APWU of Iowa   

APWU of Iowa
PO Box 539
Des Moines, IA 50302
United States
ph: 563-599-7725
alt: 515-669-8046

NEWS

 

 

Proposed FMLA Revisions---

 

2008

In June, 2007, the Department of Labor published an update on its request for information from employers, and employees, in regards to the Family Medical Leave Act Regulations.  The report, in and of itself, is interesting reading, and I would recommend at a minimum, a perusal of its contents.  You can find a copy of the report here.  The file is in PDF (Acrobat Reader) format.

The Department of Labor formulated proposed changes to the FMLA based on the June 2007 report noted above, and these proposed changes appeared in the Federal Register on February 11, 2008.  These proposed changes apply to Title I of the FMLA, and Title I applies to Postal Employees, a few other government sector employees, and the general public.  I would definitely recommend reading of these proposed changes by all personnel who are covered by Title I of the FMLA.  A copy of the proposed changes can be viewed here.  The file is in PDF (Acrobat Reader) format.

Some of the proposed changes are listed below:  The highlighted items should be of specific interest to all personnel as these have either significantly changed, or been solidified in the new proposed changes.

  • Counting Employee Prior Service in Determining Eligibility for Leave
  • Common Ailments May be considered Serious Health Conditions
  • Male Employees are Protected When Attending Prenatal Appointments With Spouses
  • Chronic Conditions that require "Self-Treatment" Remain Covered
  • Physician Assistants are qualified as Health Care Providers
  • Holidays are counted when FMLA is Taken in Full-Week Increments
  • Employees who seek Intermittent Leave Must Make "Reasonable Efforts" Not to Disrupt Unduly the Employer's Operations
  • There is no Change to Minimum Increment of Intermittent Leave Rule
  • Employees Inability to Work Overtime Protected by FMLA
  • Numerous Aspects of  leave "Substitution Rules" is Clarified
  • Public Employers are allowed to Substitute Compensatory Time for Unpaid FMLA time
  • Employers May also consider FMLA absences in Attendance Goals in Determining Bonuses and Other Incentive Rewards
  • Employers May be Liable for Actual Monetary Losses and other Equitable Relief For Harm Caused by Interference with Employees FMLA Rights
  • Time that is Spent Performing Light Duty Does Not Count Towards FMLA Entitlement
  • Employees can Voluntarily Agree to Settle Past FMLA Claims Without First Obtaining Approval from the DOL or a Court
  • Employers Must Provide their Employees with Specific Written Notice of their "Eligibility" for FMLA
  • Employers Must Provide their Employees with Specific Written Notice that Time On Leave Will Be "Designated" as FMLA Qualifying
  • Employers' Ability to Retroactively Designate FMLA Leave is Clarified
  • Employees Requesting FMLA Must Sufficiently Explain the Reasons They Need Leave So Employers Can Determine Whether They Are Seeking FMLA Leave
  • Employees Calling in "Sick" is Not Enough to Obtain FMLA Protection
  • Employees Must Respond to Employers' Reasonable Inquiries
  • Employees, as a general rule, Must Comply with Employer Policies Regarding Process to be Followed When Requesting Leave
  • DOL extends time that employers have to request medical certifications
  • An employer's right to an Employee's complete and sufficient medical certifications clarified
  • DOL created a new medical certification form (Appendix B to the Proposed Regulations)
  • Employers are permitted to request additional information from employees during paid leaves and to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act
  • Employers may communicate directly with the employee's health care providers to authenticate and clarify certifications
  • Fitness for Duty Certifications are Clarified
  • Scope of the fitness-for-duty certifications is expanded
  • Fitness-for-duty certifications for employees on intermittent leave is clarified and expanded
  • Consequences of Failing to Provide Medical Certification is clarified

Military Family Leave was passed into law in January 2008. These provisions are being incorporated into the proposed FMLA Regulations. The Department of Labor is looking for comments on a number of items listed below.

  • Military Family Leave Provisions proposed by law
  • No Clarification is Provided as to Meaning of "Active Duty," "Contingency Operation," or "Outpatient Status"
  • DOL Clarifies What it Means for a Servicemember to be "Undergoing Medical Treatment, Recuperation, or Therapy" for a Serious Illness or Injury
  • Identity of "Next of Kin" Clarified
  • DOL Seeks Comments on Meaning of "Nearest Blood Relative"
  • Comment Sought Regarding Coverage of a Servicemember's "Serious Illness or Injury"
  • Definition of a "Son" or "Daughter" Remains Unclear
  • Circumstances Where Qualifying Exigency Leave May Be Taken Clarified
  • Meaning of "Single 12-Month Period" Clarified
  • Clarification Needed On Whether FMLA Transfer Provisions Apply When Employees Seek "Qualifying Exigency" Leave
  • Requirement That Employees Seeking Qualifying Exigency Leave Provide Notice to Employers that is "Reasonable and Practicable" Likely to Track Other FMLA Rules
  • DOL Seeks To Clarify How Limitation on Military Family Leave for Spouses Interact with Existing Leave Limitations for Spouses Employed by the Same Employer
  • DOL Seeks Comments Regarding Certifications for Military Caregiver Leave
  • Maintenance of Health Benefits

  

 

These proposed changes to the FMLA can be commented upon by "you", the covered employee. To make comments or suggestions to the Department of Labor in regards to these proposed FMLA changes go to www.regulations.gov.  On the home page, under the Comments or Submission tab, type in FMLA, and click on "Go".  On the page the site brings up "Narrow Results" in the left table window.  Under "Narrow Results" in that table window, you will see "Document Type", click on "proposed rules".  That will bring up a link, "The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993" which will have a "Send a Comment or Submission" link below it.  Click on that link and it will take you to the comments window. 

These are the instructions posted on that site for making comments on the proposed changes:

"You may submit comments, identified by RIN 1215-AB35, by either one of the following methods:
•  Electronic comments, through the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
•  Mail: Address all written submissions to Richard M. Brennan, Senior Regulatory Officer, Wage and Hour Division, Employment Standards Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-3502, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20210. Instructions: Please submit one copy of your comments by only one method. All submissions must include the agency name and Regulatory Information Number (RIN) identified above for this rulemaking. Please be advised that comments received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. Because we continue to experience delays in receiving mail in the Washington, DC area, commenters are strongly encouraged to transmit their comments electronically via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.govor to submit them by mail early. For additional information on submitting comments and the rulemaking process, see the Public Participation heading of the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this document. Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov. "

The highlighted portions are my addition to identify the actual mailing address for comments, and to point out the necessity of only using one method.

It would behoove all personnel who have an interest in the proposed changes to make whatever constructive comments that can possibly show the flaws, or the positive points, of any of the proposed FMLA changes. You will have until April 11, 2008 to submit any comments.  The "Final Rules" could possibly come out as early as Summer, 2008.

 

 

Change would not be good for workers

Editorial By Postal Worker Dan Sullivan

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is proposing revised regulations governing the Family and Medical Leave Act which would give employers formidable new weapons to use against the very workers the law was designed to protect.

The new rules, if adopted, will require employees and doctors to provide more information to obtain FMLA leave and increase costs for employees while broadening the rights of employers to gather personal medical information and deny employees coverage under the law.

The Department of Labor conservatively estimates the proposed changes will save employers at least $45 million a year and cost employees and health insurers $11.3 million yearly, mainly in costs to obtain medical information from health care providers.

One of numerous proposed changes harmful to workers involves substitution of paid leave for unpaid FMLA leave.

Under current rules an employer has the right to demand medical certification of an employee’s serious health condition when an employee asks for FMLA leave, unless the employee requests FMLA paid sick or vacation leave and the employer has a sick leave policy with less stringent certification requirements than provided by the law. In those cases an employer must follow its own less stringent certification requirements.

An example of how this protection works for employees can be found in the Postal Service.

Since the Postal Service’s union-negotiated sick leave plan doesn’t normally require medical documentation for sick leave absences of 3 days or less, it’s illegal for postal bosses to follow the FMLA’s more stringent certification requirements and require medical documentation from workers requesting paid FMLA leave for 3 days or less.

In fact, postal bureaucrats routinely demand medical certification from workers requesting paid FMLA leave for absences of 3 days or less in violation of the law. But those violations can be challenged and corrected in the grievance procedure or in court.

But not anymore if the Department of Labor has its way.

As the DOL dryly notes in one of its proposed rule changes, “The current regulation explains that if less stringent medical certification standards apply to the sick leave plan, those standards must be followed when paid leave is substituted. The Department proposes to delete this section.”

So while the law prohibits discrimination against FMLA leave users, the proposed regulation would allow postal bosses to require FMLA leave users to provide medical documentation for paid sick leave absences of 3 days or less while allowing non-FMLA users to take up to 3 days of sick leave without having to provide medical documentation for the absence.

And there’s more.

Under current regulations if an employee submits a complete medical certification an employer is prohibited from requiring more medical information from the employee’s health care provider. A complete medical certification is one where the health care provider answers all of the questions on the certification form.

But under pressure from employers and anti-FMLA organizations such as the Orwellian-named National Coalition To Protect Family Leave and the South Central Human Resource Management Association, the DOL is proposing that employers be allowed to require more medical information if they deem a certification “insufficient,” which the DOL proposes to define as “vague, ambiguous or non-responsive.”

Of course that would allow anti-FMLA employers to reject virtually every medical certification as being “vague, ambiguous or non-responsive” and deny workers FMLA leave or require them to make multiple visits to a health care provider to obtain certifications “sufficient” to convince anti-FMLA bosses that they have a serious medical condition and need time off work.

The new regulations offer plenty of other weapons to anti-FMLA employers in their war against employees who need time off work for serious health conditions.

If adopted, the proposed rules would require that health care providers certify that intermittent or reduced schedule leave is medically necessary and explain why.

Employers will also be free, if an employee has a serious medical condition that may qualify as a disability under the Americans with Disability Act, to demand far more medical information than is allowed under the FMLA.

And while the proposed rules acknowledge current medical privacy laws, if an employee refuses to give his or her health care provider consent to speak with an employer for the purpose of clarifying medical certifications “an employee may jeopardize his or her FMLA rights.”

And bosses would no longer have to get permission from employees before contacting their health care providers to confirm the authenticity of a medical certification.
The proposed rules would also eliminate the current requirement that any contact between an employer and an employee’s health care provider must be made through the employer’s health care provider. The new proposal would allow any employer representative to contact health care providers for purposes of authenticating and clarifying medical certifications.

That means that no longer would medical disputes over certifications be settled by discussions between two professionals - physicians representing the employee and employer. Instead, health care providers would have to discuss disputes over medical certifications with employer representatives who have no medical education or knowledge or the employer would have the right to deny FMLA leave.

In the Postal Service that means FMLA coordinators trained in circumventing the law would have free rein to not only harass and argue with workers seeking FMLA leave but also with their health care providers.

In addition to allowing employers to contact health care providers about medical certifications, the proposed rules would grant employers the right to send an employee’s absence record to the health care provider and to ask if the pattern of intermittent absences is “congruent with the employee’s qualifying medical condition.”

Employers would also be allowed to request medical recertification more often than under the current regulations which prohibit employers from requesting recertification until the period of incapacity or treatment specified by a health care provider has passed, or once a year, whichever period of time is less.

Instead, employers would be allowed to require recertification every 6 months regardless of how long the period of incapacity or treatment may be.

The DOL also proposes to tilt the playing field in favor of employers when it comes to fitness-for-duty requirements following FMLA leave.

Under current regulations if an employer has a uniformly applied policy or practice requiring employees to provide fitness-for-duty certifications upon return from leave, it may also apply that policy to employees returning from FMLA leave. The fitness-for-duty certification need only be a simple statement that the employee is able to return to work.

But the proposed rules go beyond the simple return to work statement and would allow employers to present the employee’s health care provider with a listing of the employee’s essential functions, which would then require the health care provider to certify that the employee can safely perform those duties.

The regulations proposed by the DOL would also broaden employers’ rights regarding fitness-for-duty certification when employees use intermittent FMLA leave.

Under current rules an employer cannot require such a return-to-work certification when an employee returns from intermittent FMLA leave. But the proposed new regulations would permit an employer “to require a fitness-for-duty certificate every 30 days if an employee has used intermittent leave during that period and reasonable safety concerns exist.”

If the new rules are adopted, one can be certain that anti-FMLA employers will suddenly become unusually concerned with the safety of employees using intermittent FMLA leave.

The DOL is also proposing a revision to its standard medical certification form (WH-380), which health care providers use to certify an employee’s serious health condition. The proposed new certification form would require more detailed answers from the health care provider and would give employers more reasons to judge a certification incomplete or insufficient.

The DOL did toss one bone in the direction of workers. The proposed rules would for the first time generally recognize Physician Assistants for medical certification purposes.

But that’s not much to chew on for workers in comparison to the full course banquet the DOL has laid out for anti-FMLA employers.

While the DOL’s proposed rule changes stop short of gutting the Family and Medical Leave Act, they would add plenty of firepower to the arsenal of weapons employers already have at their disposal to harass and interfere with workers’ rights under an increasingly weakened law.

Employees, unions, pro-family and pro-worker organizations may still be able to stop the anti-FMLA proposals of the Department of Labor if they can mount a campaign to alert the public and Congress to the dangers of the proposed regulations.

But time is short. The Department of Labor is giving the public until April 11, 2008 to comment on the changes before final rules are published.

Comments must refer to Regulatory Information Number (RIN) 1215-AB35 and may be submitted electronically or through the mail. Comments may be made electronically through the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov or through the mail to Richard M. Brennan, Senior Regulatory Officer, Wage and Hour Division, Employment Standards Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, Room S-3502, 200 Constitution Avenue N.W., Washington, DC 20210.

A copy of the February 11, 2008 Federal Register containing the proposed FMLA rule changes and the form for submitting comments electronically can be found at:

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=09000064803abfe7

 

HILLARY CLINTON: UNDEAD.

Brazenly defying logic, momentum, expectations, poll

numbers, gravity, and the old wives’ advice not to

venture into the water within an hour of eating,

Hillary Clinton unaccountably still lives. She’s like

one of those zombies in a John Carpenter movie that

you shoot and stab and knock upside the head with a

nail studded two by four dipped in some rare poisonous

South American toad secretion. And she just keeps

coming at you. Slowly she turns. Inch by inch. Step by

step. I don’t know if she sold her soul to the devil

or Bill had unnatural congress with a Voodoo Queen or

the voters in Texas and Ohio were subjected to

subliminal messages in their cereal ads or what.

Perhaps she’s just plucky.

I do know this must be frustrating as hell for Barack

Obama, who has to be imploring the gods (none Muslim

as far as I know) for a hint of exactly what its going

to take to put this soulless banshee permanently down.

Decapitation, a silver bullet in the ear or wooden

stake through the heart; but even then, he’d best be

advised not to turn his back on the remains. Because

every time he straightens up, brushes off and looks

directly into the camera reaching out to take the

Democratic damsel triumphantly in his arms, Hillary’s

face pops up behind him with an evil gleam in her eye

and some superdelgate entrails hanging out of her

mouth stretching out both hands for his neck. She

walks the earth as one of the undead.

To add insult to injury, in her morning- show,

victory- tour the day after convincing the electorate

in both must- win states that she was most ready to

straddle the fence on Day One, the junior senator from

New York strongly hinted she’d be willing to share the

ticket with the junior senator from Illinois. Of

course who would be on top is still up for debate. But

isn’t that pretty much true in every relationship? And

to say that each side believes their candidate

deserves to head the ticket is surprising in the same

way as discovering vampires think daytime is

overrated.

Her musing stirred elements of the Democratic base

into a frothing mob brandishing torches and pitchforks

screaming for what they breathlessly refer to as the

Dream Ticket. And it’s called that because if you even

for a minute, think that America would elect both a

black man and a woman at the same time, you are too

deep in the throes of REM slumber to think straight

and are begging for 30,000 volts be applied to the

bolts on the side of your neck.

As for a candidate promising things they don’t plan to

deliver, well, that is not a new element in this

campaign: Is it Mr. Canadian ambassador NAFTA reformer

guy? Nonetheless, until he sews this thing up tighter

than the wrappings of a fat mummy in a humid tomb, Mr.

Obama might want to sleep with one eye open, under a

canopy of crucifixes inside a holy water moat on a bed

of consecrated garlic. In a church. Not a Mosque. You

know. Just in case. Better safe than sorry. Ounce of

prevention and all. And I’d be extra special careful

in Pennsylvania. After all, their primary is April

22nd, only two days after a full moon. I’m just

saying.

Political comic, author, former radio talk show host

and margarine smuggler, Will Durst, laments that no

one ever addresses the heartbreak of lycanthropy.

Catch his new book, The All American Sport of

Bipartisan Bashing, available from Ulysses Press on

April 15th. New? First.

 

 

 

 

 

© 2008 Will Durst

 

BILL CLINTON: THREAT OR MENACE.

 

It’s desperation time in Hillaryville. They’re putting

out fires faster than a Rocky Mountain ranger station

during a lightning storm in the middle of an August

drought. Due to the fact that a certain inevitability

has proven to be highly evitable. And watching the

nomination slip through their fingers has to be going

down as easy as a deep fried fork. Causing several

revisions to what was previously a dead solid game

plan. Corrections that include, but are not limited

to- banishment of key staffers to "integral" precincts

on the outskirts of West Texas. Further attempts to

wring blood out of contributors who insist on

impersonating dried turnips. And the most difficult

fix: figuring out how to get the candidate’s husband

to shut the hell up.

Yeah. Right. Good luck. You’d have a better shot at

using a plastic butter knife to spay a pit pull on

meth than try to muzzle this old dog. I suggest a wolf

snare or tranquilizer gun as the best means to render

the 42nd President of the United States docile enough

to throw a choke chain around his neck. Interesting

how quickly the game changes. It wasn’t that long ago,

rival campaigns were complaining Hillary had an unfair

advantage being married to a former President. "But he

gets so much press." And now it’s Hillary’s staff

doing the complaining. "But he gets so much press."

What was once a secret weapon is now an albatross tied

by a frayed rope swinging wildly from the neck of the

former 1st Lady. And because of his unique stature as

biggest hound in the pound, Bubba isn’t just a loose

cannon, he’s a loose aircraft carrier in high seas.

Rampaging down the campaign trail in the manner of a

Japanese movie monster stomping through downtown

Tokyo, using his heat vision to blast opponents and

batting around members of the media like pastel

bunnies off an Easter display shelf in a Hallmark Card

shop. He must see himself as a guard dog protecting

the hen house, no pun intended. Barack’s camp accuses

him of being the junkyard dog.

And we can’t have that. Because everybody knows that

if Mr. Obama gets the nomination, the Republicans

won’t be mean. They’ll roll over on their backs,

begging to have their bellies scratched. Worst cast

scenario, they try to bruise him by throwing rubber

bones at his head. Hah. I laugh. Hah. I laugh again.

You want to see negative campaigning? You wait until

the junior Senator from Illinois gets the nomination,

because you’re going to see negative campaigning that

will make what they did to Michael Dukakis look like

pranks played during recess at a Catholic girl’s

school.

Bill Clinton nuzzles and he growls. He’s a boon and a

bane. A southern fried Jekyll and Hyde. Smoother than

a puppy’s fur, and more divisive than a flea ridden

German Shepherd at a Bat Mitzvah. One problem is

everybody continues to introduce him as "Mr.

President," like he’s still in charge. That kind of

thing can have an effect on a guy. If Hillary were

smart, she’d sponsor a bill in Congress that would

mandate all former Chief Executives be referred to as

"Mr. Ex President." Kill two dogs with one stone. One

dog being a certain George W Bush, whom a lot of us

can’t wait to call… Mr. Ex- President.

Political comic, Will Durst, is convinced that Mr. C

has a slight case of rabies.

© 2008 Will Durst

 

Upgrades Reflected in March 7 Paycheck

APWU Web News Article #13-08, Feb. 6, 2008

The March 7 paycheck for all APWU-represented employees will reflect an upgrade negotiated in the 2006-2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement.

“On Feb. 16, every APWU member in the Clerk, Maintenance, and Motor Vehicle Crafts will receive an upgrade to the next highest pay level,” said APWU President William Burrus. “This upgrade will apply in all offices and to all employees, regardless of the size of the office or the duties assigned to the employees.”

The upgrades achieved in the new contract place all APWU-represented employees in the next highest pay level and are accompanied by credit for the waiting period toward the next step increase. The upgrades will be accomplished by the application of a new pay scale.

The new pay schedule is being renumbered, beginning at Grade 3 (Grade 1 has been eliminated and all Grade 2 employees are being upgraded). In order to keep the numbers running consecutively, Grades 11 and 12 will be renumbered as Grades 10 and 11, with the salaries for Grades 10 and 11 based on increases from the old Grades 11 and 12.

While employees currently in Grades 11 and 12 of the old schedule are not being advanced numerically in the new schedule, each will receive the monetary benefit of the upgrade, and they will continue to occupy the highest numerical positions in the pay scale.

Burrus noted that the across-the-board upgrades have been a major objective of the union for nearly a decade, beginning in 1998, when letter carriers were upgraded as a result of an arbitrator’s ruling on their Collective Bargaining Agreement.

“We achieved some progress towards this objective in our 2001 contract arbitration and in the 2003 and 2005 contract extensions,” Burrus said, pointing to the union’s success in upgrading mail processors, some skilled maintenance positions, Motor Vehicle Operators, and several other job descriptions.

“Now we can declare total success: Every employee — regardless of craft and assignment — is being upgraded.”

[Contract Wage Increase Affects Union Dues]

[More Pay Information]

 

APWU Members Can Access,
Update Personal Information Online

APWU Web News Article #12-08, Feb. 6, 2008

APWU members can now access and change their personal contact information with the union online when they visit www.apwu.org.

The updating process is simple and secure. Look for Members Only just under the blue page header, and select My Local & Personal Info. This will take you to on log-in page. Follow the log-in instructions to access your member-profile page.

On your personal page, on the left-hand side, you will see My Profile. When you click your name, you will be directed to a page with your personal contact information, including mailing address, e-mail address, and home phone number.

Select Edit in the row of buttons near the top of the page and you will be presented with an interactive form. Make any changes you feel are necessary, and then click the Submit button.

The information will be updated immediately.

Your My Profile page also feature links to information about your APWU local and your regional and national union officers. Remember that you can also use www.apwu.org to register for many conferences and events sponsored by the national union.

  Free Meter
  
The USPS Medical Program and Roche Diagnostics have joined together to offer a blood glucose meter, ACCU-CHEK, free to all diabetic postal employees and family members to help monitor their blood sugar. To obtain a free meter, call 877-269-8329 and use order code 706840118. The ACCU-CHEK meters will be delivered to the requestor’s home address free of charge. Employees should contact their district’s Occupational Health Nurse Administrator for more information.

 

23 Organizations Issue Joint Report Critiquing Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Initiatives
Human Rights, Labor and Environmental Groups Find Wal-Mart’s “Green” Initiatives
Lack Real Impact on Global Warming, Employee Health and Welfare
 
WASHINGTON, DC — September 6 - As Wal-Mart prepares to release its long-anticipated sustainability progress report, 23 environmental, farm, labor, and human rights groups have released their own report, “Wal-Mart’s Sustainability Initiative: A Civil Society Critique.”

 

The report, prepared by some of the country’s most respected public interest groups, includes sections on Wal-Mart’s specific commitments in seven product areas -- organics, seafood, shrimp, forest products, cypress mulch, product packaging, and toxic chemicals -- as well as sections on global warming and Wal-Mart’s international business practices. It argues that even if Wal-Mart achieved all of its stated goals, the company’s business model is inherently unsustainable.

 

This damning critique comes nearly two years after Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott announced a bold initiative to turn the world’s largest company green. However, as the report explains, “Wal-Mart’s claim that it will cut 20 million tons of greenhouse gases annually would be admirable if it weren’t for the fact that the company publicly acknowledged in 2006 that its global operations created 220 million tons of greenhouse gases every year.[i] That’s more than 40 times the emissions the company says it would like to eliminate.”

 

In fact, Wal-Mart has used its massive political clout to support an anti-sustainability agenda in the U.S. Congress, the report reveals. According to report contributor Corporate Ethics International, two-thirds of Wal-Mart’s PAC campaign contributions in the last election went to candidates who earned failing grades from the League of Conservation Voters. “Wal-Mart claims to be a leader in the battle against global warming, yet it’s one of the largest contributors to politicians with the worst records on global warming,” says Michael Marx, Corporate Ethics International’s Executive Director.

 

Ultimately, the report contends that the mega-retailer’s “sustainability” agenda ignores the health and welfare of employees, customers, the environment and local economies both in the US and across the globe. “Wal-Mart can change to more efficient light bulbs, but that doesn’t change its carbon footprint or the enormous social consequences of its globally unsustainable business model. If we look at its practices internationally, Wal-Mart has used its market power to cut costs at the expense of workers and the environment across the developing world,” says report contributor Ruben Garcia of Global Exchange.

 

Wal-Mart is not only using an astronomically unsustainable amount of fuel in importing cheap goods from China into the US and Mexico, where it is a leading retailer, but it is also undermining local economies by refusing to source from local producers who are being cut out of the market.

 

“Wal-Mart officials claim to be concerned about sustainable livelihoods, but in reality, the company continues to squeeze workers and suppliers in a global ‘race to the bottom’ in wages, benefits and working conditions,” says Trina Tocco, coordinator of the Big Box Collaborative, which produced the report.

 

Ultimately, the report asks: “Can a company claim to be “sustainable” when it drives down wages, refuses wages to some 20,000 minors working in its Mexican stores, pays unsustainably low prices to its suppliers (leading to sweatshop conditions), drives local stores and markets out of business, and disregards the wishes of the communities where it establishes its stores?”

 

This report was coordinated by the Big Box Collaborative, and includes contributions from ActionAid International USA, Agribusiness Accountability Initiative, American Independent Business Alliance, American Rights at Work, Center for Health, Environment and Justice, Centro de Investigación Laboral y Asesoria Sindical (CILAS), The Cornucopia Institute, Corporate Ethics International, Dogwood Alliance, Environmental Investigation Agency, Food and Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Good Jobs First, Global Exchange, Gulf Restoration Network, Institute for Policy Studies, International Labor Rights Forum, Mangrove Action Project, STITCH, WakeUpWalMart.com, Wal-Mart Alliance for Reform Now (WARN), and Washington State Jobs with Justice.

 

Copies of the report are available at http://www.bbc.wikispaces.net/space/showimage/CounterSustainability, from Nell Greenberg, nell@globalexchange.org or Ruben Garcia, ruben@globalexchange.org.

 

Additional supporting statements:

 

“As the nation's largest grocer, Wal-Mart's impact on the Earth's environment is profound," said Mark Kastel of The Cornucopia Institute, one of the reports contributors. "There is no action we take, as consumers, that has a more profound impact on the environment than our choice of food, and Wal-Mart's dependence on imports and unsustainable factory farming is highly destructive."

 

“Over the past month, hundreds of thousands of toys made in China and sold by Wal-Mart were recalled, because they contained elevated levels of lead. The report contends that Wal-Mart continues to sell toxic toys made out of vinyl containing phthalates, dangerous reproductive toxicants that have already been banned in Europe but are still sold in the United States. It’s time for Wal-Mart to stop toying around with our tots’ health and get the lead, phthalates, and other unnecessary toxic chemicals out,” said Lois Gibbs, Executive Director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, another report contributor.

 

“Wal-Mart’s cut-prices-at-all-costs business model is the very essence of the problem,” says co-author David Groves of the Environmental Investigation Agency. “The effects are exemplified in their wood products sourcing, where their demand for the cheapest timber available and refusal to ask where it came from, is contributing to illegal logging in many developing countries.”

 

“Women are not only the largest group of consumers at Wal-Mart,” says Beth Myers of STITCH, “they are also the largest group of employees – both in the stores and in the global factories that produce goods for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart should have a special commitment to bettering the lives of women but instead chooses to use its unprecedented world-wide power to drive down women’s wages, support workplaces that ignore families, and create environmental conditions that negatively impact women’s health.”

 

[i] Congressional testimony by Wal-Mart official Andy Ruben, cited in Amanda Griscom Little, “The Writing on the Wal-Mart,” Grist, July 19, 2006.

 

 

 

###

 .

 

WORKING IN THE NON-UNION ENVIRONMENT

By Michael G. Hibbard

Ex-State Editor

Indiana Postal Workers Union

Union Members, Union Non-Members, and Managers

Of The U.S. Postal Service

I have been thinking about writing this article since I retired from the Postal Service in April of 2007. I received my 30-year pin and my retirement papers on the same day and was never happier to be leaving the Postal Service work place. Between you and me, I was certain that I would never reach retirement, nor ever be allowed to retire after my many years of postal union membership, union service, and active resistance to postal management.

My retirement was planned. My military buy back with Social Security, as unfair as it was, was paid back. My sick leave balance added a very small amount of days to my retirement, and you know I did not have any Annual Leave left to tide me over for the first month of my retirement.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), in handling my retirement, exceeded my expectations above and beyond anything the Postal Service had ever done for me. There were no screw-ups and no problem paperwork. No one at OPM pretended to know something they did not. Having dealt with government institutions in the past, I was almost shocked that my retirement proceeded in a timely and efficient manner.

Within four days after my retirement party at the USPS (and after my Friends and Family Retirement Party at the Hungarian Hall), I left for Florida.

After driving a 24-foot rental truck with a car carrier attached (for two days), I arrived at my destination and slept for two months, off an on.

I finally found a job that would pay me enough money to supplement my retirement income enough so that I would be making about the same amount of money (monthly) that I was making when I left the Postal Service.

Working for a living outside the Postal Service is a little different than what we have been used to in our postal careers. Many of us had jobs before we entered the USPS. We were young. Many of those jobs were non-union jobs. We didn’t know that. We just worked for whatever money they gave us and were happy with that.

It is pretty much the same out here. The workers take what management offers them. There is no line of separation between management and worker. Both share the work, although management calls the shots as sent down from higher management. Workers make about seven or eight dollars per hour (before taxes), and the management salaries are not discussed.

There is no Union, or other, representation. If you want a day off, or do not like the hours you have been given, or have any other problem; you must discuss the problem with your manager or relate it to your manager through an assistant manager. You are on your own in solving your workplace problems. If you do not come to work, you can be fired.

Page 2

If you break a workplace rule, you can be fired. If you forget to do something, you can be fired. If you call in sick, you can be fired.

For years, I have leaned on my shop stewards, my local union officers, my local presidents, and my state and national officers and presidents to protect me and defend me when circumstances beyond my control have put me into situations in and out of the workplace that I could not get out of myself.

Out here, beyond the confines of the Union shop, the Labor-Management organization, the Labor Movement; those protections do not exist.

I think the workers want them to exist, but they do not.

Michael G. Hibbard

APWU Retired

 

 

 

 

SHADOWS TRUMP HOPE.

Listen my friends and you will hear a tale of a

fateful night. It’s a tale no other dare speak of. Not

a matter of political correctness. It is shame. Of

which I have little. If any. Okay. None. So here goes.

What follows is the real and true story of how Hillary

Clinton overcame a double digit same day deficit and

won the New Hampshire Primary. A tale of a race and of

race.

We all know what happened, but like the knickers of a

Guatemalan nanny bent over a laundry basket in the

room just off the kitchen, we pretend not to notice.

Tom Brokaw knows. John King knows. Okay, maybe Laura

Ingraham doesn’t know, but how is that different?

Hillary knows. Barack not only knows, he feels it in

his bones like a creeping worm of osteoporosis every

day of his life but he’ll never say a word.

It was not a polling glitch. It was not co- opting the

mantra of "change." It was not Hillary’s vulnerability

in Saturday’s debate or her moist eyes in that

Portsmouth coffee shop. It was not Bill turning into a

60 foot George Bailey Transformer rampaging through

Bedford Falls. It was a little bit of the teeniest

kind of invisible fear. A form of prejudice detritus

known as "the Bradley Effect."

In 1982, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African-

American, was 10 points ahead in the polls the day

before his California Gubernatorial election against

George Deukmejian. 10 points ahead. Day before the

election. He lost. Sound familiar? Ding. Ding. Ding.

Give that man a kewpie doll.

To add insult to injury, Bradley led in the EXIT

polls. Which means people not only lied about how they

were going to vote, they lied about how they did vote.

Proof positive that something crazy happens inside the

heads of white people when they get behind that

polling curtain. But after two terms of George Bush,

that ain’t new news.

Why didn’t the "Bradley Effect" rear its ugly head in

Iowa? Simple. We’re not talking about racism, we’re

talking about nervousness. A fear that attacks your

marrow in the dark. In Iowa, everyone watches you

vote. No curtain to hide behind in a caucus. You bunch

in a corner in full sight of all your neighbors under

a bright fluorescent light. In New Hampshire, it’s

just you and your demons. Your inner New England

demons. And hope tends to dissipate in those lonely

enclosures. No matter how warm the January night, it

gets dark at five up there. Northwoods dark, where

shadows trump hope.

The difference was women over 40. Which, forgive me,

but in both New Hampshire and Iowa means white women.

In the Hawkeye State, they went with the black guy in

the wide open. In the Granite State, behind the

curtain, they chose the white woman. I know. I know. I

know. Sacrilege! Implying discrimination exists in

America today. Blaspheme! Accusing DEMOCRATS of

possible prejudice. Heresy! But its not bigotry so

much as it is dread. Obloquy! "What?" Never mind.

Suffice to say that in the last six years, we’ve been

taught to fear. Bang! Salivate.

One can only hope the Clinton campaign understands

this and doesn’t convince themselves it was their

wacky emotional leakage weekend strategy that turned

the tide, because that would mean 10 months of Bill

shrieking and Hillary keening, and nobody wants that.

The only thing worse would be to go on pretending this

Effect does not exist, because future opponents are

already drawing up plans to ramp it up.

Comic, actor, writer, Will Durst had to look up

"obloquy." It means the same kind of stuff the other

words do.

©2008 Will Durst

A Business Agent's Perspective Donald L. Foley

National Business Agent

Maintenance Craft

 

Reading a post on www.21cpw.com the other day, I was reminded of something said by the eminent anthropologist Margaret Mead, "A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

John Richards, former APWU Director of Industrial Relations, currently very active retiree delegate to the National Convention and one thoughtful unionist who seems always to make his decisions on principles reflective of his devotion to the cause of labor, remarked about the genesis of APWU. He noted, "The facts are that a majority of Postal workers throughout the nation held views [of being satisfied and having doubt for chances to improve]. That what amounted to a mere handful of us . . . were able to pull the strike off, was truly an amazing epiphany and critical turning point in the history of the Post Office Department, as it was known at that time, and the larger Trade Union Movement. Had we been swayed by the majority at that time, the course of history would have been radically different from that which has transpired."

It could not be more clear. When change is needed, one cannot merely hope for the weight of opinion to reach a majority tipping point. Change is caused - sometimes regardless how well the majority recognizes the need - by the activists. As Brother Richards points out, the 1970 strike was not supported by the majority of postal workers; it was incited and carried out by true unionists who were opposed by some of their own "leaders".

The APWU needs change. Those who have become entrenched in positions of power at the top of this great Union have already changed it, have made it something almost unrecognizable in the top levels of its administration. We now have "leaders" who openly call for the Union to be "run like a business". As I have noted previously, the Union is not a business; the corporate model is not becoming to an organization whose purpose is supposed to be service to its members. Evidence of the corruption of the APWU seems clear enough - It attacks its own bargaining unit employees, seeking to "save money" by taking away job benefits from these workers, also seeking to downsize the workforce by eliminating jobs. It orchestrates the construction of roadblocks to the legitimate interests of its retired members. It pursues salary increases for its top administration office holders on the same theory corporate CEO's employ. It seeks to further insulate national officers by extending the election cycle as well as the Convention cycle. It avoids full disclosure to the members of our financial status by giving contradictory, confusing statements. And, most recently, it seeks to diminish the effectiveness of contract enforcement as if enforcement of contractual rights were not as important as maintaining the financial viability of the administrative top of the organization.

We need change and it will not come from the top - at least the change we truly need will not come from the top.

Unless this Union reinvigorates its democratic roots, it will be crushed under the weight of its top-heavy administration. We need to change the political dynamics of the APWU in order to break up the concentration of power at the top. I have proposed previously that we change some of the parameters of our national officer election process in order to change the political dynamic. One of our major problems is the vast disparity between the incumbents and the challengers in access to the members and more generally in chances of getting (re)elected. The token access represented by the candidates' opportunity to have a tiny article printed in the national magazine is insulting; it accomplishes nothing when compared with the month after month exposure granted incumbents at the expense of the members. The Union should provide the vehicle - at Union expense - for every candidate to have his or her campaign literature delivered directly to every member's home. This would be a national mailing offset by the elimination of one issue of the national magazine.

The political dynamic could also be changed dramatically by allowing present national officers to challenge other incumbents without risking their own present positions. While this may sound, at first blush, counterproductive, I ask that you think about it. Consider the valuable NBA who wants to make a greater contribution at the headquarters level. In the present system, this usually means he or she curries favor at the headquarters level and waits for the opportunity of an appointment, then becoming the new incumbent when the next election rolls around. Or that same officer, choosing instead to take the chance of challenging the sitting incumbent, faces the weight and money of the administration "team". Rare has it been that a true challenger succeeds. I propose two election cycles of four years each; half the national officer structure would be open in the first part of the cycle and, two years later, the other half would be open. In each of these phases, an incumbent whose office was not open could challenge an incumbent without risking the entirety of his or her career service to the Union.

Each of these proposals costs more money than our process now costs. They will be decried as financially irresponsible and that they would bankrupt the Union. Brothers and Sisters, there are a good many ways we can offset the costs of these proposals (starting at the top-heavy administration) in order to afford a genuine increase in the democracy of this Union. What price is too high to pay to have a democratic Union whose officers are truly accountable to the members and whose rank and file members may have a legitimate chance to challenge the present power structure of the Union in the election process?

The change sought by true union activists who fomented the 1970 strike was the acquisition of full-blown collective bargaining rights. Once gained, those rights could only be exercised by full fledged labor unions. In other words, change required structure to implement. And structure costs money. Just as Brother Richards pointed out that the majority of postal workers in 1970 did not specifically support the strike, likewise they would not have readily agreed to contribute the dues money that would become necessary for a full fledged labor union to effectively represent them. Yet that is what we have.

Change to the political dynamics of this Union is essential; it requires structure; and structure costs money. But, the mere fact that a structure costs money, should not be sufficient to prevent us from restoring true democracy to the APWU.

 

A Business Union - APWU!

A BUSINESS AGENT’S PERSPECTIVE                                                 Donald L. Foley

National Business Agent

Maintenance Craft


 

          Recently the open forum website, www.21cpw.com, saw the airing of a complaint from APWU members of the Retirees’ Department about the treatment of Retiree delegates during the Craft Conference / Installation of Officers circus. For those who may have missed the posts, the complaint is essentially that certain officers of the APWU headquarters administration disrespected our Retirees and did so on more than one occasion, in more than one way; that, generally, administration officers showed an arrogance bordering on contempt for the status of our retired members.

          So, what else is new? This, as has been pointed out by others, is part of a pattern that has been present in the handling of retiree issues for many years. Retired union activists, members of the APWU, have brought issues to the floor of National Conventions repeatedly over the years only to find their legitimate objectives blocked by the APWU headquarters administration. It has taken several Conventions to develop sufficient momentum for retiree issues to have finally achieved some measure of success in granting these devoted unionists participatory rights in what we brag to be the most democratic union in the country. But the resistance of our national “leaders” continues to be reflected in the arrogant abuse recently displayed in Las Vegas.

          Unfortunately, this arrogance is endemic to the APWU administration, and has been developing there for the past twenty years. It is not limited to disrespect for retirees. The national administration has been separating itself from the rest of the APWU for years, consolidating political power at the top. It has resulted, for example, in absurd presentations to National Conventions of dire imperatives to cut costs while presenting rosy economic reports to justify huge increases in top officer salaries. While such contradictory presentations resulted in rejection by the Convention body of the proposed salary increases, the more important point is the underlying contempt reflected by the effort. Not just that someone wanted a salary raise – who does not? No, it is the contempt for the delegates – the presumption that the elected delegates to the Convention were too stupid or too complacent to notice that one side of the mouth spoke of impending economic perils while the other side of the mouth asserted we are in sound financial condition. These presumptions are founded in arrogance and contempt.

          The separation between ‘the boys in Washington’ and the rest of the Union is further demonstrated in the ongoing attack on the “field offices” – the NBA’s and their secretarial staff. While, on the one hand, promises are made that cost-cutting measures will never be made that affect representation activities, the administration persists in trying to find ways to justify closing NBA offices. Simple economics would dictate that purchasing property for an office is wiser than renting space, yet when leases reach term ‘the boys in Washington’ decline to authorize property purchase. Why? Because it is not the economics that matters. Purchase or rent – the real question is, how to get rid of the field offices. Does this reflect an understanding of or respect for the desires and best interests of Local representatives and, ultimately, the members? Of course not. What Local officers, stewards and the members want is more and better representation, not less. That will not come from a greater concentration of political power in Washington DC.

          The mantra in Washington these days is, “Run the Union like a business.” We have even been subjected to hearing from the President, “At heart, I’m a capitalist.” Looking at what corporate capitalist ideals have done to the American economy and the situation of working Americans, aspiring to being more like a business is not becoming to a Union. But it does reflect what is important to ‘the boys in Washington’ – concentration of power. Corporate capitalism is all about concentrating power at the top and taking from the workers. Unfortunately, as this Union emulates this “value” it increasingly becomes something unrecognizable from what union activists have thought for years we were devoting our lives to. It is time for change. It is time we alter the dynamics of how this Union operates. The members are entitled to more democracy, entitled to know that their Union is more interested in pursuing the ideals of the labor movement than the ideals of corporate capitalism. As we approach another National Convention, we should be spending time and energy examining what this Union is about, what it has become and what it ought to be. And we should be preparing to make some changes.

 

NOT SO ALMIGHTY DOLLAR

 

Talk about how the almighty have fallen. The dollar is

headed downhill faster than Bode Johnson on a set of

rocket skis. Think nose dive. Plummetville. Plunge

City. Belly Floppo Rama. Recession is such an ugly

word. Try walking down a New York City street these

days without getting knocked off the sidewalk by a

gaggle of foreigners brandishing a circumference of

high end shopping bags like a cardboard armada. Can’t

be done.

I blame George Bush and his imbecilic economic

chicanery for subjecting us to these indignities.

Spending 2 trillion on an unnecessary war. Silly boy.

Lowering taxes during that same unnecessary war.

Sillier boy. Policies that have prompted OPEC to make

noises about following Brazilian supermodel Giselle

Bundchen’s lead, in asking to be paid in Euros. Euros,

hell, the lady should choose to be paid in clothes,

because to look at her, she doesn’t seem to own any.

Somebody, throw this girl a jacket. She must be cold.

The dollar has sunk lower than a strip show flyer

stuck to the undercarriage of a leased Lamborghini

Murcielago. The pound is up to $2, levels not seen

since the 50s. The Euro is at its highest level

against the dollar… ever. When? Ever! French President

Sarkozy spent his summer vacation in New Hampshire.

"400 francs and that includes everything, including

zee servants." Things have gotten so bad, Russian mob

bosses are back to using 5000 Ruble bills to snort

lines of cocaine off of hookers’ chests. It’s like the

October Revolution all over again.

That obnoxious sound coming from north of the border:

the non- stop laughter of millions of Canadians

playing a little game they call payback, mocking the

play money we call moolah, "Oh, so I guess you would

be talking aboot AMERICAN dollars, eh? Oooh. I don’t

know there, eh." Our economy isn’t in the doldrums.

Our economy can’t even see the doldrums. Our economy

aspires to the doldrums. Dubyah has turned us into a

third world banana republic. We’re Costa Rica to the

rest of the World. With lousier snorkeling.

Who can blame the hordes of Euro- trash from clogging

the aisles of our Tiffany franchises like an extended

family of hillbillies at a dollar store? Everything

here is so incredibly cheap. We’ve turned into a

discount playground for the world’s trust fund babies.

High- end restaurants, the good hotels, VIP sections

of our most exclusive nightclubs, Saturday night movie

tickets: pretty much off limits to anybody holding an

American passport. We’re the minimum wage security

guards of a giant high- end outlet mall known as

America just one cut rate Virgin flight away from true

civilization.

And thank god we, the general public, never fell for

that whole "you got to save your money" BS and are

still proud holders of the "Least Personal Savings of

any Country in the Industrialized World" award.

Because you know what those dollars are worth now?

Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing! Maybe kicking the

greenback dollar under the couch is just the neo- cons

idea of how to squelch our looming Social Security

crisis. Make the dollar worth so little, that in the

future, any one of us will be able to cover the entire

shortfall by digging into our own wallets. "$30

trillion? Is that all you’re worried about? Why didn’t

you say so? Who here can break a quadrillion?"

 

© Will Durst 2008

 

Bogus USPS Early Out Retirement Letter

Making The Rounds

 USPS News Link

A letter purporting to offer USPS employees in the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) an early out or a buyout by December 2008 is bogus.

Someone cleverly copied sections from a legitimate offer by another government agency to its CSRS employees, substituted “USPS” at key points, and sent it to USPS employees. The letter has been photocopied and is surfacing in different sections of the country as an official USPS letter, prompting numerous inquiries into its legitimacy.

“The Postal Service has no plans to offer mass early outs or buyouts to any employees — CSRS or otherwise,” said Chief Human Resources Officer Anthony Vegliante.

And that’s no rumor — that’s the truth.


 

 

The end may be near for the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

 

by Lance Coles, APWU Des Moines, Iowa

Five years ago, the USPS laid out a comprehensive "Transformation Plan." Despite the fact that USPS managers stated in this plan that "there is not a clear mandate for full privatization of the Postal Service," the recently enacted Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) could move the USPS closer to all-out privatization.

PAEA gave the postal service more flexibility in changing rates while increasing governmental oversight. The law also mandated studies on its service.

Postmaster General Jack Potter has taken the law’s passage to mean that USPS must close "the gap between rates and costs." He has proposed doing so by outsourcing work as well as increasing the amount of work customers will have to do to prepare their own mail. USPS managers have further determined that PAEA allows them to pass off policy-making responsibilities to an advisory committee made up of representatives of large mailers.

Postal unions have taken notice. This summer, American Postal Workers Union (APWU) President Bill Burrus told Congress, "Postal management, in concert with private enterprises, has begun to travel resolutely down the road of privatization without authorization from Congress. Burrus descried the PAEA as a veiled attempt to undermine collective bargaining.

 

ROAD TO PRIVATIZATION

Burris quoted Gene Del Polito, president of the American Association for Postal Commerce, as saying that USPS could "evolve into something which could be called the master contractor, where it maintains its government identity, but all the services would be performed by private contractors."

One example of the USPS and the mailing industry’s determination to privatize is the creation of the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee, a panel made up of high-ranking postal officials and mailing industry moguls. According to Burrus, this committee exists "to transfer the development of important postal policy to private entities motivated by their own bottom line."

Burrus noted that "the public is excluded from its deliberations, as are individual consumers, small businesses, and, of course, labor unions." Through this committee, he concluded, "Schemes are being hatched to convert work performed by the USPS to private, for-profit entities."

USPS plans to contract mail delivery out to private workers got the attention of another major postal union, the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC). NALC leaders initially supported the "Transformation" plan, but now seem to be looking at it with a little more apprehension.

NALC President William Young recently called the USPS’s postal reform plans "a radical expansion of outsourcing in the delivery area." Young criticized the USPS for "following the same misguided tactics used by many private companies to suppress wages and destroy good middle-class jobs, replacing them with lower-paid contingent and part-time positions."

PRE-SORT DISCOUNTS

For years, Iowa Postal Workers Union President Bruce Clark has been pushing the APWU to pay attention to another critical postal issue: pre-sort discounts. The USPS offers mailing discounts to bulk mailers that sort their own mail—discounts that end up costing the USPS more than sorting the mail in-house.

Clark called these discounts "rate-case privatizations." He explained, "Pre-sort houses came from this discount rate, with lower salaries and non-union workers taking away work from unionized postal employees."

Clark said these discounts are destroying the USPS and the USPS supports this. Former USPS Chief Financial Officer Michael Riley testified to Congress that pre-sort discounts are bleeding the postal service dry. Besides encouraging pre-sort houses, USPS managers are cutting mail processing and window service staff, forcing current employees to do more with less.

GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT

Congressional subcommittees are currently meeting to determine how to consolidate postal operations and contract out more postal work through the PAEA. One possibility seems likely. In 2002, the Transformation Plan called for closing down "low-value access points"--post offices that are not profitable (often those in poor and rural areas).

After years of secrecy, USPS managers made public a list of postal facilities they were considering for closure or consolidation with other offices. In testimony to the Postal Rate Commission, David Williams, coordinator of the Area Mail Processing program for the USPS was forced to reveal the list of 139 postal facilities being considered for consolidation.

Olympia Washington was the first to take major action against proposed consolidation of their facility. APWU locals in Waterbury, Connecticut, Waco, Texas, and Freeport, Illinois took action shortly after.

A massive grassroots campaign by the Sioux City APWU, forced the Iowa Senate to pass a resolution to not close the Sioux City processing facility. The Sioux City APWU was very successful in getting all aspects of the city involved, which spilled over to state and national congressional action.

Due to the APWU’s national media campaign, a national informational picket day, and the local publicactions,nearly all of the proposed consolidations and closures have since been canceled or postponed.

Unfortunately, the USPS is still working with the USPS Office of Inspector General towards more consolidations and closures. The Transformation Plan was the battle plan and PSAE was the first shot fired in this attack. Now it’s up to both postal workers and the public to take to the streets and fight for our public postal service.

"We have to take our battles against the USPS privatization to the halls of Congress and to the streets," said Jim Alexander, President of the APWU National Presidents Conference. "It's up to us to make sure the public makes an educated decision."

 

 

The Iowa Six Pick
Where they stand on labor issues.
By Lance Coles, Editor
Six Democratic Presidential Candidates spent the better part of an afternoon in Waterloo, Iowa, being grilled by union activist and????
As part of the Iowa Federation of Labor Convention, All the Democratic Presidential candidates were invited to attend the Presidential Forum. The forum was set up where the candidates, alone on the stage, were asked the same questions by three union officials.
Senator Dodd was the first to take the stage, followed by, John Edwards; then Joe Biden; Bill Richardson , then Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama closed out the forum.
The candidates were all asked, basically the same questions, and then allowed to respond. If time remained (in the half hour) the candidate was allowed to speak on any topic they wanted.
Secretary-Treasurer ALF-CIO ,Richard Trumka, Executive Vice President, Iowa Federation of Labor, Jan Laue, and Communication Workers of America President Larry Cohen provided the questions and comments.
Trumka's question dealt with labor ,trade and the trade deficit.
Regarding the Secretary of Labor, Trumka stated, "We proved we can live with out one, we've done it for six years." Senator Dodd said that he would not only talk to unions about the secretary of Labor, but also Commerce and NLRB.
Dodd went on to state that China "…is not longer a competitor, they are an adversary. When you stole my job, you became an adversary."
John Edwards addressed the labor issues by stating that we have country that doesn't value workers anymore, they value wealth. "We treat capital gains better than work income", he told the delegates.
He said that we are borrowing $2 billion a day for trade. "We need a different policy. This one is not working. We need environmental standards in the text of agreements." He said we are not using the tools afforded us in the WTO agreements. He see rebuilding America's infrastructure as a way to create jobs.
"You are what made the middle class" said Senator Joe Biden. He went to state that he would make our government "greener" by using more fuel efficient cars and invest in exporting technology. "I would radically change our consumption on foreign oil, and change our tax policy." Biden said. He said we owe China a trillion dollars. He would eliminate the war. Regarding country of origin labeling, he said, "…there is no such thing as free trade, unless there is fair trade."
Bill Richardson, told the delegates that globalization does not included working Americans. He said that unions are a positive change for Americans, and his secretary of labor will be a union member.
He explained how he brought back collective bargaining and PLA's (Project Labor agreements) to New Mexico while he was Governor. He said he would increase tariffs on certain products, promoted our exports better, reduce our debt, use the line item veto and eliminate corporate welfare.
"It's not rich people that made American," said Hillary Clinton, "It was the middle class.". She went on to state that we need a Department of Labor that is for labor. We need secure pensions, smart trade and a source of new jobs.
"We need a new way to look at trade, for smart American trade." She told the delegates. "We need teeth in trade agreements."
Obama Barak kept the momentum going on changes in the Department of Labor by stating , " We need a department of labor that believes in labor." He said that the AFL-CIO needs to be in the transition process on who is appointed to cabinet positions.
He said he would restore PLA's by executive order/ "Employers need to understand workers in American have a right to be part of a union."
He told the delegates trade should grow the economy, and protect the work. Discussion trade he said, "It can't be only good for Dow Jones, it needs to be good for Sally Jones and Fred Jones."
He said he would not sign a trade agreement unless it had strong labor and environmental language.
Health Care was the next issue of discussion, and IFL Executive Vice President Jan Laue had the honor to present this questions to the candidates.
"I wrote FMLA," said Senator Dodd, "but I can not write health care alone. It's not a one size fits all. No one party can write this."
"We desperately need new universal health care in American," said Edwards. He suggested taking the $200 million in Bush tax cuts for the rich and using that for health care.
Edwards who has refused to take money from lobbyist used an analogy about being a lawyer and lobbyists. He said as a lawyer when he makes his case to the jury, and if he were to pay the jury, he would go to jail for bribery, but the same system in Washington D.C. is where congress is the jury and the lobbyists are bribing them. "Why isn't that illegal" Edwards asked the crowd.
Biden said he is looking at a health care program that first deals with children, the catastrophic for elderly. "It's time to force medical professionals to change the way they do business." Said Biden.
Richardson said there needs to be a system that is more responsive to allow Medicare to negotiate with HMO's.
"I don't want socialized health care," said Clinton. She said she wants the cost down, more preventive health care, more generic drugs and more electronic medical records.
Obama said he wants health care program designed from scratch where every American has the same opportunity for a health plan as he has. He said we need to mobilize the 45 million who don't have health care. The drug and health care companies spent over $1billion on lobbying congress. "I don't mean that the drug and insurance companies can't have a seat at the table. I just don't want them buying the chairs." He told the delegates.
CWA President Cohen asked the candidates questions regarding the Employee Free Choice Act, and if they would respond to a non-union audience the same way they would to a union audience.
"You will never have to look over you shoulder to see if I'm with you," said Dodd.
Edwards said, "A lot of Americans have forgotten how important the labor movements is to America." He said he reminds everyone that it was the labor movement that built the middle class. He said the Free Choice Act is crucial to the long term strength of America.
"No scab should be able to cross your picket line and take your job. I believe in the cause. I will always be there." Said Edwards.
Biden said, "The Chamber of Commerce, they don't get it. Card check is in their best interest."
"I'm pro business, pro jobs." Said Richardson. He said he would get rid of right to work states, get rid of no child left behind programs, and get the Free Choice Act through. "I would not sign another trade agreement, without environmental and child labor free agreements in it."
According the Clinton, Employee Free Choice Act will end a lot of harassment and intimidation going on in organizing. she said it's not a labor issue, it an economic issue. "If you don't understand that we have to go back to growing the middle class, then you don't understand America." Said Clinton.
"This countries middle class was built on the back of the labor movement," said Barak.
Senator Biden addressed the delegates with his free time by stating, "I can win the red states. We've been beat up by the Carl Roves of the world. The Democratic Party has to learn how to stand up." He said Bush created terrorist, and that he has created more terrorist then have been destroyed.
"We need a president that is willing to utter the word, 'union' " said Biden. "We need a president that can lead, so we don't have to follow, and we don't have China holding the mortgage on my house."
Clinton used her extra time to say that the Democrats have to win this election. "It’s time to start acting like Americans again. We need to roll up our sleeves and get to work again," said Clinton. "I want to be the president who brings back the middle class and doing that by bringing back the American labor movement."
After the Forum, the Candidates hosted a hospitality room for the delegates, where all the candidates walked around and talked to all the delegates.

 

 

Survey Finds Homeowners Confused, Worried About ARMs

Save My Home Hotline Launched to Help Avoid

Foreclosures,

Provide Information and Advice On Adjustable Rate

Mortgage Resets

 

WASHINGTON – Nearly half of homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages admit that they do not know how their ARMs adjust or reset, and nearly three-quarters do not know how much their monthly mortgage payments will increase when they do, a new national survey reveals.

The survey, conducted Sept. 13-25 by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO, reveals that ARM holders are generally not concerned about mortgage payments until their rates reset. Then anxiety sets in as they realize their payments have risen substantially. The use of ARMs for home financing has grown dramatically over the past few years and particularly among higher risk subprime borrowers.

 

While many homeowners with ARMs remain personally optimistic, 62 percent said they believe escalating mortgage rates are hurting their communities, and 48 percent expect they’ll have to cut back on everyday expenses like groceries, clothing and gasoline when their payments increase. For families earning $50,000 or less, that number is 80 percent.

 

Asked if they feel confident or worried about making their monthly mortgage payments over the next few years, 41 percent of homeowners whose ARMs had reset said they were worried, compared with 18 percent of those whose ARMs had not reset. Among borrowers with incomes under $50,000, 59 percent were worried, including 38 percent who were very worried.

"What we have here is a tale of two communities," said AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. "The trap door between the American Dream and the American Nightmare for these homeowners is the ARM adjustment. This survey shows that many homeowners simply are not prepared for the steep rise in mortgage payments that this market inflicts on ARM holders."

The poll shows that of those homeowners whose ARMs had reset, 37 percent had interest rates at 8 percent or higher, above the current market rate for prime, fixed-rate loans, and 16 percent had interest rates at 10 percent or higher. After the reset, the average increase in monthly mortgage payments is approximately $291, a 10 percent cut in after-tax pay for a family earning $50,000 a year.

- more -

 

 

 

 

Poll Shows Homeowners Worried - 2

Sweeney and Leslie Tolf, president of Union Privilege, provider of benefits for union families, have announced the launch of a model homeowner education program, including a Union Plus Save My Home Hotline. It will provide information and advice to help union members and their families avoid foreclosure. The AFL-CIO also sponsors a trust to assist union members with financial hardship due to disability or unemployment

The Save My Home Hotline will provide free, confidential advice 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week from the counselors at Money Management International, a nonprofit, HUD-certified housing counseling agency. Face-to-face counseling is available at more than 100 local offices in 22 states and the District of Columbia. Union members and their parents and children can call the hotline for advice at 1-866-490-5361.

 

"Nearly four out of 10 homeowners in the poll say they wouldn’t know who to turn to for help if they had difficulty paying their mortgage," Tolf said. "Unions are at the forefront of closing that gap." The AFL-CIO also sponsors a trust to assist union members with financial hardship due to disability or unemployment.

Two in three (64 percent) of those whose rate has reset do not recall their lender telling them how much more their payment would increase, and 32 percent don’t recall being told when their interest rate would increase. Twenty-three percent of all respondents said they had been late making a mortgage payment at least once in the past 12 months. And that proportion jumps to 37 percent among those whose rate has increased.

The poll also found substantial support for government action to protect consumers.

Fifty-one percent said they think the government should assist people with ARMs facing foreclosures, and 77 percent said the government should do more to regulate the mortgage industry.

"Predatory lending practices not only involve sticking consumers with bad loans, but also in failing to provide homeowners with the basic information they need to survive in this market," Sweeney said. "Our poll shows that consumers are looking for government help, but the labor movement is not waiting. We’re reaching out to union families to make sure they don’t fall through the cracks."

 

Despite a general lack of understanding about their adjustable rate mortgages, 79 percent said they believe the information they received from their lenders was mainly accurate and truthful. Sixty percent said they got their ARMs from mortgage brokers, and 39 percent said they got their mortgages directly from banks.

 

"There is a big disconnect between what people know, and what they think they know," Tolf said. "That’s why we believe homeowner education is so essential. Sixty-one percent of those who have been late paying their mortgage in the past year don’t know where to turn for help. These are people who need help the most."

The Save My Home Hotline will provide needed advice to homeowners who are behind in their payments, already in foreclosure or looking for advice in how to budget and restructure their debt. "Ideally, we can reach homeowners before they get in trouble," Tolf said.
###

 

 

We vs. Me in the Days of Lean and Mean

By Peter Rachleff

Professor of History

Macalester College

 

     In early August I had the good fortune to attend the 2007 Postal Press Association National Editors’ Conference in Reno, Nevada.  I presented a workshop on “Linking the Past to the Present,” a way to think about what we can learn from the labor movement of the past and how editors can incorporate such insight and information in their newsletters.  As is typically my experience in such settings, I learned more than I taught.

     The high point for me came outside of my workshop.  One night, about twenty of us went into downtown Reno to see Michael Moore’s important new film, “Sicko.”  After the film, we sat down together in one of the classrooms and engaged in a prolonged, intense discussion.  I found it eye-opening.

     As most of you probably know, “Sicko” examines the American healthcare system from the experience of people with health insurance but who have been denied the care they need.  Moore places the American system in a comparative framework, taking his viewers to Canada, England, France, and Cuba.  In all of these places healthcare is universal, provided free of charge by the government, which relies on taxes for funding.  Moore demonstrates that these systems are anything but “bureaucratic” or “impersonal,” as U.S. critics have suggested.  The French system even includes free house calls and nanny assistance for new mothers!

     This much seemed so obvious to my APWU editor colleagues that little more than five minutes of discussion was necessary to declare ourselves convinced by Moore’s case for universal health care.  That’s when our conversation got really interesting.

     Underlying Moore’s argument is a deep, deep question: Why have we become a society in which “me” is valued so much more than “we”?  Time and again, his interview subjects in other countries justify their system in terms such as: “Well, of course we take care of each other.  What else would people do?”   But the American system seems grounded in a welter of selfishness and individualism, where we think about “Number One” and, as they used to say, let the devil catch the hindmost.  This was the issue that grabbed my APWU sisters and brothers.

     Our conversation carried me quickly back to labor history.  In the late 19th century, when the ideology of “the self-made man” was sweeping the United States, propagated by the dime novels of Horatio Alger and the “rags-to-riches” biographies of the likes of Andrew Carnegie, the labor movement put forward a vision of “the group-made man,” the worker whose job description, working conditions, hours and wages were the results of collective struggles and collective bargaining.  Rare was the worker, even the most skilled, who imagined that he had the strength to make a favorable deal with the boss on his own.

     At the heart of my workshop presentation this summer was the story of the building of the City Hall in Richmond, Virginia, in 1886.  The Knights of Labor had petitioned the conservative-dominated City Council that the new hall be built of local materials with local labor, that workers be paid union scale and employed on the eight hour day, and that African American workers be given access to skilled as well as unskilled jobs.  When the City Council rebuffed their request, the local Knights organized themselves into the Workingmen’s Reform Party, ran in the spring 1886 municipal elections, and swept to control of the city government.  They then oversaw the building of that new City Hall just as they had imagined it.  For me, the icing on the cake was the hand-carved gargoyles which adorned each corner of that handsome building.  The stone cutters, Black as well as white, who carved those symbolic faces, who left their handiwork for generations of citizens to appreciate, got their jobs because they had participated in a collective movement.  Their opportunity rested on a group effort.

     We have been living for more than 25 years now in an era in which the ideology of individualism, of looking out for me, has dominated our culture.  “Lean and mean” has been the order of the day, from reductions in workforces with greater pressure on the surviving workers to cuts in government spending on infrastructure.  When I made my travel arrangements to Reno, I chose to fly anyone but Northwest Airlines, where reductions in their pilot and flight attendant workforces led to the cancelling of thousands of flights at the end of June and July.  And while I was in Reno the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis over the Mississippi River collapsed, killing more than a dozen people and injuring more than 100.  The chickens hatched by decades of “lean and mean” were coming home to roost.

     My APWU colleagues and I discussed the costs of the “me” response to the “lean and mean” agenda.  It turned us and our fellow workers into shoppers at Wal-Mart, seeking the cheapest goods (and getting what we paid for), into critics of government spending and the taxes on which it relies (thereby undermining our schools, our bridges, and the rationale for our own jobs with the Postal Service), into overtime hogs (desperate to take home more wages even at the expense of our excessed brothers and sisters), into men and women with inadequate time for our children, our families, our communities, and our unions.

     The PPA National Editors’ Conference gave me a great opportunity to reflect on these issues.  Frankly, we all must confront them if we are to turn our society out of this “lean and mean” framework.  It’s not only no way to run a health care system, it’s no way to work and live.

 

#30

Remembering 9/12

by Mike Mazurkiewicz

 

This month marks the sixth anniversary of the horrible event that occurred in New York on 9/11. But there was another significant day in our nation's history that week - 9/12. On that day we were what we call ourselves - a United States. We stood united and we had the sympathy, respect, and support of the world. Today, we are a dangerously divided country and the U.S. is distrusted and hated around the globe. What happened? On 9/12 we looked to our leadership - but leadership wasn't there. Our nation's fears and anxieties were exploited by profiteers. We were lied to…we are still being lied to.

I remember watching as the top of the second trade tower collapsed and vanished into a cloud of dust…did our democracy disappear into that same dust cloud?

I remember hearing a quote recently that said, "Trust is the most important currency in governance." By using that criterion it can only be said that our present sub-prime "leadership" is bankrupt. Ground zero now extends to our country's farthest borders. The citizens (and future citizens) of our country are saddled with enormous debt. Daily payments are made with American lives. We are in dire need of change… but I wonder …is it already too late?

I remember a former President once saying, "There is nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what is right with America". While the right continues to get it wrong will the left get it at all? Will the fear card continue to win? - Or will the citizens of our country regain the unity of 9/12 and attack the real enemies of our country -- at the polls?

 

 

 

 

         Iowa Postal Workers Union, APWU,  AFL-CIO  

                         Be Union - Buy Union

The Iowa Postal Workers Union is a part of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) AFL-CIO. 

     The Iowa Postal Workers Union (IPWU) affirms its belief in a single union of all Postal Workers in non-supervisory levels and will work to achieve this goal.

     The IPWU educates our membership through use of seminars and specials class as well as through media outlets such as the Postal Solidarity (The Iowa Postal Worker paper is a part of this joint effort.)

     The IPWU  works towards educating the general public on the history of the Labor Movement.

     The IPWU will work for the election of candidates - regardless of party - who favor pasage of improved legislation in the interest of all labor. To work for the repeal of laws which are unjust to labor and Postal workers, such as the denial of the right to strike and denial of the right to support political cadidates of their choice.

     The IPWU will represent all members in every way possible with issues dealing with, but not limited to grievances.

The IPWU will continue to organize the unorganized.

 

 

                                                                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

APWU of Iowa
PO Box 539
Des Moines, IA 50302
United States
ph: 563-599-7725
alt: 515-669-8046