attack on jobs | APWU - South Jersey Area Local 0526

Postal Service Union Warns of Job Cuts, Service Reductions at Charlotte Rally

(This article was first reported on Jul 26, 2017, 5:14pm EDT on the Charlotte Business Journal website)

More than a dozen postal service workers and union supporters rallied Wednesday against job cuts and service reductions outside Charlotte’s government building.

Jamie Horwitz, a spokesperson for the American Postal Workers Union, told CBJ that Charlotte faces a cutback of 36 positions in its postal service workforce. Horwitz said that number does not include window clerks. There are roughly around 1,600 postal service employees in Charlotte. There is speculation that U.S. Postal Service will cut about 12,000 positions across the country, Horwitz said.

“What’s been going on in the Charlotte area is that they did get some notifications that they were going to be reverting jobs,” Debby Szeredy, executive vice president of the American Postal Workers Union, told CBJ at the rally.

According to the rally pamphlet, recent USPS cuts have caused fewer window personnel, decreased post office hours and delays in first-class mail deliveries. Revenue from first-class stamps is the postal service’s major profit generator, Szeredy said.

Horwitz said first-class mail is down because of e-commerce conglomerates but added that companies like Amazon still get the majority of their packaging from USPS. Szeredy said digitalization is only a small part of the decline and that there is still a lot of mail processing.

Sylvin Stevens, president of the local branch for National Association of Letter Carriers, said postal service cutbacks adversely affect the community and small businesses. “The business community relies on timely deliver of mail. When it gets there on time, they get to make deposits and stuff like that so that they can keep up with their finances. It trickles down from there,” Stevens said.

Anthony Wilson, president of the APWU N.C. Council, said more than 140 postal service plants have closed around the country since 2012. Szeredy said postal workers are working overtime more than ever before because the turnover rate for new staff has been high.

“We are so short staffed all over the country,” said Szeredy .“That’s why there’s so many long lines. We now have a service standard that was changed and now the mail has been delayed. There’s also been some consolidation of plants and with everything together, we’re putting up a battle to try to save the post office for the community. Not just for us but for the community.”

Participants in the rally held signs and shouted “Cut back! Fight back!” and “Gear it up! Fight back!” in chant. MaryBe McMillan, secretary-treasurer of North Carolina AFL-CIO, spoke alongside Szeredy, Stevens and Wilson during the rally.

No business leaders or council members were present to comment. APWU is also holding postal service rallies in Seattle and Portland against potential cutbacks.

Philip Bogenberger, N.C. spokesperson for the USPS, said the organization is adjusting employee staffing and scheduling because of the overall decline in mail volume.

“The U.S. Postal Service is a responsible employer that prudently matches our workforce to an evolving workload and adjusts staffing continuously,” Bogenberger told CBJ. “This year to date, despite growth in the package segment of our business, overall volume has declined by more than 2.5 billion pieces, and we are therefore adjusting employee staffing and scheduling. As the market changes, we will continue to manage our operations while providing first-rate service to the American public.”

Day of Action: July 18, 2017 – The National President’s Video

Even-though the moment has passed, the message still remains that things are happening all around us and we must stay diligent to all the information available to us. It’s time we understand what management and even Congress has been doing. APWU President Dimondstein urged members to join the Day of Action TODAY to protect their pay and benefits. This was urging members to fight back against the cuts on vital government services and federal employee retirement benefits just to give the wealthiest Americans a trillion-dollar tax break. This is what he had to say on July 18th.

ATTACK ON JOBS!!

As you all should know, USPS has declared an attack on our jobs. This was first posted on May 21, 2017. It started with reversions. USPS has escalated things with a new notification, as of June 13, 2017 (this past Tuesday), of excessing.

Here’s what our Eastern Region Coordinator, Mike Gallagher had to say:

Sisters and Brothers, as you are already aware the USPS has embarked on a nationwide initiative to reduce duty assignments in an installation to correspond with their earned hours not with their actual hours that they are using.

This is an edict from on high (HQ management) that has required managers at the Area, District and installation level to revert most residual vacancies, give letters of abolishment to employees (whose jobs are not actually abolished), discuss sectional excessing at the local level and begin to bombard the Eastern Region with excessing notices.

These notifications very recently dated have an Area Move Date of September 16, 2017. However as you know our contract requires six month notification whenever possible and it requires that the Regional/Area meetings on these impacts take place 90 day days prior to the area move date. While I have given management every available date to meet with them prior to the 90 day limit, they insist that I make more time available. That is not possible based on the number of hours in a day and the availability of myself or our Article 12 NBAs.

I can assure you that in this latest round of attacks on our bargaining unit, we will insist that management follow every structure of our collective bargaining agreement in discussing and implementing these events, unfortunately, it is clearly apparent that you will be tasked with filing grievances related to their failure to comply with certain elements of our CBA. We will insist on Regional/Area meetings on each event and discuss each contractual requirement in its entirety in these meetings. Anything that is not complied with should be challenged at the local level and if there is a District or Area policy that violates the agreement, I will ensure that the appropriate grievance is filed by my office at that level. I appreciate your understanding and support in this difficult time of Postal insanity.

Solidarity,

Mike