POSTAL BUDGET CONSTRAINTS IN FAYETTEVILLE Budgeted for postal manager move = $250,000 Budgeted for postal worker bowel movement (tissue paper) = $0.00 Postal workers were informed yesterday that there is no money in the budget for paper towels, toilet paper and other essentials for Fayetteville postal installations. The word came out of Little Rock that the District is putting a clamp upon "unnecessary" requisitions in Fayetteville, such as bathroom supplies and gas to run the tow motors in the plant and paper for copy machines. Meanwhile, it IS in the budget to move managers 50 miles at a cost of nearly $250,000. And it IS in the budget to add on modifications (feeders) to 881 flat sorter machine (which supposedly will be scrapped in a year when the FSM100 replaces the old 881). Price of the feeders? $150,000 apiece, according to ETs who work on the machines (although supposedly Fayetteville got them for "FREE" as some kind of pilot promotional thing by the contractor). Do they work? No. It takes 3 people now to do what 1 used to do, and the feeders send 2 to 6 flats down the track at once ("double-feed"), causing all kinds of missortations and jams. But because union called attention to the problem BEFORE feeders arrived, management probably is determined to leave them on the machines. ("Customers #1?") There is a new cartoon fitting the situation. Please go to our website to see it. For editors over the country, please feel free to use the cartoon in your newsletters. Members will get a kick out of it. AOL wouldn't allow me to send it as attachment tonight. Maybe some other time. Visit Fayetteville's website. Jake Lamkins, our webmaster, has dedicated a section to postal union cartoons. You'll love it. Please feel free to use what you think appropriate. Loren Adams, Fayetteville Our website address: http://FayettevilleAPWU.tripod.com