Northwest labor press., June 20, 2008, Page 3, Image 3

...USPS seizes president’s postal ID
JUNE 20, 2008
cancelled without notice. She waved
her postal ID through the card scanner,
but the door wouldn’t unlock. For 45
Carpenters, Electricians, Laborers, Glaziers, Sheetmetal Workers, Floorcoverers, Bricklayers, Cement Masons, Roofers, Asbestos Workers, Millwrights, Painters, Elevators, Plasterers,
L.C. Hansen, a 34-year letter carrier
and longtime president of National
Association of Letter Carriers
Branch 82, had her postal ID seized
by postal service inspectors — two
days after she and a film crew
embarrassed postal service manage-
ment by documenting problems
with a contracted-out postal route.
The incident had a happy ending,
for Hansen anyway: The post office
returned her badge after the union
complained. And the errant con-
tractor was let go. But the national
battle the union is waging against
piecemeal privatization continues.
minutes, she tried without success to
get a USPS manager to re-activate it.
Then mid-morning June 6, two
armed postal inspectors showed up
unannounced at the union hall, in-
structed to seize Hansen’s postal iden-
tification.
As a union officer, Hansen has a
contractual right to access post offices
for representational activity. She was
floored, and demanded an explanation
from management.
HR manager Corrinne Loprinzi told
her the badge had been taken because
Hansen is no longer a USPS employee.
Hansen, who’d been on leave the pre-
vious six years to work full-time at the
union, had decided to formally retire at
the beginning of May after 34 years at
USPS, though she plans to serve out
the remainder of her term as union
president. But she knows of three other
union officials who had done the same
and USPS had always extended them
the professional courtesy of keeping
their postal ID to allow them to access
post offices on union business.
It looked like retaliation.
The national union stepped in and
threatened to fight the case. Manage-
ment relented. Hansen got her ID back.
Meanwhile, Hansen had composed
a letter to management detailing her
findings about Hattig. Apparently it got
through; USPS terminated her con-
tract.
The union’s larger battle against pri-
vatization continues.
Local Motion
May 2008
Union activity in Oregon and Southwest Washington,
according to the National Labor Relations Board
and the Oregon Employment Relations Board
Election results
Employer
Date
Union
Results:
Union
No
Union
6
11
Location
Marquez Brothers
5/1
Laborers Local 483
Portland
Representation petitions
Employer
Union
Location
# of employees
Weyerhaeuser, dba SpaceKraft
Association of Western Pulp & Paper Workers
Salem
16
Emmert’s Buxton Meats
United Food & Commercial Workers Local 555
Sandy
9
Providence St. Vincent (RNs in cath lab)
Oregon Nurses Association
Portland
7
HFS North America
Teamsters Local 305
Portland
32
Carpenters, Electricians, Laborers, Glaziers, Sheetmetal Workers, Floorcoverers, Bricklayers, Cement Masons, Roofers, Asbestos Workers, Millwrights, Painters, Elevators, Plasterers, Family
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Carpenters, Electricians, Laborers, Glaziers, Sheetmetal Workers, Floorcoverers, Bricklayers, Cement Masons, Roofers, Asbestos Workers, Millwrights, Painters, Elevators, Plasterers,
(From Page 1)
taken along the route to time-certify
package deliveries was instead left in
the office; a shop steward told Hansen
that Hattig scans deliveries before leav-
ing the office, violating USPS commit-
ment to accurately record time of de-
livery.
Hattig was supposed to pick up the
mail at 10 a.m., but instead arrived at
10:45 to 11:45 on the days Hansen was
waiting. A male companion rode with
Hattig while she did her deliveries, and
Hattig would stay out what seemed to
Hansen like a long time for such a short
route. On May 31, Hansen watched
Hattig pull up at the post office, and
then drove to Arbor Parc, expecting to
watch how Hattig did her work. Hansen
says she waited two-and-a-half hours,
and Hattig didn’t show up.
Letter carriers, including contrac-
tors, are supposed return to the post of-
fice at the end of their routes to turn in
the key that opens their secure mail-
boxes, but Hattig only infrequently re-
turned the key, Hansen learned — a se-
rious violation of postal security.
On June 4, the camera crew waited
outside Beaverton’s Evergreen post of-
fice for Hattig to arrive. Unaware she
was being filmed, Hattig picked up the
mail and drove with her male compan-
ion to a Shari’s restaurant in Tanas-
bourne Mall. They ate pancakes while
the mail sat undelivered in Hattig’s
Jeep outside.
Hansen and the camera crew fol-
lowed Hattig to Arbor Parc. Hansen,
wearing a wire, approached her as she
placed mail in a cluster box.
“My idea was to simply engage her
about when the mail came, as if I was a
resident,” Hansen said.
Hattig told her she picks up the mail
between 10 and 10:30 and gets to Ar-
bor Parc between 11 and 12. [It is a five
minute drive from the post office, and
it’s Hattig’s only delivery.]
Then Hansen identified herself as a
union officer. How’s the contract go-
ing, Hansen asked her.
“I think this is a solid deal for me,
and for the post office,” Hattig replied.
Hansen asked Hattig if she’d be
willing to be interviewed on film about
her job. She said okay. Hansen waved
her arm, and a van-load of people with
cameras hopped out.
“At that point, there was like that
moment where you know you’ve been
filmed,” Hansen recalls. “She wasn’t
happy about it.”
Hattig left, saying she was going to
tell her supervisor about what had hap-
pened.
Cameras in tow, Hansen knocked
on doors and spoke to Arbor Parc resi-
dents. Several told her they thought
they weren’t getting their mail every
day, and that it didn’t come at the same
time. They hadn’t been notified they’d
have contracted-out mail delivery serv-
ice when they bought the condos.
The next day, when Hansen arrived
at the main Portland post office for a
meeting with the postmaster, she dis-
covered her electronic access had been
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