Tag: NALC

The working conditions created by the inept and irresponsible managers within the postal service is not only un-American, but creates a serious danger to the unsuspecting public at large.

The interest in this case has been with good cause, because Ms. Snow’s ordeal is the perfect metaphor for the blatant corporate, and now, governmental assault on the American middle class as a whole. But when I promised to keep you abreast of the twists and turns in this particular case, I thought it was simply going to be the story of a middle-class worker’s struggle to finally obtain justice. But instead, it has not only become the story of governmental extortion, threats, and collusion, but the clear demonstration that justice has become nothing more than an illusion for the American middle class.

President William Burrus, American Postal Workers Union: “I have no inside information about the reason for Potter’s decision, and no reason to believe that his retirement was demanded by the Board of Governors; but if it was, the Board has made a terrible mistake. The Postal Service is at a crossroads, and its relevance in American society is being questioned. The U.S. Postal Service needs a leader like John Potter to ensure its continued viability . . . filling Potter’s shoes will be a major challenge. Postal workers are losing a strong advocate for the USPS and its employees." What?!!! The guy is cutting the worker's throats.

Until the Brentwood facility was finally condemned by the CDC, Brentwood postal workers handled all of the mail for Washington, DC, including the ‘official mail’ that contained the anthrax-laden envelopes addressed to Senators Daschle and Leahy. While Capitol Hill workers received prompt medical care, Brentwood postal workers were ordered by USPS officials to continue working in the contaminated facility. Two Brentwood workers died from the inhalation of anthrax, and dozens more are suffering from a variety of ailments related to the anthrax attacks. For decades U.S. presidents have gone all over the globe lecturing world leaders on human rights. Yet, our very own United States Postal Service is among the worst abusers of workers' rights outside of the third world.

But the Republicans told us to not to worry. They said, if you'll just give up the right to write off the interest on your credit cards and other debts temporarily, the rewards that the rich are enjoying will eventually "trickle down," and you'll all be showered with the benefits of a robust economy. But their promise never came to past. The only thing that trickled down was our having to pay the tax burden of the rich - and even as I write, the rich are enjoying additional tax breaks while we still haven't regained the simple right to write off the interest on our debts .

At 600,000 strong, plus family, friends, and neighbors - and in an election year where incumbents are hanging on by their fingernails - postal employees are in the driver's seat of a tank. Yet, they're allowing themselves, and their families, to be robbed by a guy with a butter knife - and not just once outside a liquor store, but repeatedly in what is supposed to be the sanctity of their workplace. This has got to come to an end.

The mainstream media never becomes interested in a story until there's an explosion - twenty-nine mineworkers trapped in a poisonous coal mine, eleven oil workers vaporized in the Gulf, or when a postal worker snaps from abuse and walks into the post office with an M16 and brings death and destruction to his co-workers. But what's happened to the families of the twenty-nine mineworkers, eleven oil workers, or victims of postal mayhem since? We'll never know, because they've been relegated to the trash bin of yesterday's news.

But there is an upside to the ledger. Postal employees don't have to beg for justice - they can demand it. They have both the law, and the numbers on their side. There are 600,000 postal employees in America, then when you add all of their family and friends, that's a formidable political group. In addition, in today's political environment up to 76% of the American people are unhappy with incumbents. So postal employees can very easily pull together to make a politician's willingness to fight for workers' rights a litmus test in order to be elected - and that goes for your union officials as well.

The document reads, "We the people," not we the government. This is a covert encroachment on the American middle class that the people simply must repeal, or the rights of all Americas will be placed in dire jeopardy. Once the government declares open season on its employees, who's left to protect us from private exploitation?

The American people have always been comfortable in their belief that while the citizens of many other countries are routinely victimized by their government that 'it can't happen here.' But what the comfortable middle class fail to understand is the comfort that they take so easily for granted is under dire threat. They've been so mesmerized by MTV and their hedonistic pursuits that they're totally oblivious to the fact that under the new global economic structure the standard of living of the American middle class has become a liability to American business. While many may not feel the pinch yet, if they don't wake up, their carefree way of life is going to become a thing of the past.