Your Job At Risk:
There is little doubt that within our union there are two elements that greatly weaken our local union to a great degree: apathy and a lack of unity. In arguing the nature, the root cause and the effects of these two elements we could go on endlessly. Just the examination of which came first, the apathy or the lack of unity could be a lively and entertaining argument, but to what end? For the sake of keeping this discussion, which we must have, focused let’s accept the following premise:
- That lack of unity and a sense of apathy exist within our local union and that this lack of unity and apathy weakens our local. That this lack of unity and apathy extends in some form beyond just the members of the APWU to the Indianapolis postal workforce in general, including all crafts as well as all levels.
If you do not accept the stated premise then reading on may not be to your benefit. I don’t say this because I believe you have to accept the premise in order for you to accept that the threat to your job, benefit and wages is real. The threat is real whether you accept the premise or not, its real whether you believe it or not. The importance of the above premise is in determining whether you have your head in the sand or not!
The importance of the above premise is that if you don’t recognize its validity then you probably won’t recognize the following reality:
As postal workers we are at a crosswords that we have not faced since the postal strike of 1970. The difference between now and the 1970 postal strike is that in 1970 postal workers came together in recognition of the need for action, but in 2010 too many of us take for granted that in regards to our jobs are safe enough that we can concentrate on other things.
If you don’t recognize the apathy and lack of unity that exist within your local, within your pay location, within the decisions that management is making then I won’t be able to convince you of the reality that is creeping over your future employment within the postal service. Or if you think that seniority is all it will takes to insulate you from the effects of the coming storm then there’s no reason to read on. If on the other hand you can at least suspend your disbelief in the above premise and read on with an open mind then maybe you might see enough to act on what you see as important to you future. But if you reject the premise totally then I would suggest that a better use of your time would be to stop reading, get some paper and pen together and start working on your resume. We may all need it.
The Coming of the Storm:
What I am going to try and convince you of is that just as this country faces some tough decision in the upcoming congressional elections we as postal workers face the harshest reality as our votes will directly affect our job security regardless of the effect that the election has on the rest of the country. The reason for this is that most of the rhetoric that will guide the rest of the country will be in regards to the fights that will occur as a result of who is elected. The results of those fights are unknown. The reality is that because of the nature of politics we don’t even know what fights will ever be fought. If the Republicans come out ahead will they truly fight for what they say? They haven’t in the past. If the Democrats win will they still be cursed by ‘blue dogs’ that disrupt any attempts at the democratic agenda? Off course. If there is no clear winner we will be faced with a ineptly divided congress that will epitomize the term ‘do nothing congress’.
On the other hand, just like in the movie ‘The Perfect Storm’, we are faced with the coming together of three factors that we have faced individually over the last 40 years but never as a triad that could overwhelms us: Republican calls for Privatization, a recession and contract negotiations.
Privatization: The most serious call for postal privatization occurred during the Reagan administration. It was then and until recently overwhelmingly rejected by the public. In the years since Reagan postal privatization has remained on the republican agenda but lacking public acceptance of the ideal it remained a long term goal that needed republican power to proceed. Even though the republicans obtained control of Congress during the Clinton years their obsession with Clinton and the still favorable public opinion kept privatization from advancing on the republican agenda. The election of Bush jr., to the presidency along with the republican congress revitalized the privatization movement as is evidenced by the creation of the “President Commission on Postal Reform”. The Commissions methodical and selective process painted a dismal picture for the postal service, but as the events of 911 diverted attention that methodical process failed to advance the agenda until the midterms of Bush’s second term. The resulting Democratic takeover of Congress severely disrupted the legislative agenda [of the President Commission on Postal Reform] that would have severely hampered the survival of the postal service as it was. The end result was that the 2006 compromised legislation enacted [xxxxxxxxxxxxxx] was a lot less damaging than it could have been, but as we will see it was damaging enough.
The Recession:
The Last 30 Years:
Having worked for the city of Indianapolis during the Goldsmith administration I experienced first hand the strategy of moving the public from accepting government services as the norm to the preference for privatized services. I am not going into the pros and cons of privatization here. (That is a debate I’m willing to engage in but not at this point.) What I am eluding to is how do you sell the public on privatization. In Indiana we have seen privatizing not just under Goldsmith but also under the current Governor Mitch Daniels.
The strategy is simple:
- Advocate privatizing a government service either by trial balloon or by political position.
- If the public accepts the ideal then proceed to privatization.
- If the public rejects the ideal then proceed to plan ‘B’.
- Plan B: run the government agency/service into the ground until the public becomes dissatisfied with it. You can do this by underfunding [budget cuts], media campaigns, subversive management, or ‘shadow projects’.
- As plan ‘B’ unfolds and the public confidence erodes continue to sell privatization as a better alrtrewrnative.
Look at the history of any state or local privatization effort that the public originally rejected and see if ‘Plan B’ didn’t develop.
The Postal Service Under Plan B:
For the first time since the ideal of privatization was ‘floated’ in the 80s the necessary events to convince the public
- That the results of current contract negotiations between the USPS and the APWU will have a domino effect in regards to all upcoming negotiations for all postal unions and association.
- That congressional decisions and actions affect all employees at all levels. That to varying degrees in the case of all employees from middle management down and all employees across all crafts the positive or negative impact of all postal legislation will have a shared impact on job security, benefits, and wages.
- That the affects, both real and imagined, of the current recession in regards to the postal service will impact to varying degrees all employees from middle management down and all employees across all crafts.
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