Announcements
UPDATED: June 16, 2010
Branch 106 will hold a fund raising event at the State Farmery Market in Montgomery, Alabama on Saturday July 24, 2010 07:00 until 16:00. We will have a garage sale and barbeque event. Please drop off donations of yard sale items to your steward or to the union hall. Volunteers are needed. See your steward or union officer.
The Postal Service is engaging in a war with its employees. It is a propaganda war and this is not the first time they have done this. They are in contract negoiations with the clerks union right now, then the rural carriers, then the city carriers. This propaganda about layoffs and 5 day delivery is just that, propaganda. Congress assures us that they do not have the votes to pass a bill allowing 5 day delivery, but that even if it were to pass, President Obama indicates that he will not sign it into law. They definitely do not have the votes to override a Presidential Veto. The postal service is just trying to stir up emotions for the public and its’ employees. Yes, they want to get you upset and they want to be able to go to the bargaining table and say our employees want 5 day delivery. You may want to have Saturday off every week but if you support this concept, you may just get more than Saturday off, It might be Saturday thru Friday. The union is fighting for your job. If 5 day delivery is enacted, we will loose one sixth of our employees in the letter carrier craft. While at work, look around and count six letter carriers and decide which one should loose their job. Is it you, or your best friend. How would you decide? For the sake of our brothers and sisters, please do not support this 5 day delivery propaganda. By the way, the postal service is expecting to get the following concessions during these contract negoiations: 20% reduction in pay, employees pay 100% of health care costs, Reduction in benefits, all new employees start at $10-12 per hour with no benefits for 2 to 3 years.
We have made several changes in the way we will operate and do steward training. Steward training will be conducted after each meeting when time permits. All stewards are required to attend. Written projects will be assigned to all stewards. We will start the training with an overview of the grievance process. Have interactive role play to demonstrate investigative interviews, interaction with management and grievants, documentation, investigating, writing, preparing and developing grievances. Then we will have interactive meetings at the informal and formal A levels. All stewards will develop both discipline and contractual filings. We will also cover leadership skills and activist activities. We need to improve our recruiting for new members and COLCPE participation. When the new bylaws are passed, we should be paying our stewards a small monthly salary for their work. They will be required to attend meetings and be active in the branch to get paid. We also realize that some stewards would have to travel hours each way to attend meetings. Later this year, we will appoint a committee to investigate how we can use technology to help us get our members more involved, especially those who live and work in outlying areas. We will look at net meetings over the internet, vote by mail, on-line training etc… Please send any ideas that you may have to me at NALC106@hotmail.com. See you at the next meeting. Jerry Smith, President