Union enters postal talks using Danny Glover star power to expand, not cut services

[Omaha Steve]

Source: W Post

By Joe Davidson

Leaders from the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) met their USPS counterparts at the Hyatt Regency after a rousing pep rally the night before at the AFL-CIO headquarters. It featured an array of pumped-up speakers, a Danny Glover video and the star himself.

Glover’s appearance wasn’t just a cameo for the movie star. He was at the leaders’ breakfast and the APWU’s news conference shortly before the negotiating session began, then was with the union’s delegation as the talks opened.

While Glover’s star power was a big draw, so is his postal legacy. The video told the story of his postal family. His mother and father, sister and brother were postal workers, as was he during Christmas breaks from school.

“Working for the Postal Service enabled my parents to buy their first home,” Glover says in the film over family photos. “They took great pride in their work.”

FULL story at link. Danny Glover video below.





National leaders and local members of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) protest in front of a Staples’ store on 19th st, & L st N.W. against the USPS-Staples deal. (Marlon Correa/Washington Post).

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/02/20/union-enters-postal-talks-using-danny-glover-star-power-to-expand-not-cut-services/

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Hosts this is not an update to yesterday's story. It is new info.

[PATRICK]

1. And this time will the GOP House

successfully break into negotiations to dictate terms? Or begin more of the slide to making privatization more profitable for a few? Or decimate or bust the unions? Or find some sneaky way to end first class letter service as it exists?

The heavy Bush "heckuva job" Postal Board of Governors have created chaos in the midst of recovery. The Union's public relations drive in the general MSM silence seeks to head off the other side setting the narrative- which in any event is a confused parcel of untruths, smokescreens and CYA failures.

For decades the postal "Reformation" has been a dismally dumb, failed economic model as far as facing the future goes, but it has reduced the workforce and chipped away at the unions as much as possible. Lately none of the top are held accountable for lying, failing, destroying services or generally harming the nation. The single theft of the budget sleight of hand that gets your stamp funds back into the mitts of pols is still the only thing keeping this assaulted institution- from within and without- turning a profit and tying the commerce and communication of the nation together.

Should the Final Solution at last shape the USPS into a profitable plum, minus all the money losing aspects of universal inexpensive service(and unions) it will be monster unlike all the other nations who went down that road, simply because those nations did not have universal or cheap service to begin with. Committed to a losing road means short term profit is the only incentive left for some Wise and Powerful Wizard of Business.

The Union is concentrating on Staples. The bigger picture is something our dumbed down, uninformed MSM subscribership is too unprepared for. As a Postal Clerk I think I hear now, finally, the Union very well aware of the picture and the difficulty of this fight.

The Contract fight is central to the survival of the USPS as a service.

Meanwhile the "relaxation" of service standard: deliberately withholding and setting first class to the side as mail is scattered across an entire day(trucks arriving several hours with the unnecessarily early prepared mail) before carriers are even awake at some stations, denying the need to hire more workers or cope with the sweep of change, defrauding customers of their postage expectations and needs. Meanwhile people discover what this means on their end only as they become effected in personally damaging ways, blaming carriers who are the last and least responsible for this holdup.
People are supposed to be surprised and ask what is going on?

Dismantling of a still useful and critical infrastructure is what is going on, even at the expense of supposed "expansion" of other postal services.

[sketchy]

2. Great and informative post and thread

I wonder what's happening with Vicki Kennedy's nomination to the Board of Governors. Do you have any info on that?

[PATRICK]

4. I can only imagine

They barely have an embarrassing quorum because ALL Obama appointees are held up. Kennedy(former wife of Ted Kennedy) seems an unpalatable challenge to the GOP but she would be one you would hope for to stop the madness of unaccountable mismanagement. Several members short almost down to two besides the Postmaster General and Assistant Postmaster THEY appoint this is a decades long "reform" model in failure mode, however you look at it.

I can barely post here for all the overtime this past year or two as the USPS refuses to hire and screws up the system, NOT the kind of economic opportunity I hope for- nor most other postal workers.

[Omaha Steve]

3. (Join the) Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service

http://agrandalliance.org/


In the face of aggressive attacks, a wide range of national organizations have come together to create A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service. These organizations are united in the demand that the public good must not be sacrificed for the sake of private investment and profit. A strong public Postal Service is our democratic right. The Alliance is fighting to protect and enhance vibrant public postal services now – and for many generations to come.


MUCH more at link.