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Edited on Thu Dec-15-05 11:31 AM by kgfnally
We can't strike. Legally.
HOWEVER-
Get this. Right now, in postal facilities across the country, there is a class of employee being used, and overused. They are called "casuals". Although casuals work for the USPS, they have no union representation, no health benefits, no vacation time, no sick leave, and can be fired by their direct supervisor for any reason under the sun. They are being worked twelve hours a day, six days a week in many cases. This, among other things, denies full-time workers overtime and reduces the quality of the service, not because casuals don't know or don't do their jobs, but because they are worn so thin in the process that they couldn't care less about how well they are doing their jobs. I can't honestly say I blame them.
Currently, there are a number of major arbitration awards in the works regarding a grievance known as "casuals-in-leiu-of". Basically, what's going on is USPS management is handing casuals jobs off the street, while at the same time "reverting" (eliminating) bid jobs for full time, part-time flexible, and part-time regular employees. These three latter classes of employee DO have the union protections and benefits casuals do not.
What a shock that management is using casuals instead.
Casuals are typically untrained or undertrained, with management not using on-the-job instructors (which are, unsurprisingly, paid at a higher level for that particular training work); they're simply thrown into the job, oftentimes being forced to work alone on machinery designed for multiple operators. In many cases, employees who are NOT casuals (including myself) are required to do the same; I have worked on mail sorting machinery for as much as SIX HOURS by myself.
The AFL-CIO should be talking to the postal unions to see if the unions are willing to go on strike nationally, with the postal unions striking first, and then all the other AFL-CIO unions threatening to follow suit if those postal workers are fired. It would, in essence, be a repeat of the postal strike of the 1970s.
Because of that strike, we were able to negotiate a no-layoff clause in exchange for an inability to strike, per both the contract and the law (as I understand things). However, I see the overuse of casuals to be a sort of "layoff by proxy": casuals are being given day-shift jobs, with weekend days off, in spite of my being told- as a full-time regular employee with all benefits and unions protections- that it would take me working for the USPS for up to FIFTEEN YEARS before I would get a day shift with weekends off.
Now, the aforementioned arbitration awards regarding the "casuals-in-leiu-of" situation has already netted several locals multimillion-dollar arbitration awards; however, since such has happened in three or four locals in PA, and one (soon to be two) in MI THAT I KNOW OF, you would think postal management would take the clue.
Not so.
Ladies and gentlemen, postal management is the one single source of problems with our postal system. They are strictly and solely responsible for every last bit of inefficiency, delay, poor morale, and on and on. Truthfully, we who work on the floors of the plant, in the associate offices, and as carriers do NOT need management present in order to do our jobs, and honestly, oftentimes management doesn't even know how our jobs are done.
If the AFL-CIO wants the nation's attention, they need to get in touch with the APWU, NALC, and the mailhandler's union (whose acronym escapes me at the moment). They need to convince those unions to join a strike, in violation of their contract and the law.
WHY? Why violate our own contract? Why violate the law? BECAUSE MANAGEMENT DOES, DAILY. And gets away with it. Take a look at our national grievance backlog and tell me the system is not broken. Take a look at our workplaces, and tell me OSHA standards are not being flouted.
YES, I get benefits. YES, I get sick leave. YES, I get vacation time- and ONLY because we scared the piss out of the powers that be over a quarter century ago.
It's time, and past time, to scare them again. Postal workers have the power to completely crash the US economy. We need to flex that powerful, grim muscle once again.
I could get fired for this post. Frankly, I don't care. Doing so could well be the impetus that puts all this into motion!
BRING IT ON.
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