Rally At Office of Congressman Darrell Issa on Halloween
We are bringing at least 56 people to Vista CA on Halloween to picket the office of Darrell Issa. His opponent Jerry Tetalman has expressed interest in attending. Issa is campaigning in his district and should be there. We are leaving on a bus from the SWCAL office at 1251 N Tustin Ave, Anaheim, CA 92807 at 10 am. We will return to our union office at 4:30 p.m. We will bring enough lunches,refreshments, signs, banners, bullhorn, chant sheets, informational flyers and other materials for over 100 participants to protest postal privatization. California State President Mike Evans and the State Legislative Director will be on the bus. We expect many APWU National officers to attend. We will have a number of local presidents Anaheim APWU Pres Rich Cantu, (Retiree pres) Bobby Donnelson, (Retiree VP) Frank Townsend, VP Dave Dodero, City of Industry Pres Terry Stoller, San Diego APWU Pres Tom Wood, LA APWU Pres Roy Dumas, LA NALC Pres Larry Brown LA NPMHU Pres Eddie Cowen and various craft officers including myself in attendance. Some media will travel with us and we have contacted other media to be on site. LA and SD will will van pool there.
Please join us!
Thanks
Kevin Cole
Press Release from Community and Postal Workers United (the group that held a hunger strike in DC in June)
On Halloween Carve the Pumpkin, Not the Bird.
Trick: A Phony Financial Crisis.
Treat: Postal Privatization
Community and Postal Workers to Protest Postal Privatization
When: October 31, 2012 at Noon
Where: Office of Rep. Darrell Issa, 1800 Thibodo Rd., Suite 310, Vista CA 92081
Over a thousand postal jobs throughout California will be eliminated, effective November 17th, according to the U.S. Postal Service.
In June 2012 USPS sent the postal unions a notice of intent to subcontract their Pacific Area Postal Vehicle Service, citing equipment availability. This, despite the fact that their own documents show the equipment is in compliance until 2014. “The postal service is not broke. The financial crisis is phony. Thanks to Darrell Issa, the USPS is now destroying good family wage jobs,” said Kevin Cole, a local postal union officer. According to postal unions, Issa pushed the USPS to study privatization of postal trucking.
Current plans to close half the distribution plants and thousands of post offices, eliminate six-day and door-to-door delivery, and abolish 200,000 jobs will send the postal service into a death spiral. To justify these cutbacks, the Postal Service cites its financial crisis. Since 2006 the USPS has been forced to spend nearly 10 percent of its budget prefunding retiree health benefits 75 years in advance. No other U.S. agency or private business faces such a crushing financial burden. Without the unjust Congressional requirement, the USPS would have been profitable. HR 3591 and S 1853 would fix postal finances and protect the service.
Congress should carve the pumpkin and not the bird. Representative Issa wants to carve up the postal eagle. Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Darrell Issa introduced H.R. 2309 which would force USPS to make $3 billion worth of cuts in post offices and mail processing facilities within two years. Secondly it would prohibit postal unions and management from negotiating restrictions in layoffs. Finally it would empower a board to reject negotiated labor contracts if they were deemed too costly. It is an excuse to sell public assets to private interests under the guise of a financial crisis.