For those of you are retired and still read local websites here is a website just for US!!! http://www.keepingposted.org/ NEWS related articles for us retired postal workers!
P.S. to whomever runs this site - tell the Nixie clerks I said, "HEY!!!!"

Edited by author 11-30-2007 06:55 PM
Obviously because PTFs were made regular - we career employees got a 1% raise. Thank you for the taking easy way out Bur-asshole!! It makes it easier for you to live in in $900,000 home - see http://www.williamburuss.com. Your maid probably makes more than I do!!!!

Knock it off Screwed!!!!!!!!1

Not only only do I like to buy Bill Burrus his shots of Hennessey!!! He says he likes the knob jobs I give him as well!!!!!

Edited by author 11-30-2007 07:36 PM
Screwed,
Things don't always work out the way we want to. You have no idea how negotiations work! No this was not a "trade off" for a 1% increase. If you'll notice the other crafts got similar increases, yet did not achieve PTF conversions.
The "trade off" (and I hesitate to mention this because so many get it wrong) was the increase in the casual cap from 5.9% to 6% (0.1% increase) AND the USPS got the ability to hire one casual for 360 days (instead of the previous limitations which permitted them to hire two casuals for 180 days each)
Also, in addition to PTF conversions we also got (via the same memorandum)
 OT for FTR before OT for casuals
-- No casuals on day shift
-- The 10% per building cap on casuals, in essence, reduced the District allowance from 15% to 10%
-- Transfer opportunities for PTFs in small offices (to go to large offices and get converted)
We also gave back the "casual in lieu of" provision (Don't agree with that one).
All in all not a bad deal for what you judge as a "trade off!!!"

Brittany,
I have no idea how the SCABs got in here - good luck on your bid for Union President. =)

supervisor who walks around with hands in pocket "feels cocky!" i love to act friendly to the craft but suck EAS cock when you aren't watching! :-)

So here is what happened back in 1970. The newly-formed APWU mafioso had Nixon by the balls. Here's how it works when you form a union. (1) The union threatens vandalism, boycotts or whatever against the company unless they sign a collective bargaining agreement. (2) The company agrees, because they can't afford the losses. (3) The first thing the union negotiates in the contract is a union shop or agency shop. (4) The employees are forced to pay dues to keep their jobs. (5) The union thereafter ignores the worker's interests, except that the union officers try to look like they care enough to get re-elected to their union jobs, all of which are overpaid.

What is your problem Bert? You wouldn't be making $20 an hour if it weren't for the APWU. Besides, we are an OPEN shop - you don't have to join and pay for the job insurance the APWU provides. I suspect you are a free-loading SCAB leech off the rest of us anyway. Your message does contain some truth but you have tainted it with half-truths also. The old Post Ofice Dept. pre-1970 was a true Hell-hole to work for. You spoiled whiny baby-boomers are clueless what the Greatest Generation went through.

Bert,
I don't know where you are getting your information - but there was no APWU back in 1970. Plus, we are an OPEN shop - you have the right to either walk in solidarity with your co-workers or you may choose to not join and complain about what your union has helped to provide. I am in the middle of writing about the Great Postal Strike of 1970 on the Commentary Page including links with documented facts.

Scott,
You are absolutely correct! I cannot tell from your post if you are from the "Greatest Generation" or a Post-baby-boomer like I am. The pendulum swings both ways. Some baby-boomers felt compelled to rebel against their parent's generation. Some of us Generation X'ers (post baby boom) sometimes rebel against the baby-boomers. Most of share the ideas of the World War 2 generation. The generation after us will rebel against us. The pendulum swings both ways.

Edited by author 12-03-2007 02:04 AM
I am from Colorado and I like your website. I am grateful for your 2005 fundraising for Katrina-affected Postal Workers although I know that (whomever you are) - you did that independently and not your Local. I am a New Orleans transplant to Colorado because of Katrina.
I am writing as the LOWEST person on my seniority list. Being the lowest Regular clerk - I have no rights but I still pay my APWU dues.
I am an automation clerk and will be for a long time because I will outbid for any other job.
I have read this blog before and have read Loyd Reeder's posts on http://www.21cpw.com
Ergonomics is NO JOKE!!! I will go out on a limb and say MOST Union Officers NEVER,,EVER worked on a DBCS machine and when we discuss our problems they simply reply "Oh, I understand....we are working on that issue right now." That is a frustrating answer and that makes it more difficult to go back to work after my own Union yanked my genitalia so hard.
One of the weakness in the USPS is that they look at machinery and automation and talk about process capability, but they fail to equate it with the human side of things. Anybody will tell you good process capability equals quality. But if you have poor ergonomics, you have poor human process capability and you're going to have poor quality.
The problem is that the engineers that design these DBCS machines don't have any hands-on experience actually performing the function they are designing for. Getting an engineer on the line goes a long way toward education but the USPS was hell-bent on cutting labor - so to hell with the human aspect. Bring a guy out there and hurt him for a while and he really starts to understand ergonomics.
If you read Kaiser Permante's website http://www.kaiserpermanente.org - you will read their physician-approved warnings of poor ergonomics.

1.) - Job activities with many repetitions

2.) - Putting the body in extreme positions ( like placing full trays from full lower pockets on the pie-cart

3.) Work that requires you frequently maintaining static postures ( especially sweeping 2nd pass from a DBCS.)

Sadly, too many Union officials are too busy defending the slugs on the window and manual units while the 'bread and butter' on automation received the Bill Burrus autographed gerbil up our ass.

APWU - this ain't your grandfather's P.O. anymore.

Edited by author 12-11-2007 03:43 AM
Brad,
You may be right about MOST Union Officers NEVER, EVER worked on a DBCS machine. But what about DBCS operators that became officers by fighting management on safety issues? That's what I had to do...
I was a PTF for 5 years because local management did not want to convert PTFs to full-time. I must have initiated 20 maximization grievances that took 3-4 years to settle in a pre-arb, converting all the PTFs in our local. I also initiated a safety grievance dealing with the DBCS staffing which was settled guaranteeing 2 operators under most circumstances the DBCS machines were running. The other officers were not PTFs or DBCS operators at the time, so I became a steward and did it myself. Now I am an officer. Go for it!
http://soal.awardspace.com Clerk Craft Director

Edited by author 12-05-2008 02:13 PM
I have neglected my own webiste and have not responded back to my e-mails and message lately - December is a stress for ALL of us.

Brad,

Loyd Reeder is an intelligent man and I have only had a brief convo with him while I was at work for 4 minutes. I totally agree that is ergonomics is NOT a joke. I agree that MOST union officers (but not ALL) have no DBCS experience. This is 2007 and most clerks in larger offices will start out in automation - this is the reality of the USPS. All of us under 40 yrs. old have all started out in that spot. Our DBCS machines are very ergonomically incorrect and will remain that way.
Craig,

I read your message and admire your spirit. I love your website, Southern Oregon Local (http://soal.awardspace.com/) - very informative. I started this website in 2004 using basic HTML Code and left it that way - so it is less eye-appealing. But I saw your website and I like it. Good luck to you!

Connie Schneider,

This is the only way I can respond back to you. If our home page did actually updated effectively - you will understand. Someone using a Postal Computer (yes, really - we have their IP address) "haxored" this website. Someone has WAY too much time on their hands as this is a VERY SMALL postal website.
Anyway, Connie, to answer your question, ADVO is on its way out but it will be awhile. "RedPlum.Com" purchased ADVO and as of yesterday it is no longer ADVO. Their future plans are to advertise only online - please read more at http://www.redplum.com.

I have been reading how Poodlehead from the NALC and Burass from the APWU believe that Hillary will save the USPS. OMFG!!!! She is as much of a liar than Postal Management.
Most especially as a woman, I have become more and more concerned that Hillary Rodham Clinton just might be elected as the first female President of the United States in 2008. And that possibility curls my hair, dangerously accelerates my heartbeat and sends shivers down my spine.
I have been following Hillary's "life" since she first made a blip on the national radar during the 1992 election. Back then, my own perception of her was that she was kind of pert, sort of pretty, and that she might even be slightly smarter than that absolutely charming husband of hers - the candidate. When I learned that she had her own Yale law degree and that they were being billed as the "two-for-one" presidency, I actually thought to myself that it might be a good deal for the taxpayers. Pay one President; get two. I do always try to give a new President - and First Lady - the benefit of the doubt, as due respect for our Republic and the electorate dictates.


But that was 15 years ago. In that time, I've read six biographies of Hillary (4 admittedly unfavorable, 1 gushingly favorable, and 1 supposedly neutral). With such a preponderance of damning evidence against her already widely disseminated, it strikes me as more than a little strange that this woman is not in prison or a mental institution. That she has managed to remain not only free, but center-stage in the Democratic Party and a Senator from an "adopted" state is an indictment of our press and her Party. If she succeeds in lying and manipulating her way into the White House, it will be an indictment of us all.
Even Carl Bernstein admits (A Woman in Charge; Knopf; 2007; p. 554) that Mrs. Clinton is the human equivalent of a chameleon, changing her colors and her story to suit her audience:
They're disgusted by the fact that, while they struggled to break through barriers in the workplace, Clinton hitched her star to her man and followed him to the top. She has become an effective of a liar as her skirt-chasing hubby BJ Clinton.

"Americans of all political persuasions are coming to the sad realization that the former First Lady (Hillary Rodham Clinton) - a woman of undoubted talents who was a role model for many in her generation - is a congenital liar. So, let it be said from my all-female mouth now and on the record: If Hillary Clinton is elected as President of the United States, it will set the cause of any sort of feminism back for at least 250 years. Whether we like it or not, she will be the "ruler" by which future female candidates are measured. And she will be judged for the woman she is - not for the man she isn't." - Oprah Winfrey, Ebony - January 2008.

So, just for a moment try to forget Travelgate (Cronyism at its vile lowest), WhiteWater (phony S&L scheme that cost taxpayers $4 million), Campcon (FBI investigation into illegal Chinese government political contributions to Clintons and DNC), MonicaGate (don't even go there), and PardonGate (the final-hour pardons granted by the Clinton "Co-Presidency," including a host of Clinton & Rodham relatives, friends and big contributors).

And besides the bald-faced lying, here's what rubs me the wrong way. Hillary Clinton's thirst for power has been so great that she has knowingly trampled the feelings and rights of all the women she called "Bimbos," enabled an out-of-control man to escape due punishment, and now dares to play the long-suffering, loving wife with no thought to the real-life consequences borne by all the "other" women that litter the roadside of Bill Clinton's life.
This one issue alone invalidates any claim she ever had to the real Women's vote. Her cadre of elite feminist loyalists can clamor all they wish for solidarity of the "sisterhood," but I don't know a single woman over the age of 18 who is buying it except for the baby-boom women who still think they are young. If Hillary Clinton gave one whit for the respectability of women, she would have trounced Billy boy a long, long, long, long time ago. Women like myself bornm after the Woodstock concert think of us Hillary as a freaking joke - most men do too. But there are more of you spoiled baby-boomers in the USPS than there are of us.
And why on earth would an educated electorate buy the simpleminded notion that a woman who cannot even stop a philandering husband from, well, philandering, could ever stop terrorists from, well, terrorizing? Surely, we are too smart to trust this woman with her little manicured finger on the "A-bomb" button.
If not, then we probably deserve what we will get from her. If you have real questions at this point about what that would be, get yourself a copy of Rules for Radicals, by the infamous Saul Alinsky, the left-wing guru of ethical relativity, an avowed means-justify-the-ends Marxist, who was the topic of Hillary's senior thesis at Wellesley. Don't bother trying to get a copy of her paper, though; it's sealed up, though a purported bootleg copy made it onto the web. I have been unable to verify if it is genuine.
I would give just about anything to be able - in good conscience - to vote for a woman for President. Just not this particular woman. She doesn't even know who she is anymore. How could she possibly know who we are? She thinks we are the means to her end. That's all her idea of "sisterhood" has ever been.
It's all about her. And only her.