Postal unions battling two-front war vs.
service cuts, GOP threat to bargaining
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
The nation’s postal unions, led by the
National Association of Letter Carriers
(NALC) and the American Postal
Workers Union (APWU), are fighting a
two-front war.
One front is very public: against
U.S. Postal Service (USPS) schemes
for service cuts and post office clos-
ings. The other, which has just gotten
started, is a variation of the GOP’s na-
tionwide war on workers. An influen-
tial Republican congressman wants to
kill the collective bargaining rights of
the USPS workers, just as some Re-
publican governors did to their state
and local government employees.
The longer-running and higher-pro-
file fight is against the Postal Service’s
plans to cut costs by eliminating Satur-
day delivery, closing hundreds of local
post offices and other facilities, and of-
fering buyouts to veteran union work-
ers so it can replace them with part-
timers and temps.
USPS says it needs to make those
moves to close an annual $8 billion
budget deficit caused, it says, by de-
clining mail volume due to competition
from the Internet and rising costs else-
where.
The Letter Carriers in particular re-
Broadway Floral
for the BEST flowers call
503-288-5537
1638 NE Broadway, Portland
tort that $5.5 billion of the Postal Serv-
ice deficit is due to a mandate in a 2006
postal “reform” law pushed through the
GOP-run Congress by then-President
George W. Bush that requires USPS to
fully pre-fund future retiree health ben-
efits. (It even covers retiree health ben-
efits of yet-to-be-hired workers.) The
cost to the agency is $5.5 billion a year.
No other entity, public or private,
must do that.
At the same time, USPS has over-
paid into its pension fund between $50
billion and $75 billion. The unions are
supporting a bill — HR 1351 — that
would allow USPS to use its pension
surpluses to cover its pre-funding costs.
The bill has over 150 co-sponsors in
the U.S. House of Representatives.
However, some opponents of the
bill call it a taxpayer bailout.
“That’s not true,” says Jim Cook,
president of Portland-based NALC
Branch 82. “No tax dollars have been
used to run the postal service since
1982.”
Opponents in the House have intro-
duced a bill of their own.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a for-
mer car alarm baron who now chairs
the House committee that writes Postal
Service bills, wants to eliminate collec-
tive bargaining rights for all postal
workers.
APWU posted an analysis of the bill
on its website. It says the legislation
closely follows the strategy of Republi-
can governors nationwide who are us-
ing budget problems to attack collec-
tive bargaining rights.
Specifically, Issa wants to create a
Solvency Authority similar to one cre-
ated by the Republican-run Michigan
Legislature, which allows the state to
put “financially failing” local govern-
mental bodies — from school boards
to city and county councils — under
state-run receivership. The receiver is a
virtual dictator.
The first two “failing governments”
put under such receivership were the
Detroit public schools and the city of
Benton Harbor. The Detroit receiver ul-
timately fired thousands of teachers
and the Benton Harbor receiver nulli-
fied union contracts.
According to the Center for Ameri-
can Progress (CAP), a liberal think
tank, giving power to a Solvency Au-
thority to run the USPS — would “ef-
fectively end any real ability for work-
ers to bargain collectively.” Issa’s bill
says the Solvency Authority would
“meet and confer” about its plans with
the postal workers’ unions, but could
then impose whatever it likes.
CAP says Issa’s bill tracks Michi-
gan’s law word for word and that the
authority can “reject, modify, or termi-
nate one or more terms or conditions of
an existing collective bargaining agree-
ment.”
“This strategy ignores alternative
methods of closing budget shortfalls
and instead insists that public employee
pay is the cause of budget gaps and that
collective bargaining must go,” CAP
said.
NALC is currently preparing for ne-
gotiations with USPS this fall.
IN MEMORIAM
R USSELL W AG -
a retired
leader of Portland
Elevator Construc-
tors Local 23,
passed away June
23. He was 86.
Wagner served
as the financial
secretary and busi-
ness representative of Local 23 from
1970 to Feb. 1, 1986, when he re-
tired. Prior to that, he worked 18
years for Otis Elevator Company.
R USSELL W ALTER W AGNER was
born on Sept. 16, 1924, in South
Bend, Washington. He played base-
ball and basketball at South Bend
High School. He joined the U.S. Army
Air Corps in August 1943, serving in
England and Germany as an engine
mechanic on P47 airplanes.
He began his career in the eleva-
tor industry in 1950, working as a
helper at Otis Elevator Company. He
joined Local 23 and worked his way
to a mechanic and installer for Otis.
Wagner met Dolores Hendryx of
Portland, and they were married on
May 3, 1950. The couple raised three
boys in the house he built in Portland
in 1950-51. She preceded him in death
in March 1997.
Wagner was active in Local 23,
serving on the union’s Executive
Board and later holding the offices of
vice president and president before
being elected financial secretary and
business representative in 1970.
Wagner was on the board of direc-
tors of the Union Labor Retirement
Association, which provides supervi-
sion for the Union Manors (Kirkland
I, II, III, Marshall, Westmoreland in
Portland and Kirkland Union Plaza
in Vancouver). He had served in that
post for more than 25 years.
Wagner spent 14 years on the gov-
ernor-appointed Oregon State Eleva-
tor Safety Board and was vice presi-
dent of the Columbia-Pacific
Building and Construction Trades
Council for many years.
He was inducted into the North-
west Oregon Labor Retiree Associa-
tion’s Labor Hall of Fame in April
2005.
Wagner is survived by his sons,
Steve, Randy, and Terry; their
spouses; eight grandchildren; and 15
NER ,
great-grandchildren.
Steve and Randy work at Otis El-
evator and are members of Local 23.
A service with military honors was
held July 8 at Willamette National
Cemetery.
The family requests in lieu of flow-
ers donations go to the ALS Associa-
tion and the American Cancer Society.
P ETE P ARSONS ,
a former business
manager and execu-
tive secretary-treas-
urer of Painters Dis-
trict Council 55
(now District Coun-
cil 5), died June 30
at age 74.
P ETER D ESMOND P ARSONS was
born on June 7, 1937, in Brighton,
Sussex, England. After serving in the
British Army, he completed a paint-
ing apprenticeship program.
He is a graduate of the Brighton
College of Arts and Crafts in the
United Kingdom.
In 1963, Parsons and his first wife,
Una, and their three children mi-
grated to the United States, settling in
Beaverton. They had three more chil-
dren before divorcing.
Shortly after landing in the U.S.,
Parsons joined Painters Local 10 and
began working as a painter. He was
active in the union and in its appren-
ticeship program, serving as an in-
structor for apprentices and also of
skills-upgrading classes for journey-
men. He chaired the Painters Oregon
State Joint Apprenticeship and Train-
ing Committee.
He was elected as a business agent
of Local 10 in 1972 and later became
a representative of Painters District
Council 55. In 1978 he was elected
the Council’s business manager and
executive secretary-treasurer.
Health issues in 1982 forced him
to resign his post. After his health im-
proved, he went back to work at the
trade until retiring in 1999.
Parsons was inducted into the La-
bor Hall of Fame in December 2005.
Parsons is survived by his second
wife, Bonita Rueppell, whom he
married in 1975; five daughters; four
sons; and more than 32 grandchildren
and great-grandchildren.
Gradine ‘Grady’ Storms
equity group
P rinciPal B roker
Low interest rates have ‘Home Affordability’
closer than most realize. First time buyers are
people who have not owned in the last 3 years. If
you don’t know your purchasing power, it’s time
to find out, for free!
Call me for more information.
• Call/Text; 503-784-8326
Grady@GradyStorms.com
AUGUST 5, 2011
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 5