The American Postal Workers Union has an update on the status of buyout talks, only to say that there’s really nothing to say. “I understand that there is great interest in this topic among some members, but it is simply not feasible or smart to conduct negotiations in public,” APWU President Cliff Guffey says in this week’s release on the union’s web site. “Great interest” may be an understatement, based on the feedback that FedLine’s been hearing. Among some union members, frustration is also running high that two months after mail handlers got a $15,000 buyout offer, clerks are still…
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It’s no secret that the U.S. Postal Service is looking at shutting more than 3,200 post offices as part of a major downsizing initiative. Less known is that 20 privately run post offices are also on the chopping block, but in this case because of a labor agreement with the American Postal Workers Union. Under its latest contract with the APWU signed last year, the Postal Service agreed to close 20 “contract postal units” (CPUs) or else insource the work “as soon as practicable.” Those units are in New York, Texas, Florida,Puerto Rico and several other states. Given that there are…
So, how big a deal is the U.S. Postal Service’s freeze on closings of post offices and mail processing plants? Less than you might think, perhaps. No doubt, today’s abruptly announced moratorium was made under mounting political pressure from Capitol Hill Democrats. “Cave-in” was how Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Dennis Ross, R-Fla., described it in a news release. But the long-term consequences for the Postal Service’s downsizing plans won’t necessarily be that pronounced. Last week, for example, a USPS spokeswoman told Federal Times that processing plant closings would start in April at the earliest. The five-month freeze would push…
In a letter released today, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., takes aim at a union’s claim that the U.S. Postal Service gets no taxpayer support. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, concedes that the Postal Service no longer receives a direct government operating subsidy, but cites a 2007 report that the agency benefits from many “implicit subsidies” and “extra powers” worth several hundred millions of dollars a year. Those include federal, state and local income tax exemptions, Issa wrote, as well as the ability to borrow from the federal treasury at low interest rates. The letter, dated Monday, is addressed…
The tug-of-war over the U.S. Postal Service’s very uncertain future hits the nation’s airwaves today with the kickoff of an American Postal Workers Union ad campaign that will run on national cable channels for up to two months. Contrary to what you might expect, given how testy the debate is becoming, the 30-second spot doesn’t bash anyone. Instead, it highlights the fact that the Postal Service generally operates without taxpayer support. While APWU members move millions of pounds of mail each day, the ad says, their work is “funded solely by stamps and postage.” So what’s the point? In a release, APWU President Cliff Guffey describes a two-fold…
The current leadership of the American Postal Workers Union is rushing to crank up support for a tentative contract announced last week with the U.S. Postal Service. But one member of the nation’s largest postal union has already made up his mind. “I have been honored to have the opportunity to devote over 50 years of my professional life to improving conditions for postal employees and as a full dues-paying member and on behalf of future employees I would vote no,” former APWU President William Burrus wrote in an open letter posted on the web site, postalnewsblog.com Burrus’ opposition centers around…
The U.S. Postal Service has shelved a proposal that “would have expanded its ability to subcontract rural routes to contract delivery service,” according to an announcement this week by the National Rural Letters Carriers’ Association. The decision “came after extensive discussions” between the NRLCA and Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, as well as other postal officials, according to the release on the union’s web site. “We have tabled the issue while we are in the process of resolving a labor contract,” Postal Service spokesman Mark Saunders said via email, when asked for confirmation of the union’s claim. Although Donahoe recently acknowledged…
Now here’s something you don’t hear every day from a leading organized labor figure: “We must shift the focus of the union away from acting as a grievance machine,” American Postal Workers Union President Cliff Guffey says today in a release on the organization’s web site. “Leaders at all levels of the organization must get more involved in legislative activities and other union efforts.” If labor-management relations at the U.S. Postal Service will likely never resemble a group hug, there’s an obvious reason for the APWU to re-prioritize: The world’s leading mail carrier is at risk of going broke and…
A week-and-a-half after their old contract officially ended, the U.S. Postal Service and its largest union will keep talking a while longer in hopes of agreeing to a new one. “We will be working late tonight and early tomorrow,” American Postal Workers Union President Cliff Guffey said in a web release this afternoon. The two sides will continue negotiations until they either reach an agreement or decide that a deal is not possible, the release adds. In an e-mail, USPS spokesman Mark Saunders said only that “both parties have agreed to negotiate beyond today.” This is the third extension of…
After an initial bargaining deadline passed Saturday, the U.S. Postal Service will keep talking to the American Postal Workers Union for at least another two days, but said that negotiations with the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association had reached an impasse, thereby potentially leaving it up to arbitration to decide the outcome, according to a USPS news release. Contracts with both unions had been set to expire at midnight Saturday, but the Postal Service and the APWU agreed to an extension until noon Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, the union said in its own release. “We do not have a new contract,…