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APWU 133

    Negotiations Update

    Apwu133
    By Apwu133,

    With our current union contract expiring on September 20, 2021, the APWU and postal management have now been engaged in negotiations for more than five weeks.

    The APWU National Negotiating Committee consists of President Mark Dimondstein, Executive Vice President Debby Szeredy, Secretary/Treasurer Liz Powell, Industrial Relations Director Vance Zimmerman, Clerk Craft Director Lamont Brooks, Maintenance Craft Director Idowu Balogun, Motor Vehicle Services Director Michael Foster, and Support Services Craft Director Stephen Brooks. The Negotiations Committee is meeting weekly, at minimum, to plan, refine proposals and develop strategy.  In addition, the Craft Directors met individually with Lead Negotiator President Dimondstein and Chief Spokesperson Director Zimmerman to coordinate efforts. Many other officers and staff are also working diligently with research and planning. Throughout the process, the Negotiations Committee has kept the National Executive Board and Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee apprised on the process and developments of negotiations.

    Proposals Exchanged

    Generally, at this stage of early negotiations we are focused on proposals addressing work rules, working conditions, and workforce structure. Later in the negotiations process, the economic provisions (wage increases, COLA, step increases, etc.) will be proposed and discussed. To date, the APWU has submitted 86 proposals and management has submitted six proposals for discussion and negotiation. The union proposals include 44 craft proposals covering the Clerk, Maintenance, Motor Vehicle Services, and Support Services crafts and 42 general article proposals. These include numerous proposals to protect job security and work opportunities, increase career opportunities and improve conditions of work.

    The APWU will submit additional proposals over the coming month, including our wage and financial package.

    Main Table Meetings

    Since negotiations opened on June 22, 2021, there have been eight “Main Table” meetings between the APWU and postal management, where proposals are exchanged and assigned to various negotiators or to the craft tables for further discussion and development. 

    Each APWU craft is conducting at least weekly meetings with their counterparts at the Postal Service. In addition, Director Zimmerman meets regularly with the Postal Service Chief Spokesperson on the general article proposals that are not currently assigned other negotiators or to the craft tables. Lead negotiator, President Mark Dimondstein, also meets regularly with the Deputy Postmaster General discussing the overall picture of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. 

    Lock Down Starts Sept. 7

    The parties are currently planning to “lock down” in the same location for a week of negotiations beginning September 7, 2021. Each day will consist of intense main table negotiations, craft tables, and any other sub-committees where the parties agree to work on the various proposals. 

    If an agreement is not reached by the September 20, 2021 expiration of the CBA, the parties will begin to move towards interest arbitration. An APWU team consisting of national officers, attorneys, and staff members is preparing for interest arbitration at the same time negotiations are ongoing. Furthermore, negotiations can continue beyond the expiration of the contract even while preparing for interest arbitration. It is always best for the parties to reach a voluntary agreement rather than have an arbitration panel impose new wages, hours, and working conditions. 

    “The core committee and other craft officers are diligently working to negotiate a contract that recognizes the hard work and dedication the employees represented by the APWU show each day, shared Director Zimmerman. “We are working together to get you the good contract you deserve.”

    “On behalf of the members, I thank the negotiating team and everyone involved with the negotiations process for all their hard work and cooperation as we march together in the battle for a good new contract,” said President Mark Dimondstein. “Our strength at the negotiating table derives from the activity and unity of the members, so keep sending the message from the workroom floor to postal headquarters – ‘Union Strong, All Day Long!’”


    APWU Statement on Mandatory Vaccination for Federal Employees

    Apwu133
    By Apwu133,

    Various media outlets have reported that the White House is considering mandatory COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment for federal employees.

    Maintaining the health and safety of our members is of paramount importance. While the APWU leadership continues to encourage postal workers to voluntarily get vaccinated, it is not the role of the federal government to mandate vaccinations for the employees we represent.

    Issues related to vaccinations and testing for COVID-19 in the workplace must be negotiated with the APWU. At this time the APWU opposes the mandating of COVID-19 vaccinations in relation to U.S. postal workers.  


    New Career Employee Virtual Health Fairs 2021

    Apwu133
    By Apwu133,

    As we get ready for another round of PSE conversions, the Health Plan is here to help. We want to educate the new career employees on the APWU Health Plan benefits. As you know, we have two great plans that offer strong benefits for the APWU members and their families.

    Please note, the new career employees will only have 60 calendar days to select their health plan. The new career employees that were on the USPS plan as a PSE will be automatically disenrolled. The PSE’s currently on the Consumer Driven Option can remain on this plan to keep those benefits. No further action will be needed. 

    In order to pay the negotiated APWU Career rate for the Consumer Driven Option the employee must be enrolled in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plans for one full year as a career employee. The time spent on the Consumer Driven Option as a PSE doesn’t count toward the one year in FEHB.

    The APWU Health Plan will conduct Virtual Health Fairs, exclusively for this conversion. The Member Education department will brief employees on the benefit highlights for both the High Option and Consumer Driven Option plans. Most importantly, there will be a Q&A period to ask the Health Plan staff questions concerning benefits.

    Below is the schedule for the New Career Employee Virtual Health Fairs. Please circulate this information to the PSE’s that are being converted. Click the link to register and attend. 

    Once registered, you will get an email confirmation with a GoToWebinar link and dial-in information. On the day before the virtual health fair date you selected, we will email you a reminder and include the dial-in information with instructions.
     

    If you have questions, please contact our Director's office at (410) 242-1503 or by email at director@apwuhp.com.

    Download the New Career Employee Virtual Health Fairs flyer here.
     

    Our New Career Employee Virtual Health Fairs Dates
     

    July 19 - 1pm-3pm EST Register Now

    August 4 - 3pm-5pm EST Register Now

    August 13 - 12pm-2pm EST Register Now

    August 23 - 3pm-5pm EST Register Now

    September 9 - 2:30pm-4:30pm EST Register Now

    September 17 - 10am-12pm EST Register Now

    You can also visit www.apwuhp.com/events to register for a health fair.


    President Dimondstein's Opening Comments – National Negotiations 2021 (June 22, 2021)

    Apwu133
    By Apwu133,

    On June 22, 2021, APWU entered into negotiations with USPS management on a new collective bargaining agreement. The current agreement expires September 20, 2021.

    Below are President Dimondstein's opening remarks, which set out APWU members' priorities for our new contract.

    The American Postal Workers Union welcomes this opportunity to represent approximately 200,000 postal workers in these important negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement between our union and the United States Postal Service.

    For generations Postal workers were denied our right to negotiate over wages, benefits and conditions of employment. Instead, workers were compelled to engage in “collective begging” and our livelihoods were subject to the whims of politicians and political parties.

    That changed 51 years ago, when postal workers won true collective bargaining rights as a result of the Great Postal Strike of 1970. Since that heroic strike postal workers’ lives have vastly improved. And representatives of our union sit across the bargaining table from management as equals – not because we have important titles – but because we have a union sustained and supported by our members.

    These negotiations take place in the shadow of the last seventeen months of the COVID Pandemic. And there should be full recognition on management’s part that postal workers have courageously stepped up to the challenge as front-line essential workers. Under severe stress we carried out our invaluable mission to the people with great pride and dedication – at a time when the people needed us the most. Once again, and underscored by the pandemic, postal workers have earned a good union and improved contract.

    We have clear goals for these negotiations. As postal workers pour our lifeblood into the institution and its mission, we should be justly compensated for our hard work and enjoy an ever-improving standard of living. We should be provided a safe workplace, free from hostile work environments and sexual harassment, and after concluding our careers, enjoy a secure and dignified retirement.

    Our members deserve good annual pay increases, stronger safety rights, an end to the unfair and divisive two-tier career pay scales, limits on subcontracting, more full-time career work, better work hour guarantees and rights for PTFs, a quicker and clear path to career status for PSEs, and shorter workweeks with no loss of pay. We strive to protect hard won gains and job security provisions secured over generations and for dignity and respect on the job. We will be putting forth proposals to address these and many other concerns.

    We also approach these negotiations as an opportunity to promote our vision for a vibrant public postal service and expanded postal services for the people of the country. Our members and our union are passionate about the crucial mission of the public Postal Service, as outlined in the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act: “To provide postal services to bind the Nation together,” to “provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas,” and to “render postal services to all communities.”

    Today, this mission is in jeopardy, threatened by a congressionally-manufactured financial crisis, by those on Wall Street who would like to get their hands on the Postal Service’s $70 billion plus in annual revenue, and by ideologues who oppose the very concept of the public good.

    And while we have welcomed opportunities of cooperation with Postmaster General DeJoy as we strive for positive legislative postal reform, to expand postal services and address short staffing, it must be said that there are far too many management practices, many inherited, which have led to severely degraded services, delayed mail, driving away of customers and revenue, subcontracting, and partial privatization. There can be no denying that the recent service performance, and the proposed service goals developed by management and the Board of Governors, are woefully inadequate for the needs of the country.

    We will put forth proposals for improving and expanding services from restoring delivery standards, expanding the network and hours of service, proper staffing and providing an array of financial and other services.

    We are keenly aware that the Postal Service is facing serious challenges. Changes to the mail mix - letters are down while packages are up - create both hardships and hope. The bi-partisan 2006 Postal Accountability Enhancement Act (PAEA) continues to plague the Postal Service. With its absurd pre-funding mandate, its artificial postage rate cap, and the inability, thus far, to recoup overpayments to retirement funds, combined with the loss of the 2013 exigency rate increase at the hands of the PRC, the PAEA has seriously undermined our institution supported and beloved by the people of the country.

    And so, the solutions to these problems should fall to Congress, the Postal Regulatory Commission, and USPS management, not come at the expense of the workers. APWU represented postal workers voluntarily agreed to over $4 billion of deep wage and benefit concessions in the 2010-2015 contract resulting in continuing significant cost reductions for the Postal Service.

    As we look to the future there are competing visions for the Postal Service. One professes that, in the day of the internet, the Postal Service is a relic of the past. I imagine there were similar doomsday naysayers when advances in technology created the telegraph and telephone and changed the communication habits of millions. Those who want to destroy us, often funded by the likes of UPS, use these changes to advocate for the breaking up and privatizing of the Postal Service, as did the previous White House administration.

    Postal workers’ vision is for a robust and vibrant postal service for generations to come. Those in postal management who believe in the public Postal Service, and I know many of you do, should not be afraid of creative thinking and bold action as we discuss various ways to enhance and expand postal services rather than play into the hands of those who would like to destroy us on the altar of private profit.

    Entering these negotiations, I am reminded of a former PMG who shamefully advocated that young workers don’t deserve traditional defined-benefit retirement plans, job security and stable employment and called on Congress to use the Postal Service as “an incubator” for destroying decent jobs. These harmful views found their way into the December 2018 Postal Task Force recommendations.

    We vehemently oppose this “race to the bottom” for we believe that the Postal Service should indeed be an incubator, but as it has been for decades, an incubator of good, living-wage union jobs for workers from all walks of life, with equal pay for equal work for women and minorities and solid job opportunities for veterans.

    One more observation on the broader importance of these negotiations. While postal and millions of other frontline workers struggled with the stress and danger of the pandemic, when millions suddenly lost jobs and healthcare, when poverty increased at the greatest rate in the last 50 years, the wealthiest 15 U.S. individuals increased their wealth by 40%.

    Collective bargaining and the Postal Service’s Congressional mandate to be a model employer can contribute to resolving this shocking and growing income inequality in our country where workers continue to are fall behind while the 1% gallops ahead.

    The key to the Postal Service’s bright future is the hard work and dedication of hundreds of thousands of postal workers – from those who sell postage and accept packages, to those who sort medicine and catalogues, to those who transport the mail and repair the vehicles, to those who maintain the equipment and facilities, to those who deliver the mail. These negotiations are an opportunity for management to reward our dedication and hard work.

    The APWU will approach these negotiations with a passion for the workers we represent and the public we serve. We will forthrightly share our proposals and be honest in our dealings. We will work hard to achieve a negotiated collective bargaining agreement.

    We enter these negotiations as part of a movement of friends and allies to protect and enhance a vital and wonderful national treasure that has the overwhelming trust of the people and remains a cornerstone in every community.

    As we meet here on opening day, thousands of APWU members around the country are taking up the call “Our Union, Our Contract, Our Future” as we struggle to advance the well-being of current and future postal workers, our families and communities.

    The APWU is ready to get to work!


    Union Secures Third Historic Staffing Agreement

    Apwu133
    By Apwu133,

    On June 21st, the American Postal Workers Union and postal management signed a major new agreement to address longstanding understaffing issues in mail processing functions at the Postal Service.

    Under the terms of the new agreement the “Function” 1 mail processing staffing will be increased with 3,741 new career positions. The agreement also establishes the additional conversion of at least 3,641 PSEs to career. In total the agreement will result in the 7,400 PSE conversions. These conversions will take place no later than August 14, 2021 and will be applied to 245 installations throughout the country as determined by management. 

    As part of this agreement, and in an effort to improve service provided to the public during the holidays, the APWU has agreed to extend by two pay periods (four weeks) the 2021 “Holiday Peak Season” in Function 1.

    “This agreement is another milestone in our priorities of securing career positions for postal workers and providing top-class service to the public,” said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. “We’ve been relentless in urging management to address staffing issues. This agreement is another big step in the right direction and will undoubtedly better the lives of thousands of PSEs and help us better serve the people of the country.”

    This new agreement is the third in a series that increased total clerk craft career staffing by approximately 10,000 jobs and created the conversion of 14,000 PSEs to career.

    The Union remains committed to addressing similar ongoing staffing issues in Function 4 (retail) and will continue to press management to address the problems of understaffing.


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