.”
“The cutting of an already skeletal workforce will not only cause massive disruption to the workforce but will cause further degradation of postal services for the American people throughout the country,” the letter stated.
Together, the postal unions drew a line in the sand and stood united against Postmaster Brennan’s continuous “cost-saving” shortcuts. The presidents concluded by restating their commitment to work together, “Rest assured that, absent correction, the APWU and the NPMHU will together resist [the] misguided actions and violations of [the Postal Service’s] agreements with, and commitments to, our members.”
Fighting Back with Grievances and in the Streets
The National Clerk Division leadership organized a coordinated response to the serious contract violations, including provisions that management must create career bid jobs out of all available work hours. National officers conducted concerted training for local/state officers and stewards across the country (with plans to continue trainings, as necessary, moving forward). A Clerk Division National Business Agent (NBA) from each region is assigned to assist the local and state affiliates in filing grievances. The APWU headquarters leadership is preparing to file national grievances, as appropriate, and the five APWU Regional Coordinators will initiate appropriate area-wide grievances, as well.
Now that the proposed excessing is delayed for five months, the APWU and postal management agreed to area-wide meetings to fully discuss staffing and scheduling. “We welcome the opportunity to sit down and discuss these important issues,” said President Dimondstein. “However, APWU representatives will vigorously oppose any unnecessary changes and seek constructive alternatives to management’s slash and burn approach.”
Locals are taking their own initiative and getting out in the streets, educating and rallying their communities. On June 10, the Baltimore Francis “Stu” Filbey Area Local held an informational picket with over 70 members and supporters. Other locals are preparing similar actions to defend good services to postal customers.
Stay Informed & Involved!
“All APWU members should stay informed and involved,” urged President Dimondstein. “As we await new impact statements, any excessing is months away from becoming a reality. Furthermore, based on a previously negotiated settlement with the union, management cannot excess APWU-represented career employees more than 50 miles. So, there is limited opportunity for postal bosses to currently force employees out of their facilities.”
If an APWU member receives an improper notification of an involuntary reassignment, contact your local/state union representative for assistance.
Find out more information on the specific impact to your workplace and how to help fight back, at apwu.org, on Facebook and at local union meetings. To receive texts or emails directly from the APWU’s National Headquarters regarding this, and other important issues, sign-up online at www.apwu.org/
If it’s the Mark Grossman that recently retired from mpls any statement he makes is irrelevant…that worthless POS didn’t do an honest days work in the last 20 years…..or more!! He should join that website. SLUGS ARE US…..
The only way the postal unions are going to be able to fight misguided postal management is to do the one thing they do not want to do….merge all the unions and craft into ONE craft and union. As one workforce, all jobs could be bid on by any postal worker, using their service seniority, which would be welcomed by many wishing to change their job without starting over in a new craft. As one union, postal workers would have much more clout, as the Post Office would no longer be able to favor one craft over another in order to create animosity and angst among the workers. The ones who would not want this to happen, other than management, of course, are the current union executives, as many would have to give up their current positions.
ISC/JFK is also a total mess. Managers seem to look the other way, and the SDO do not seem to know much these days. I am a clerk working here from 1970 first at Annex 1 then Annex 2, Annex 3 Thrn the old 197 Foreign Parcels..I am now at building #250 and I seen it all with these Managers, and plant managers. Old timers MDO’S I believe did a much better job overall then who we have now running this circus . Where are you know Adel Bohle? We really need your input on this.
Thank USPS Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President David E. Williams to see who is behind all of this… I can’t wait until he is Postmaster General and then President and then Supreme Commander and Lord over all of the Earth.
One more thing. If you really want to solve this problem there really is an easy way to do it, but it gets harder as time goes by. Simply exercise our rights to grieve violations of the contract. ALL VIOLATIONS OF THE CONTRACT. This has to be done now while The National and the locals still have dues incoming, the longer we wait, the smaller the war chest to fight will be. By simply enforcing the CBA, management has to spend money they do not have to process grievances. If all violations were grieved (not frivolous grievances but actual violations) management would be overwhelmed on two fronts: One the labor relations managers could never keep up with the sheer number and would spend tons of money to process even the grievances they won not to mention the grievance payments they would lose. Two, most field level supervisors, branch managers, and postmasters have become set in their ways and could not possibly make their budgets if they were forced to actually follow the CBA to the letter. Reagan outspent the Soviets. The unions have to do the same, but the smaller the workforce, the less able the unions are to pay for grievance processing. Time is on management’s side as long as the status quo remains the same. The more money we waste on elaborate accommodations for seminars and picnics, the less money the unions have for fighting. When an officer of the union is negligent or willfully cuts deals with local management at the employee’s expense, the employee should take the issue up with the Department of Labor. This is the legal strength of Collective Bargaining. If we the employees would simply exercise our legal rights to grieve management’s violations of the CBA while at the same time held our locals accountable for failing to do so if they do so, most of these problems would solve their selves.
My job just got abolished even though it was put up for bid in October 2016 and I was the senior bidder. All this crap is just to get us topped out old farts to bail if they offer an early out and to get PSE’s to quit who almost have a year in and are about to become eligible for benefits by starving them for hours or the opposite; work them to death with overtime. When they are satisfied they have culled as many of us as they can they will hire fresh PSEs in they can abuse for another year at a lower wage tier that we agreed to in the 2010-15 agreement when we agreed to create two wage classes. Also, it will lower the membership and take away dues money by replacing top dues payers with new hires who pay less in dues.
To Win this fight which it is, The Real Issues must be taken to the streets. Not in the form of protests, but broadcasting correct information. Management runs from real numbers, they never lie.
Well prepared statements must be short, concise and accurate. The public are waiting for guidance from us. This citizenry are ready to boil and waiting on us with needed informational requests. Just Facts, no party affiliation, period!
Dear Mr. The only reason the Postal Service is “losing ” millions is because of the health care prefunding. An invented, made up, manufactured, unnecessary cost started to strangle the Postal Service. Why isn’t your employer forced to prefund health care? What is good for the Postal service is good for your place of work! And as for President Don Dump, he knows all about lies. I love the news from Washington, D.C. the white House is run like the Three Stooges. Time to make Iraq and Afghanistan pay their way! Make them pay for prefunded health care and military toys.
Stephen, You may think you left, but someone else has their hands in our pockets and their fingers on the few dollars there. Federal Retirees are never retired, you just left work. Then your job becomes watching what may happen when you’re not. Always visit information sites for needed messages about Our well-being. The heat is on!
WT, you neglect to mention the creative accounting techniques the Postal Service has created. They haven’t paid the health care prefunding bill for many years and probably won’t ever pay it. They are using two sets of accounting books. One for controllable expenses and the other for uncontrollable expenses. God only knows what else they have put in the uncontrollable expenses besides the prefund mandate. Anyhow, the PO has not made any payments since 2009 and 8 years later seems moot to even be discussing it.
The USPS stopped paying into the Congressional money grab 5 years ago and has been operating at a profit since as well as this year. We on the inside can see what is coming from Megan Brennan and David Williams at Elephant Plaza about dropping mail volume necessitating the’s further unnecessary job eliminations and degrading of service is bullshit and Congress needs to do their job and intervene and remove these two bought for dopes and appoint a PMG and EVP who will grow the business,not tear it down.
What a mess in this organization…..I am so glad I retired from it all,……the lies, the corrupt ways of management…… it just never ends…..there is no trust at all, NONE!!! In my 32 years there it has gone completely downhill + like a snowball it keeps getting bigger + bigger ….. only one problem…. there is a huge brick wall at the bottom of the hill + SPLAT that will be the END of this misguided institution
some investigation needs to be made into the total destruction of the US Postal service!!!!!!!
Around 15 to 18 of our PSEs are still averaging over 40 hours a week while bids are being reverted in San Francisco.
My Brother, the House Appropriation Committee will be a good place to start for whats needed.. They runs this ship and who does what.
My first thought is: when management repeatedly and deliberately violate labor agreements, even announcing their intentions to do so, at what point should much more severe penalties be placed on them?
There has to be a commission, agency or some type of governing body that has powers to force management to adhere to the contracts and all regulations. Unions can file until they’re blue in the face, but it’s obvious that the methods available to fight back against a corrupted and imbecilic management structure are pathetically weak, and frankly in the case of my union, the NALC, that leadership is weak as hell.
I have to disagree with Mark Grossman – privatization is not the answer to fix the problems. That will cost hundreds of thousands of employees their jobs as they will either be fired or forced to quit because pay will be slashed, benefits removed, unions dissolved, and the USPS will exist no longer. A for-profit delivery system will benefit only management or stock holders if it goes public. It is the way private business is run. I understand how so many in all the crafts can be so fed up with the lack of decent representation, but from what I’ve seen Mark Dimonstein is the best of the bunch with the APWU.
There are other “answers” out there. Creating that independent governing body that is totally self operated and does not have to cooperate with management because they are part of the structure is one. It’s not likely but it’s worth considering.
Another is to bid adieu to ineffective union leadership. The unions are supposed to represent us, and it seems as if they are just taking in money and running like scared dogs every time they confront management. The NALC needs some much tougher leadership in the tradition of Vince Sombrotto or Bill Young because frankly Fred Rolando has been weak and ineffective. I hope somebody runs for NALC president who will fight and be willing to use all means including the NLRB or legal methods for stopping management from its ignorant course.
Michael Moore said it best – “management will not behave until they are forced to.” And that’s what has to happen.
Bill Young !?! He sold us down the river just as much as Rolando the clown is.
The cca idea was initially Youngs.
Bill Young’s wife was in management and he was totally in bed with then PMG Potter and even supported the dumbest law ever passed by Congress…the PAEA “pre-fund” bill that forced it to pay $5.5 billion every year to supposedly pre-fund retirees healthcare which they pay for in full who have not yet been born or hired yet for 75 years in a 10 year window.
they stopped hiring disability people completely.. very low morale… i no longer write letters!
so why doesn’t Diamondstein get a restraining order or an injunction from a Federal Court Judge for a cooling off period and fact finding……that might cost some money for a Washington, DC Labor Law Firm……..APWU would rather line their own pockets while the USPS Titanic takes on more water. me, I saw this coming years ago and added UPS, FDX, AMZN, to my stock portfolio……have more in these stocks than I do in my TSP which I put 15% in for 30 years, in the stock funds, and never took out any loans like the other morons did. in case you sheeple do not know…..Guffy put the final nail in your coffin! its done put a fork in it! these postal union are not even 1% as effective as a New York City Union! whom does the bell toll, it tolls for thee apwu union member!
The gravy train finally had to come to an end….Trump’s not going to buy the lies of not using taxpayer’s money when you’re losing billions a year.
It’s going to be a bloodbath and EAS will be hit even harder.
Huh? if you have worked for the Postal Service for any length of time you know EAS is untouchable and in fact it gets even more bloated when they are in gutting mode.
Retirement was the right thing for me. Managers are being forced out also, right? No?
Gee, I find that hard to believe.
Sell the service
Inside job of dismantling
Can somebody tell me why we need postmasters? What do they really do? The position should be abolished, completely. Like the milkman and the encyclopedia, their time has come. Want to save money, can the job, consolidate the positions and really save money and stop the head chopping of decent hard working people, like the craft.
My question is why are they waiting five months? Is that because the busy season will be over?? Think so! Don’t be fooled. My local union is absolutely useless and have been for quite some time. My office has three PSE s that work over fifty hours a week. As many times as you call the union to let them know, they NEVER get back to you. NEVER!! The union doesn’t seem to care. Just my opinion.
Don’t complain. Replace! YOU are the Union – if you truly give a darn about other employees, jump in and provide the help.
We are witness to the destruction of the world’s best postal system, by it’s own mgmt.
hey Mid-Island PD&C 117/119 Plant is a total mess…..the dieversity crowd is running it into the ground. total chaos, low IQ Postal Mismanagers who “think” they are on same level as a Harvard MBA…..really pretty funny to watch. do not have to pay any money to watch this circus. ps…have an audit team coming in next week, everybody knows…..it they really wanted to know what was going on they would walk in unannounced…….just a circus without the elephants!
Blessed are the Morgan,NY L&D.C. mail-processing plant,and the Mid-Island,(Long Island),NY P&D.C. mail-processing facility;about 100-times over!! But,cursed is the Queens,NY P&D.C.,(currently,parcels only);at least–the same times over. Arguably,even more so? The Brooklyn,NY P&D.C ,at this moment, is neither cursed; nor blessed!! These are the actual ,on-the-ground realities,regardless of whether;there are job(bid),reductions–at all four of these facilities. Women and men of intelligence,DO NOT be fooled!!
Postal management knows that the lines at Postal windows are way too long. That is part of their plan. Management wants customers to purchase stamps at any place but the Post Office. Will be able to cut employees. And if the public becomes angry at long lines as is now, tough. And so what that it takes longer for letters to arrive where they are mailed to because the work force is cut. As long as the management force isn’t cut. Someone must take care of the scanners, coffee machines, and don’t forget, discipline must be handed out by well trained stupidvisors.
Can we sue Megan Brennan for false advertising when she narrates the most recent commercial and states, “Priority, you!”
Privatization is the only answer
Her entire sentence was: ” USPS’s priority : Fire YOU!”
Unfortunately, you’re correct
The Congressional Committee that oversees the PO,since there are now no sitting members on the BOG needs to just whack Muffin Megan and her henchman,David Williams now and let Stroman,an outsider who should have been appointed PMG take over with a mandate to grow it,not dismantle it.
I actually said “Priority,not for you” but it was edited out.