APWU President-Elect Mark Dimondstein issued the following statement on his Facebook page:
Greetings APWU Sisters and Brothers,
I am deeply honored to be elected by the membership to the office of APWU National President and greatly appreciate the many activists around the country that passionately worked for change and made this victory possible. This election victory belongs to the people.
I congratulate the fine candidates I ran with on the APWU Members First Team, most of whom also were given a strong vote of confidence by the membership, as well as congratulate all candidates who were re-elected to office.
I also join with many in our union family in thanking the outgoing officers for their years of service to the APWU.
The APWU membership has spoken decisively for a new direction in our union as we face the challenges of protecting our jobs, our retirement and our public postal service from the postal privatizers on Wall Street, in Congress and even in postal headquarters.
To be successful we will need maximum unity. I very much appreciate outgoing APWU President Cliff Guffey’s gracious statement: “I hope everyone will get behind the new administration. We have tough times ahead and we’re going to need unity.”
In this spirit of unity we look forward to working with all APWU members, our sister postal unions, the labor movement and the people of this country as together we stand up and fight back to win the best possible future for postal workers, our communities and working people.
Solidarity Forever!
Mark Dimondstein
APWU President-Elect
Installation of National Officers will be held Nov. 7, 2013 at Bally’s Las Vegas. Featured speaker is rumored to be Bob Donaldson who will perform a magic trick of eating crow in front of a live audience. All are invited afterwards to the hospitality room where spirits will be served courtesy of apwu members dues money.
William Perkins-Anyone is better than Goofy Guffey,the Donablow stooge who said to Congress he would negotiate to let management pull APWU crafts out of FEHB and into DonablowCare.
YOUR biggest challenge is to keep Workers in the FEDERAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM! IT IS THE BEST!
Endorsed by burris gives him zero credibility in my book.
Congratulations. As a 35 year Clerk, I have retired and look froward to many years of union fought-for COLA’s & Benefits.
I stand ready and willing to help in any way I can.
Union now, union always !
As a UNION, we need to get the grievances filed MOVED along at a much faster pace..Waiting for 2 to 4 years is NOT acceptable.. If we retire, all is lost…Let’s get the ball rolling and keep after it…
The new officer’s need to get moving in Georgia, it’s the worst kept secret that every associate office is utilizing RCA’s to work the mail everyday, management even puts out a notice on Friday to make sure offices don’t forget to transfer the hour’s from rural to clerk craft, then on Monday/Tuesday provides a break down of the hours moved. Clerks have been excess, PTF’s not converted, PSE’s not hired, where is the current APWU officers & steward’s while this is going on? If you want to save clerk job’s, look no further than Georgia, Dual appointments still exist?
Mark,
The membership has spoken and as you said, “very decisively.” Now it’s time to govern. We have huge challenges ahead with Issa and Congress trying to emasculate the U.S.P.S. while Donahoe is doing everything within his power to destroy the organization from the inside. We have to be effective in our public message as well not being out smarted by postal management in negotiation. As a new administration you must send a strong message to postal management that this will not be business as usual. No more being suckered by niceties only to be bent over in the end. Yes, you must trust but verify everything these creeps say.
Mark Diamondstein……..a word to the wise. keep your eye on that dirty wench liz powell….an enemy of the people. make sure an audit of the books is your first order of business. then at least once a year.
Congratulations! Contract stations (post offices and mail processing plants) really bother me. We would all have jobs when excessed if it were not for these contract stations. We have to be trained and pass tests to keep our jobs to do window. People off the street should not be able to process mail let alone first class. It is also my understanding (I may be wrong) that Pitney Bowes has quite a few mail processing plants throughout the United States that are sorting our mail. We are being excessed and forced to switch crafts when people off the street are taking are jobs. I am happy with my present pay and benefits, I would like to have better job security in my craft. Right now we can be forced to take a carrier job and then run the chance of being laid off because we don’t have six years in as a carrier even though we might have 20 years in as a clerk. Last contract kind of screwed our PSE’s also.
Congratulations. Hopefully you will correct all the errors in the last contract. After a plant closure and excessing I got excessed across crafts and excessed again. Because of the order it all went in I’m now 3 levels lower than I was and have no seniority. I can’t bid and most probably will be excessed again due to a neighboring plant closing in 2014. I’m not a new guy but a 20 year employee. Under the last contract I got $8000 pay cut and lost all my seniority. Oh! and no retreat right either. Anything is better than the rag of a contract we have right now.
Congratulations Mark, You have taken over at the toughest time possible for the union and I hope you can help keep the union on track.
My understanding is that the PMG testified before congress that discounts to large mailers amount to between $14 and $18 billion a year. Yet the unions are not jumping up and down to let the public know or complain to congress about this problem. It far outpaces PAEA and would make the P.O. profitable in a short time.
I also am aware that an increase in postage slows the business by 1% for every 1%increase in postage. This is true with all companies that face price increases, but that business always comes back. Standard mail continues to increase by 2=3 % annually and now standard letters only account for 50 of all volume.
It is clear postal management is trying to continue these deep discounts from the loss of 1st class letters, by reducing workers at the top of the pay scale and replacing them with new workers making substantial less money.
I hope that this problem is brought to the forefront of the fight. Congress and the American public need to know that postal management has manipulated the deck and works for the good of big mailers instead of all mail customers.