NATIONAL ARBITRATION UPDATE
May 18, 20001

UPDATE #33 May 18, 2001
From APWU Executive Vice-President Bill Burrus
Washington, DC

The process of selecting an arbitrator continues. The FMCS submitted a 
list 
of nine nationally recognized arbitrators (who are available) to the 
parties 
for joint selection of a single arbitrator. The union’s legal staff 
and the 
Industrial Relations Department are reviewing the history of each of 
the 
arbitrators, and it is expected that this review process will be 
completed 
within the near future. Upon completion of the review, the union will 
meet 
with management representatives to begin the striking process which 
will 
continue until the list of nine is reduced to a single arbitrator who 
will be 
designated as the neutral to decide the APWU national agreement. 

On May 16, 2001, President Biller and I testified before the 
Congressional 
Committee on Government Reform to discuss postal reform. The evening 
prior to 
the congressional hearing, the union was provided a copy of a letter 
from the 
Postal Board of Governors to the Chairman of the Committee. This letter 
represented a sneak attack on the collective bargaining rights of 
postal 
employees. The Board proposed to grant postal employees the right to 
strike, 
but the proposal as written would insure that it would never be 
exercised in 
the course of collective bargaining. 

The proposal included mediation following an impasse in negotiations, 
with 
the mediator severely restricted in the standards to be applied to the 
union’s demands. The mediator would be required to consider: 

· Welfare of customers

· Comparison of wages in entire private sector of employees performing 
similar work 

· Overall compensation of employees including wages, vacations, 
holidays, 
insurance, pensions, medical and hospitalization benefits and stability 
of 
employment.

If mediation is unsuccessful, the Mediation board could impose one or 
more 
60-day cooling off periods after which the Congress could impose a 
settlement 
based upon the mediation report which considered the above factors. At 
the 
conclusion of this process, employees would be permitted to strike. 

This is a cruel hoax as Congress and the president would never permit 
postal 
employees to strike, and future wage increases imposed by Congress 
would be 
dictated by the limitations of the Board of Governors’ proposal. 

While the Board of Governors’ proposal would severely restrict the 
right of 
employees to bargain for decent wages and working conditions, it 
requests 
that management’s compensation be compared to comparable positions in 
the 
private sector making it possible that manager’s salaries could 
explode; and 
they would receive the same indecent salaries afforded corporate 
managers, 
who rip off the consumers with tens of millions in salaries and even 
more in 
stock options. Bargaining-unit employees’ salaries would be compared 
to 
employees in the entire private sector performing similar work, while 
managers’ salaries would be compared to comparable positions. 
President Biller and I presented testimony that exposed this phony 
offer of 
permitting postal employees the right to strike as a condition of 
postal 
reform. We also went on record as supporting:

· Flexibility in pricing that the Postal Service is permitted to offer 
volume 
discounts and compete with UPS and Fed Ex., and 

· Reduction in the 10-month period required for approval of requested 
rates 
to the Postal Rate Commission. 

We adamantly oppose any changes that impact postal employees’ right 
to free 
collective bargaining. While the right to strike would be welcomed and 
is the 
ultimate goal of all working people, the phony offer patterned after 
the 
Railway Labor Act will not be accepted. 
President Biller and I also exposed the fallacy of the USPS effort to 
pressure Congress into enacting reform to avoid projected massive 
deficits or 
five-day delivery. While postal management announces an expected 
deficit of 
two to three billion dollars, at the end of Accounting Period 8 (of 13) 
the 
deficit is 270 million dollars, and first class mail has increased by 
1.15 
billion pieces. Even though first class mail has increased, the 
shifting to 
pre-sort discounts continues to grow, and revenues are below the 
expected 
rate. The sky is not falling. The revenue problems would be addressed 
with 
the elimination of the unwarranted discounts, and the deficits would be 
converted to significant surpluses. 

We hope to join with others in the postal community to enact meaningful 
reform; however, APWU will not be a party to any effort to weaken 
employees’ 
collective bargaining rights.

Bill Burrus , Executive Vice President