Is the APWU heading into financial trouble? I guess that depends on who you talk to and
when they talk, and of course who their audience is.
You might get a multi hour speech that doesn’t really say much or you might get a power
point dog-and-pony show that says a lot.
At the national convention, we were told by Secretary/Treasure Stapleton that were are
financially sound, but when the NBA’s stood up to the business unionist on the stage and
helped get a well deserved and long overdue craft director for support services, Burrus
said we do not have the money to do this.
Recently at Burrus letter went out about the national officer’s retirement program. It
appears that there could be some financial issues pending with that – something Burrus
threatened to take to the convention. Significant funding for this plan has taken funds out
of the general treasury of the union.
It’s no secret that are losing members, they are retiring faster then ever before, and the
USPS has no intention of replacing them – so as our membership goes down, so does our
income.
Of course had we invested in organizing, as other national unions do, we might be
growing instead of shrinking. What ever happened to Burrus’ plan to organize the
casuals? And now it appears that what little effort we had in private sector organizing has
been diverted – basically stopped – and the organizers are being farmed out the AFL-CIO
to work on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) program.
I believe the EFCA and it is a law we need. Once it is passed – sans being watered down
– it will make organizing easier, cost less, and people will join. So placing people with
the AFL-CIO is the right idea, but taking them away from organizing is not.
The cost of doing business for the union has gone down, because officers and business
agents have had their budgets slashed to the point they can barely travel, I guess they are
living up to Burrus philosophy of where he does not believe he needs to be on the
workroom floor with the workers – so I guess the other officers and business agents don’t
need to attend events in the states or crafts they represent.
In one sentence Burrus states that there will be no limits on officers and business agent’s
expenses to police the contract, but in the next paragraph he slashes their budgets and
said past practice for state conventions, meeting ceremonial events and training must
change. This means more distance from our national officers, less training for us to do
our jobs as stewards a officers.
The Postal Service is coming after the workers like never before. They are reducing tour
2 to a shell with the hope those senior people will retire – and not be replaced. They are
coming after the injured and those that use sick leave with the intent to remove them from
postal rolls. They want to lay people off – a item that will be hotly contested at the next
contract negotiations.
The Postal Service wanted the Transformation plan so they could behave more like a
business and not a government service – not what the public wanted, but what the service
thought they wanted. Now as business crumble across the nation, the Postal Service is too
in financial dire straights. The service is top heavy with management draining the postal
budget, just as the overpaid CEO’s did to the banks, insurance companies and other
business. The gap between the CEO’s and the workers kept getting wider and wider and
now president Obama has a daunting challenge a head of him – fixing the past 8 years of
Corporate Welfare – something our children’s children will be paying for.
Yet, as we watch the USPS clamoring to be a capitalist corporation, like the ones
collapsing on the sidewalks of Wall Street and Main street, our national APWU Burrus’s
publicly defends Postmaster General Potter. Burrus said Potter is underpaid comparing
his duties and responsibilities to the most anti-union corporation out there – Wal-Mart. If
Potter wants a salary commensurate with his responsibilities, then maybe Wal-mart is
hiring.
Will Burrus be defending Potter when he decides to violate the contract and lay people
off? Will he defend him when people with 30 years of seniority are forced to work nights
with split days off? Will he defend him when all the part-time workers in the small
offices quit because they can’t make it on the hours they have been reduced to?
Not only is the APWU possibly heading into financial issues, they are clearly heading
into a philosophical melt down of being a union. It is business as usual – Business
Unionism – not Union unionism.
We need to be financially responsible or we will collapse on every street in America. We
need to have leaders that don’t just think about the bottom line, but think about working
line. The members pay for representation, for negotiation, and for communication.
Most of the national officers have retired from the USPS. Some are receiving social
security, and some have retired from the APWU and yet still get a salary for the office
they currently hold. They have been off the work room floor for so long they have
apparently forgotten why they are there. They have their weekends off – with consecutive
days. They are not forced to work holidays. They work day hours – not tour one. They
seldom react to issues and problems unless the rank and file makes a public issue out of
it. Bruce Clark and others have been trying to make national aware of the rate discount
issues for years, and just recently national now gets it.
Is the APWU in a financial meltdown. I don’t know that for sure, because it depends on
who you talk to, and when, or what report you get your hands on. I find it hard to believe
that the economy as it is, that we will be, if we are not.
Just as America recently made a choice for change – because our leaders there were
taking us down a path of destruction, we need to find new leadership in the APWU that
will act like unionists not capitalist’s business unionists. We don’t need a King, we need
a union president!