05/28/2015 – Contract negotiations between the American Postal Workers Union and the U.S. Postal Service ended without an agreement on May 27.
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, President Mark Dimondstein reported. “Management’s economic demands and proposed changes to the workforce structure were completely unacceptable,” he said.
The Postal Service proposals include:
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Eliminate cost-of-living adjustments as we know them;
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Increase employees’ contributions to healthcare coverage;
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Create a new, permanent lower payscale for future career employees with reduced benefits;
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Increase the percentage of non-career employees,
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Weaken protection against layoffs.
APWU proposals include fair and reasonable wage increases, limits on subcontracting, more career jobs, improvements for Postal Support Employees, limits on excessing, and better service for our customers, Dimondstein said.
The APWU will participate in mediation, in accordance with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, and proceed to arbitration if attempts to mediate a settlement are unsuccessful. Mediation will be conducted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) and is expected to last 60 days.
“All the protections of the 2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement will continue in full force and effect until a new contract is reached,” Dimondstein said.
What Can Union Members Do?
“Our fight for a good contract now enters a new stage, but the role of rank-and-file union members remains critical,” President Dimondstein said.
“Your continued involvement can make a difference as we move to mediation and possibly to arbitration,” he declared.
“Postal management takes note of how many of our members are wearing union buttons, stickers and T-shirts, and how many union members participate in rallies and other activities. They take it as a sign of the union’s strength,” he said.
“I want to thank all those who stepped up to fight for a good contract. I urge every member to get involved and help keep our momentum going as we enter this new period in our struggle,” he said.
The union is calling on APWU members to make sure management sees our union strength by wearing union gear every Thursday, beginning on June 4. “This is a simple way that we can continue to demonstrate solidarity and build our campaign for a good contract,” he said.
“The ‘I Stand with Postal Workers’ postcards 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! It’s important that we continue to collect signatures to keep the pressure on management,” Dimondstein said.
“Our struggle continues,” he said. “Stay strong, stay united, and keep Standing Up and Fighting Back!”
Mr. Diamonstein’s efforts in contract negotiations hopefully
emphasize the first year in any increases in a multiple year
contract. Considering that a high three salary computation
is used when retiring we need the most bang for the buck
up front!
Fewer employees = less dues so buy a T-shirt from the union to keep their overpaid income and perks flowing. Y’all be happy you are not in private industry as you would learn what it is like to work. Y’all would do anything for those overpaid jobs (positions) at the PO. Y’all believe Obie stating the economy is great? Y’all gave him $$$ to do what? Your great union was too stupid to see he is a liar and not to be trusted as he threw Rev Wright under the bus.
my educated guess, after everything is said and done, all you will see is a great big goose egg 1% raise each year over a 5 year period.the last contract put a bullseye on the back of every senior clerk……….it been like a game of dodge ball from having these evil bureaucrats try and fire you over petty things. TEAMSTERS #1. I am not voting democrat………..all talk and no help. Rand Paul.
When the hats in the APWU actually ratified their own death warrant in the last contract they set the pattern for the other unions and the rest of time. You VOTED for PSE’s, where did you think it was going to go in the next round?
It is long past time that these unions be decertified, the future was cashiered so that they might grab dues from the revolving mess of PSE/MHA/CCA’s etc. If Walker is elected and does the same to the federal unions that he did in WI they will not long remain solvent. I would love to see it.
If this is news to anyone, they must be a new hire.
when I started in 1986 the difference in pay between a top level clerk and a top level stupidvisor was $6000. in 2015 the spread between the two is $15,000. apwu under biller token burrASS was a total disaster, guffy was a punk (just gave away our 2011 COLA ) , and we have been screwed time and again. explain to an arbitrator how a MDO without any college or business education is making 100K………while the dump lost over 60 billion in the last five years. apwu just can not seem to get a good contract…….is that by accident or design. I notice they have never brought in a labor law firm from K street to help them. maybe not allowed because they are a company union just going through the basic motions? as with everything else in the post office…..nothing makes sense as to how the apwu just keeps coming up a dollar short and a day late. McDonalds workers are catching up to us. and they get a free lunch. I can just see it now……you are lucky to get a 1% raise. democrats in the white house no less…….jokes on you slugs. 3 billion for illegal criminal aliens…….nothing for you democrat useful idiots.
Most members of APWU are automation clerks. In the past it used to take a few weeks to learn a scheme, or to learn how to key on an LSM. It takes a couple of hours to become an automation clerk! Be careful people, you may not like what comes next.
I do wish you all the best of luck. For me, I can retire any day now.
diamondstein better make a good case that 99% of postal mismanagers have no university education and are over paid, in addition these bureaucrats have lost billions of dollars due to their incompentency and only the union workers bailed them out…………..the arbitrator will agree with this line of thought. who of the two groups are really overpaid. now if only the dolts in the apwu could for once present a rationale argument how the current bloated mismanagement needs to pay up. in the mean time………”work to rule” until its decided.
Same ol’ same ol’ Moe ? ? WHERE did you go ? ?
Rolling over in my grave.
Barack and Hillary want to double minimum wage to $15. while sitting idly by while they slash our wages and benefits.
the unions should ask the arbitrator: how is it USPS can afford a massively bloated and overpaid and horrendously expensive management infrastructure– especially EAS– but cant afford to offer the unions a decent settlement.
They can afford to settle the the union contracts at the bargaining table but are hoping to get an arbitrator who is on their side gives them their ridiculous wage giveback demands,then they can give themselves their well deserved big pay raises and bonus’s.
PMG Brennan, you need to cut your own pay and benefits first before cutting ours.
What??? You mean to tell me that both sides agreed to extend negotiations a couple of weeks ago, because they were making progress, and now it has to go to mediation? Wow! I did not see that coming….. Wake up people- this business is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Once again, we will all get our annual 1% or so raise, and maybe a COLA here or there. Nothing is going to change. The unions are more interested in maintaining membership numbers, and having rallies that they forget about those of us actually working. The dynamics of the Postal Service have changed, and the unions continue to focus all energy on making sure we have more and more members. I’m not saying for the unions to give up, because they have helped us a lot, but there comes a time when EVERYONE must adapt to change. 5-day delivery and curbside boxes for the carriers would save the PO millions of $. And no, it’s not going to drive business away. 70% of residential areas are curbside now, and almost 70% of businesses are closed on Saturday. Use it as a bargaining chip, and get the carriers a decent contract. As for the clerks, if the PO wants to downsize by closing plants, then find a way, as a bargaining chip, to make it work and no one will lose their job. The volume of mail has decreased, and anyone who works here can see that. Too many days, we have clerks in our office standing around talking after all mail is given to the carriers, and carriers are 30 minutes light on their routes. Yes, I know the PO is making an operating profit, because the unions won’t quick reminding me, but it is nowhere near enough when we owe $18 billion on an operating line of credit, and need to replace all vehicles in 2 years. Forget about the pre- funding because that ends in 2016 anyway, and we haven’t made the last 4 payments. There hasn’t been any consequences, so why even worry about the next 2? I’m sorry if this all sounds harsh, but this is the way it is now. We all know the situation, and if we can’t handle it, then I guess we should walk away. We as clerks and carriers can’t and won’t beat the system, until our unions start looking at it from another perspective.
Carrier chuck, you hit the nails on all their heads. The P.O., management and members, are living in a world that no longer exists.
Will the Postal Service give up their executive only gym and limos? I doubt it! The big time operators want all the goodies reserved for the elite. While the slaves must settle for new whips and chains. The Postal Service’s contract idea must have been made up by Rodney Dangerfield, It’s just a big joke!
I’m in it until the end.
They are all the same from the lowest ranking slug of a supervisor to the top of the chain. They are in it for themselves and nobody else. Most of them do not want to work that is why they became supervisors. But there are a couole of good ones out there. Just sayin
Why should the Service negotiate when they know they will get something from an arbitrator? Then they will moan the arbitrator is not fair because he made sense. The deadwood at TheInfant Plaza is 80% LIFERS who never had to work a day in their lives. They have no understanding of responsibility or common sense.
I believe we should have random drug testing on these leeches…jus saying
last I checked we have a democrat president, again what has he done for us????? Oh that’s right it’s bush’s fault. Get off the republican crap, we had how many republican presidents and not one job lost. Obama has been in office long enough to make a change. Your a moron.
It’s always a delight to hear Megan say we’re appreciated and we’re doing a great job in these plan 5 videos we have to watch hear in Harrisburg P&DC in one side of her mouth and talking out the other side of her mouth we’re worthless and deserve even less in pay and benefits.. A typical Republican!!! Remember folks. Megan is Donahue dressed in DRAG!!! Just remember Megan. I worked with you in Lancaster when you were a pathetic PTF letter carrier and then 204b..
how long did Megan carry before moving up the ranks? not long I bet…….
They can afford to settle the the union contracts at the bargaining table but are hoping to get an arbitrator who is on their side gives them their ridiculous wage giveback demands,then they can give themselves their well deserved big pay raises and bonus’s.
Brennan was a carrier for all of 1 year before she jumped into management through family connections,hooked up with Donawhore in Pennsylvania and rode his coat tails for more than 20 years through his various management assignments up to headquarters.
Did anyone really expect the USPS to do anything less?
Fed Ex, UPS and Amazon don’t think package delivery is a deteriorating business. And it wouldn’t be for USPS either if customer satisfaction, details on good service were followed, and less “let’s get more with less” attitude didn’t prevail within the management system. Your currently doing a horrible job with customer service and getting the product out in a timely fashion, which is only slightly better than how employee/management relations are, which makes USPS indeed a deteriorating business’s.
The Union and its supporters should not give up in despair, but they should be mentally prepared to get little or nothing in the way of pay and benefit increases. If they can minimize their losses they have accomplished something. The bargaining position of the Unions will never be what it was in the past. Public sector unions are now experiencing what the Steelworkers and Autoworkers experienced earlier concerning the harsh economic realities of a deteriorating industry.
I love my job already down 25ks in 3 years while I drive a death trap. the postal service and congress can go ______ themselves this great institution destroyed by greed and power hungry losers
If you mouth off at Google…you’re gone. Strange. So it is like the USPS? Shut up and do as you are told. Even if the instructions are idiotic? Thought at Google they listened to their employees.
Poor Virginia, using Zappos and Google has examples.
If you mouth-off often at Google……you’re gone.
If you abuse family leave at Google…..you’re gone.
If you abuse breaks and lunches at Google….you’re gone.
If your constantly late for work at Google……you’re gone.
If you did the above in the military….you’re going to jail.
At the USPS…employees get away with it.
Get the Picture??? Virginia.
27 years as craft….I wake-up happy and I go to work happy.
I let postal management, miss-manage and I follow orders and I follow my union contract. Its that simple.
Too many employees refuse to honor their union contract, then blame postal management.
Its simple: Article 12….employees MUST FOLLOW INSTRUCTION!…Employees can’t read!
Following instructions is for ALL postal employees, not just the craft. Management fails to follow instructions every time they break the contract.
There’s a comprehensive new booklet about defeating the campaign to privatize the P.O. Send $6 to Stop Postal Privatization!, P.O. Box 125, Angwin CA 94508. Or just type in “The Rightwing Plot to Destroy the Post Office” in the Google Box online, and it will take you to a website where you can buy it. Interesting reading, to say the least.
This gives us a clue to what contract talks for the NALC will be like at the end of next year. The APWU is lucky to have Dimondstein – he seems to have real backbone. I recall a few weeks ago the NALC was praising PMG Brennan and that did not set well with me and, I would wager, most NALC members who read that post.
The bargaining process isn’t new. Both sides come to the table from far out in their own left fields, and end up meeting somewhere in between, usually by a neutral arbitrator’s ruling. I personally can’t recall the last time the NALC and the USPS reached a negotiated settlement without having to go to arbitration. It has been many years.
Brennan, through her contract team has showed her true intent – dismantling of the unions, severe pay cuts, higher benefit costs without increasing any returns, making the force as low brow as possible by flooding the labor pool with PSE’s and CCA’s, and continuing to erode customer service.
Is management really actually quite smart, and are trying to ruin the USPS, or are they incredibly corrupt and stupid, not really having a clue how to run the Service? Brennan doesn’t have much of a pedigree as far as I’m concerned. She got in on Donahoe’s coattails, in the suck up tradition that has elevated and promoted thousands of people who are meaner than hell, screw up everything they lay their hands on, and have delusions of their importance.
Today, supervisors and most management are incapable of accurate job assessments of their craft. They are numbers dependent, and in the case of city carriers, they can’t see any variables, only a stupid DOIS calculation that “tells” how a carrier is supposedly doing. They seldom count parcels, don’t pay attention to street factors like traffic, schools, weather or physical difficulties, especially for those of us who have been at it for a very long time and simply cannot run like a twenty-something any more. They don’t understand route maintenance, attention to accuracy and reliability. It isn’t in their magic DOIS formula, so they have no clue.
I’ve been chewed out for finishing my route earlier than DOIS projected. My route is very heavy on duplexes and apartments, and is mounted. So when volume is light and without circulars or utility bills, because the area is low income and high transient, you can miss boxes by the dozen sometimes. What do they want us to do? With the new scanners, they’ll scream if they look at us and we’re not moving fast enough to suit them, so you can’t win. Instead you get bawled out for doing better than expected.
These are the people who want to set our wages, benefits, and work conditions. What is desperately needed is a highly public expose of the incompetence and brutal behavior craft people suffer with at the hands of these goons. We don’t want to bite the hand that feeds, but we should have an outlet besides internet anonymity to vent our frustrations and try to get the attention of those who can do something about how the USPS is being run into the ground.
Actually,it wasn’t that long ago during Parachute Potter’s tenure that all union contracts were negotiated and settled before the expiration date and you had to go back to the early 90’s,when Carvin’ Marvin Runyon was PMG that they were forced to go to arbitration by management.
Virginia Evans says:
May 28, 2015 at 6:09 am
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The reality is the Post Office is the most abusive place I have ever worked if it wasn’t for the decent wage I would have left.
Is no one in management learning that when you treat employees well you prosper beyond your wildest dreams. Zappos and Google are good examples.
The trouble is the flawed notion that employees are a liability not an asset. The fact that were %40 of CCA’s are not staying with the service is a simple math equation they can make more elsewhere!
Good luck to us I say.
The reality is the Post Office is the most abusive place I have ever worked if it wasn’t for the decent wage I would have left.
Is no one in management learning that when you treat employees well you proper beyond your wildest dreams. Zappos and Google are good examples.
The trouble is the flawed notion that employees are a liability not an asset. The fact that were %40 of CCA’s are not staying with the service is a simple math equation they can make more elsewhere!
Good luck to us I say.
You have the full support of the Philadelphia Local. We must unite in our effort to secure a fair contract for all.
Your local president in Philadelphia was forcibly removed by Guffey’s goons for opposing them and the horrible contract you ratified.
Just like the military folks the po is just the same and everyone else that works in the government were all overworked and underpaid. We were pretty close to going to 6 to 5 day delivery then we contracted the Amazon account and now we’re 7 day and holidays but still the usps I wants to cut our pay and benefits more than they already have. Making us work faster completing 10hr days into “8” hr days every day. Push push push. No customer service anymore just numbers. The only thing speed is creating for them is more accident reports nation wide. Bringing in more cca’s that the post office is converting into management with less than a year of experience. Wow the post office we have known a long time is sinking and sinking. Cutting carriers wages and benefits and increasing managements pay and bonuses. Fail again. 10 years to retirement hope I can make it lol good luck fellow brothers and sisters