Tags
APWU, Idaho Food Bank, labor-management, letter carriers, mail, NALC, unions, United States Postal Service
My 34-year career with the Postal Service (USPS) included a troubled relationship with unionization. There are five unions associated with the USPS. The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) is the carrier’s union. The National Rural Letter Carriers Association is specific to the maverick rural carriers. The American Postal Worker’s Union (APWU) organizes postal clerks, those mostly unseen faces behind the mail that comes to your box. The National Postal Mail Handlers Union stands behind the really unseen workforce, those folks who muscle mail into and out of the semi trucks and distribute sorted bins, trays, racks, and bags of mail to their appropriate location within postal facilities. There is even a National Association of Postal Supervisors.
I had studied the history of labor in the U.S. when I initially signed on as a clerk in Wyoming. I had read books like The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and I understood the value of organized bargaining. I was a young idealist, excited to be a part of the proletariat, carrying my lunch box and my union card. During my first APWU union meeting, a representative from the AFL-CIO presented information about benefits and retirement, all things that seemed lofty and far away, nevertheless, terribly important to me. I came away from that meeting excited to be part of something larger than myself. I faithfully attended every single union meeting for the next two years.
That first meeting turned out to be an anomaly. The meetings that followed devolved into little more than Boy Scout sessions. Before each meeting adjourned, the labor-management committee chair needed to have “an issue” to bring up in the upcoming labor-management meeting. Often there were no issues. The Postal Service had recently reorganized, thanks to the efforts of the old union stalwarts. In 1973, Postal employment was lucrative, comfortable, and highly sought. Meetings often drug out because “we’ve gotta have something to take to the labor-management meeting.” So, there we’d sit; A mostly satisfied group of workers, trying to think of an issue to complain about. “Okay, how about some mats in front of the sorting cases to relieve leg stress?” So, at last, we could adjourn. I thought, if there is no issue, why make one up? But the union stance was, “If you give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile. We gotta stand up for our rights!” I was quickly disillusioned by the petty whining that underpinned the local APWU.
Flip forward a few years. Relocated to Boise, I was thrilled to be rehired, this time as a carrier. I had three-months in which to prove myself. I was determined and I’m a naturally energetic person, so I began my career at breakneck speed. I impressed my supervisors but the carriers—not so much. I was the recipient of many stern lectures.
- You’re going to hurt yourself.
- You’ll never be able to keep up that pace.
- You’re making us look bad.
- I saw you running on my route yesterday. (frown & finger-wagging in face)
The kindly warnings grew more strident. I noticed that the most threatening comments came from the carriers that I recognized as the slowest, the least enthusiastic—the troublemakers. These troublemakers were often highly involved in union activities. I began to hate the union and everything it represented. I spent most of the rest of my career as a haughty scab.
Things within the Postal Service began to change. By the late nineties, labor-management issues had become strident, complex, and volatile. Front line supervisors were victims of both union labor rules and upper management’s greedy desire to squeeze blood out of granite. The old ways of doing business were disappearing. Supervisors could no longer work with their employees to hammer out differences or meet each other’s needs. Everything had become rule driven. I had to rethink my animosity toward the union as I saw more and more egregious behavior on the part of management. My previous mantra, Don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution, was ludicrous in an environment where I was directly instructed to leave my brain outside the front door and just follow the damned rules.
Miraculously, one good thing did happen before union and management arrived at complete loggerheads. In 1992, the NALC spearheaded an effort to support a nation-wide spring food drive. Postal trucks present the most efficient infrastructure for involving every home across the country in a food donation effort. Typically pantry shelves go bare during the summer months, but the need for food never diminishes. The NALC food drive has been enormously successful during the past 20 years. The event is tremendous financial burden for the USPS, both in fuel costs—due to heavily laden vehicles, extra trips, and extra trucks—and in labor costs. Not only is overtime required on food drive Saturday, but during the week prior to the event, carriers are asked to deliver promotional bags and postcards to every house on their route. This may not sound like a big deal, but those plastic bags present an unprecedented fourth frustration to already over-burdened carriers who are required to juggle and integrate three distinct sources of mail while traipsing or driving down the road.
For one day a year, I am enormously proud of the Postal Service and the NALC. Several years before I retired, I swallowed my pride and some of my grudges and actually joined the NALC. I could see the pendulum sadly swinging away from the worker and back toward fat, pencil-pushing, administrators who sit behind four air-conditioned walls dreaming up programs to protect their own cushy positions. These job-saving ideas land squarely on the backs of the poor grunts who must deal with the realities of ideas and programs that do more harm than good.
The pendulum keeps swinging. The gains made by workers in the late 60s and early 70s have been eroded by a series of economic booms and bubbles and administrative philosophies that have swung from employee involvement to employee exploitation. Who knows where it will all lead? But today, the day after the NALC’s 20th Annual Food Drive, I am proud of my former fellow colleagues and their union. Job well done, my exhausted friends.
Volunteers help unload and presort food collected for the Idaho Food Bank.
You must know that I got a tremendous amount of insight from this post. Bravo.
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Really? Well, geez, thanks.
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Don’t forget that I am still in the world of USPS and a union steward for a DUO office. You have a longer career and a background with the union that helps me understand some attitudes toward them. They are all about ‘the rules’ too.
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Oh YES, I forgot! Ah…what is a DUO office? I’ve been out long enough to lose touch, apparently. As a union steward, I’m sure you get caught in some nasty situations. Just like front-line supervisors. Truly, Renee, when I first start working for the P.O. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I worked hard and my bosses appreciated me. They knew that my motivation was time off. “Back in the day” there were ways to reward your hard working carriers. Supervisors had enough leeway to tailor rewards in such a way as to keep their performers motivated. The bad seeds? Well, hell. At a certain point, the wise supers just learned to deal with these guys. Today, there is no leeway for carriers or for supervisors. Everything is rule driven and there are more eyes reviewing paperwork than there are hands perform the real functions. I’m am really sad about the state the service is in. I see absolutely no future for the organization and that is sad on a number of levels. Sorry to rant to your nice reply.
I hope you’ve had a lovely Mother’s Day…again…I’m assuming you’re a mother, but have not taken the time to verify that. So sorry, in advance, for not doing my homework. Retirement seems busier than my work career. I never saw that coming!
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First, Linda, I’ve not had the opportunity to hear about the INSIDE from a postal employee. This is a first for me. It was good to hear your side of the experience. From my customer point of view of our Cdn system – it is so danged labour intensive. Everything the workers do seems complicated. Must be all those rules!
Second, I am having such weird problems with subscriptions. The RSS feed has been sporadic and when I tried to re-subscribe to your blog (I haven’t received an RSS feed for you since February) I received some weird message.
So I will be going back over your older postings to see what I’ve missed. This is becoming more than frustrating!
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Amy sorry about the problems with the notifications. It seems that everyone is having issues with WP. I will check my settings. Maybe I changed something on my end which has interfered with your RSS settings. I’ve had problems too. First of all, your blog was the only one I ever got notified about new new posts and that notification went to a different email adddress. I never figured out why that happened. I kept subscribing to other blogs but would never get notifications. I had to go through the “reader > posts I follow” link and then I started having problems with that….pages not loading, then nothing loading. Then I fixed that and all of a sudden all posts & comments notifications were coming at me like tennis balls from a pro. Then I used your solution to slow things down and now I get basically nothing. Thanks for stopping by. I haven’t been very prolific. Been busy editing for other people…making some money, yeah! Hope your sisters are doing well.
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Boy, that all sounds familiar…especially the part about the pencil pushing administrators (grrr-hate ’em). I wish I belonged to a union. 🙂
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Yes, unfortunately those union jobs are fewer and farther between. And most of them, let’s face it, except for teachers, most union jobs are as boring as watching an ant pile. But the bennies kept me motivated.
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Wow! This is fascinating. And it’s a great example of a story that’s unique, yet universal; the topic is one that everyone in familiar with and most people have an opinion on. In other words, it would be perfect for a longer work…and who better to write it…?
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Oh dear. People have often pushed me to write about it. But I’ve never been inclined to. Seemed like I didn’t have much to say….or maybe was to close to it. Maybe some day…
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This was fascinating, Linda. Your perspective is important because you share bits of information that goes unnoticed by many, including me. Thank you. I just noticed Cindy used facinating, too. See?
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It is fascinating what someone else finds fascinating! 😉 It’s funny because I have spoken very little about the USPS. I guess I’m just so happy to be out of there with my life in tact I don’t want to spend too much time looking back. Thanks, as always, for your kindness and encouragement.
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Watching the events unfold in Wisconsin over the last year I’ve thought about you and the postal service a bunch of times. I’ve been curious to know your take on unions in light of the current sentiment. It’s good to know it’s an evolving thing. Personally, I’d have a huge problem with somebody telling me I couldn’t do a good job! But then again, I’d also have a problem with managers exploiting me. My daughter works as a server in a local restaurant and just told me they don’t get regular breaks. Evidently that’s common in restaurants because of the nature of the work. Evidently a lot of servers also don’t get paid minimum wage either because they’re supposed to make it up in tips. That’s actually legal (how did the restaurant industry pull that one off I wonder?)
Great and timely topic with valuable insights. As always. Thanks Linda!
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Oh the restaurant thing inflames me, Dia. I’ve worked in food service__a long time ago, but thing haven’t changed. I’m well aware of the outrageously low wages the industry pays and that servers are dependent upon their tips (which they must pay taxes on, based upon the restaurant’s food sales figures). If they don’t get tipped 10%, they still get taxed as if they were. I have had huge arguments with friends who don’t feel it is their duty to pay a server’s wages just because the establishment doesn’t pay enough. The servers are in a powerless position. If anyone is to change those labor laws it has to come from outside of the industry. That will probably never happen, so I plunk down 20% or more each time I eat out. (Unless the service is REALLY lousy, in which case I leave change, just to let ’em know I didn’t forget.)
Unions are definitely a complex issue, fraught with misery, misunderstandings, and both good and bad intentions. Just like life, I guess.
Thanks for your faithful following and insightful comments.
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Hi Linda, I know I made myself scarce lately but this post struck a chord with me. I used to be an HR manager working for a totally unknown German bank in Berlin. This was when I got unspeakably frustrated with work councils and unions because of exactly the attitude you speak of: Don’t fight because you have to but out of principle because you will be insignificant if you don’t. Mind you, banks in the 90ies were still doing exceedingly well and employees would take home insane salaries compared to workers in other service industries. Yet they were always moaning and complaining. I did love my job but I sure hated having bankers for clients.
It is however interesting to read about someone else’s take on these issues. And I have to agree that in many companies the workers are exploited beyond all reason. Maybe that’s why I want to open my own business – to do better.
Thank you for another insightful and well-written post, I hope to be able to visit more frequently soon.
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Sandra, thanks for taking the time to comment. I know, I’ve been really remiss in the blogging department, too. I keep thinking I’ll have some time to get caught up, but then something else wedges it’s foot in the door.
Yes, I guess there’s a pendulum involved in employment issues. It’s probably related to supply and demand. When things are good, employees need to recognize it as such and quite sticking their paws out looking for more, more, more. Inevitably, if their pay scale gets too high, the employers will figure out a way to replace them with something/one cheaper. But, on the other hand, if workers don’t unite and work together to help each other out, they become easy targets for abuse. And really, perhaps there’s an even larger issue lurking in the background: A worldwide economy based on growth on a finite planet is a recipe for disaster for all of us. But, oh dear, I don’t mean to sound so pessimistic.
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