APWU: Contract Mediation Gets Underway
06/10/2015 – Representatives of the APWU and USPS held an introductory meeting with officials of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) on June 9 to begin mediation on a new collective bargaining agreement.
APWU President Mark Dimondstein, Industrial Relations Director Tony McKinnon and staff met with FMCS Acting Director Allison Beck, Deputy Director Scott Beckenbaugh, and the USPS vice president of Labor Relations, where they discussed the progress of negotiations thus far and outlined some of the topics that separate the parties. They also made tentative plans for more in-depth meetings in June and July.
Contract negotiations ended without an agreement on May 27, following a one-week extension of talks.
The USPS scuttled any prospect of reaching a deal by insisting on severe cuts in pay and benefits, despite the fact that progress had been made on many non-economic issues, Dimondstein said. “Management’s economic demands and proposed changes to the workforce structure were completely unacceptable.”
The Postal Service proposals include:
- Eliminate cost-of-living adjustments as we know them;
- Increase employees’ contributions to healthcare coverage;
- Create a new, permanent lower pay scale for future career employees with reduced benefits;
- Increase the percentage of non-career employees, and
- Weaken protection against layoffs.
The APWU is fighting for, among other items:
- Fair and reasonable wage increases;
- Limits on subcontracting;
- More career jobs;
- Improvements for Postal Support Employees (PSEs)
- Limits on excessing, and
- Better service for our customers.
In accordance with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), if bargaining reaches a stalemate, the union and management must participate in mediation unless they agree to an alternate method. The parties will proceed to arbitration if attempts to mediate a settlement are unsuccessful. Mediation is expected to last at least 60 days.
In the meantime, all the protections of the 2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement will continue in full force and effect until a new contract is reached, Dimondstein said.
Wear Union Gear; Get Postcards Signed
“Our fight for a good contract has entered a new stage,” he said, “but union members continue to play a critical role in the battle. Your continued involvement can make a difference.”
The union is calling on APWU members to make sure management sees our union strength by wearing union T-shirts, caps, buttons, stickers and other gear every Thursday. “This is a simple way that we can continue to demonstrate solidarity and build our campaign for a good contract,” Dimondstein said.
The union is also asking union members and supporters to continue gathering signatures of the “I Stand with Postal Workers.”
“They are an excellent way to let Postmaster General Megan Brennan know that the people of the country want what we want: Good Postal Service! Good Jobs! Good Contract!” Dimondstein said.
“Our struggle continues,” he said. “Stay strong, stay united, and keep Standing Up and Fighting Back!”
via APWU
Carrier Chuck and Tommy Gun – All of the unions have National Conventions every two years, it is at those conventions that the membership tells the national union officers what they want them to ask for at contract negotiations. If you don’t know what the union is asking for at contract time its because you are uninvolved and therefore uninformed…want to know what is going on then take the time to actually attend a union meeting and ask! As for what management is offering us, check your national union web site…they want to cut your pay, make you pay for more of your health benefits, eliminate your no layoff protection and hire more non career workers…which, without the union is what you would get
Always keep one thing in mind when discussing management: They have all been advanced through the system equal to the level of their incompetence.
I agree Tommy Gun. We are never told what the Unions ask for, or why aren’t we as members asked what we want in contract? We are just supposed to trust them and then pat them on the back when we get our 1% increase again. Great job union!! I can get the 1% without being a member too
Mediation will go nowhere. Management probably knows that they can’t possibly win the incredibly draconian proposals they want, so it’s a face saving strategy to let arbitrators force them to agree to a contract, and they can then say they didn’t cave in to the APWU, a method they’ve used for quite some time against all the postal unions.
I seriously doubt there will ever be an agreement without arbitration. Management hates the unions, thinks they’re a for profit business and shrewd brilliant businessmen and women on a par with the Wall Street gang and huge industries and corporations. The joke is on them. No real profit oriented business, Wal-Mart, GM, any large bank, etc., would ever hire a postal executive, knowing they’re all a bunch of incompetent boobs who got where they were through nepotism and ass kissing, not business acumen. Of course, that “good old boy” network is in all business, and management is usually pathetic, mean as fuck and out of touch with its work forces in just about any company you care to mention.
I think management overall is a place where people go to get better pay, which is commendable, but end up getting sucked into the culture, attain massive egos, and learn they have to be cutthroat back stabbing monsters just to survive. I’m glad I make enough as a craft employee to not have to tolerate that game.
It’s discouraging that the Postmaster General has praised the
employee’s of the postal service for all their hard work and
dedication and then in negotiations suggest otherwise. The
Postal Service with the backing of the republicans offer nothing
to most middle class individuals trying to earn a decent wage.
The employee’s of any company are the engine that make it go,
if that engine is not taken care of it sooner or later will not run well.
We deserve a fair contract and have worked to hard just trying to
keep what we have in place to give anything back. Not to beat a
dead horse but this is a moot subject if congress had already
alleviated the 5.5 Billion $$$$ a year payment that’s mandatory.
Even though it has not been paid in the past to make payroll it is
still counted on the books as owed in the big picture. The Post Office
would be home free with the ball and chain of this payment gone!
WHY WON’T ANYONE TELL US, THE DUES PAYING MEMBERS, THAT PAY ALL THE UNION OFICIALS SALARIES, WHAT EXACTLY THE USPS PUT ON THE TABLE AND WHAT OUR UNION IS ASKING FOR!!!!!!! I AM GETTING A LITTLE TIRED OF FIGHTING FOR EMPLOYEES NOT YET BORN, AND US THE WORKING MEMBERS THAT TOIL UNDER INEPT MANAGEMENT IN UNSAFE CONDITIONS CAN’T EVEN BE TOLD WHAT ARE EQUALLY INEPT UNION OFFICIALS ARE ASKING FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amazes me how disposable CC A’s are and opened welcome to Mgmt.
Mgmt. schedules behind bringing them in after us Career Employees
leave and we have not met many of them.
Follow the money and associate offices in rural areas are not getting
what is needed,
quite playing softball with these jokers……….lets go to arbitration………..show how the uneducated postal bureaucrats lost 60 billion last 5 years and it was the union workers who kept the place together………in spite of these losers! show the arbitrator how they keep thousands and thousands of extra dolts on the mismanagement payroll sucking up millions and millions dollars. bloated mismanagement ratio to worker is why out of wack when you compare them to a Fortune 500 Company……………its the APWU’s to lose if they do not hire economist’s and accountants to help show just how piss poor this mismanagement is and how they have been ripping off the post office with their low IQ.