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Burrus Outlines Union’s Contract Goals
For Rank and File Bargaining Committee

APWU Web News Article #40-06, June 29, 2006

APWU President William Burrus briefs Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee members on the union's contract negotiation goals.

In a meeting with the union’s Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee, APWU President William Burrus identified three paramount issues for contract negotiations: securing adequate wage increases, protecting workers’ healthcare benefits, and revising the process by which craft jurisdictional issues are decided.

Burrus did not address specific proposals at the June 29 meeting, and he noted that the union’s bargaining stance would be refined by the committee, as well as by delegates to the national convention in August. Bargaining is set to begin Aug. 29 — 90 days before the expiration of the current contract.

“We return to the bargaining table this year seeking to advance the goals of 300,000 APWU members,” he told the panel at its initial meeting. “You play an important role. You make the decision as to whether any tentative agreement will be submitted to the members for a ratification vote.”

Burrus told the committee that the union would change its tactics in this round of negotiations. Historically, “Management has refused to talk about money until the eleventh hour,” he said, “deferring the most important issue until the day before the contract expired. Postal management would hand union negotiators a wage proposal, and tell us to take or leave it.”

“I thought that was an insult,” the union president recalled, “so during the 2000 negotiations I sought to change the process.

“I insisted that we negotiate every day during the 90-day negotiation period, and I insisted that we discuss wages every day that we negotiated,” Burrus said. “Union negotiators reported for bargaining sessions every single day, but Postal Service negotiators did not.

“Unfortunately, our tactics in 2000 didn’t move management. The results were the same,” he said. “This year, we will again attempt to address wages in an appropriate manner.”

Healthcare premium costs will be a major factor in negotiations as well, Burrus predicted, “as they have been in every labor contract across the country in recent years.”

Reflecting on the union’s experience in collective bargaining, Burrus noted that there had been an approximately equal number of negotiated settlements and arbitrated contracts in the APWU’s 35-year history. “Two of the contracts that resulted from arbitrators’ rulings were disastrous for the union,” he said, “although members did not recognize them as such at the time.” A ruling by Arbitrator Richard Mittenthal in 1991 reduced the ratio of full-time employees to part-time employees from 90/10 to 80/20, and introduced Transitional Employees into the bargaining unit; a ruling by Arbitrator Jack Clark in 1995 granted only two raises in a four-year period, and increased the percentage of casual employees management could hire.

“Therefore, we do not consider arbitration a solution to free collective bargaining,” he said. “But we absolutely refuse to engage in concessionary bargaining.”

“Postmaster General Potter and [Board of Governors Chairman] Jim Miller have both said they intend to negotiate an agreement,” Burrus noted. “We will have to see if they are serious.”

Director of Industrial Relations Greg Bell presented committee members with an outline of the concepts the union plans to advance in negotiations. The panel reviewed the proposals in a closed session throughout the remainder of the day.

Rank and File Committee members selected Princella Vogel, president of the Houston Area Local, to serve as chair. “We are reviewing the proposals and discussing what we think the priorities are for negotiations,” Vogel said. “We will be meeting with craft officers to discuss craft-specific issues.”

Moe Lepore, president of the Boston Metro Area Local, will serve as vice-chair, and Martha Shunn-King, president of the Florida APWU, will act as committee secretary.

2006 Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee members (seated, left to right) Princella Vogel, chair, President, Houston Area Local; Moe Lepore, vice chair, President, Boston Metro Area Local; Martha Shunn-King, committee secretary, President, Florida APWU; (standing, left to right) Thomasine Derricks, President, Baltimore ‘Stu’ Filbey Area Local; Johnny Holmes, President, Nashville Local; James Guynn, President, Indianapolis Area Local; Jack Dougherty, President, North Jersey Area Local; V. Jeanette Carlton, President, Dayton Area Local; LeRoy Moyer, Vice President, Pennsylvania Postal Workers Union; Bobby Donelson, President, Southwest Coastal (CA) Area Local; Roosevelt Stewart, President, St. Louis Gateway District Area Local; Larry Benson, President, Midnight Sun (AK) Area Local; Marie “Marcie” Ryan, Eastern Region Representative, Deaf/Hard of Hearing Task Force.

 

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