Postal workers repel concessions demands
1987 1987-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 4 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 4
4 SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1987 The other part of management's projected workforce was the establishment of permanent part-time employees. At present there is a very small number of career employees who work part-time. Management wants to create a huge force of part-timers at substandard wages and benefits.
The two unions came out strongly against the part-time scheme-which is simply a two-tier wage plan designed to depress the wages and benefits of all postal workers.
In the June issue of The Postal Record, Vince Sombrotto, president of the NALC, writes: "We have no intention of agreeing to any form of a two-tier system, no matter May May Gong/Socialist Action how well they may disguise it."
Union negotiators remained firm against this scheme through three months of bargaining, and Postmaster General Preston R. Tisch finally yielded. There will be no increases in the number of part-time or temporary workers for the life of the contract.
Pressure on the union Two weeks after contract talks began this year, the Postal Service announced that it would seek to increase postage rates to cover its costs. It hinted that the 22-cent stamp would cost 25 cents by next year.
The unions' Joint Bargaining Committee saw this cheap ploy for what it was—an attempt to use public opinion to pressure the unions to settle for less.
The Postal Service's announcement came in spite of the fact that in 1984 the Postal Rate Commission scolded management for not waiting until the conclusion of contract bargaining so that an accurate idea of operating costs could be projected.
Among the other demands of management was the elimination of doubletime pay after 10 hours' work. This provision is particularly galling to the Postal Service because it came out of the arbitration of the 1984 contract after management had refused to continue negotiations any longer.
The unions were successful in retaining the double-time provision.
The postal workers have demonstrated they can resist takebacks even when the bosses are in a general offensive against
----- pull-quotes -----
PRODUCTIVITY Up WAGES