Some 9,000 new postal clerk jobs are on the way, thanks to action by the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) in 2012 cut the hours of operation at small post offices around the country and filled new jobs at the offices with part-time, nonunion workers. APWU filed a grievance.
The collective bargaining agreement between the union and USPS committed management to assign any newly created or revised retail positions that had no managerial or supervisory duties to union employees.
An arbitrator agreed with the APWU and a memorandum of understanding between the union and the USPS reached earlier this week outlines how those new jobs will be filled. Said APWU President Mark Dimondstein:
“The arbitration award…and the accompanying implementation memo mean thousands of jobs within 90 days—not years from now.”
This blog originally appeared on AFLCIO.org in their Blog Section on September 25, 2014. Reprinted with permission. http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Organizing-Bargaining/APWU-Victory-9-000-New-Jobs
About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When his collar was still blue, he carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. He also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen him at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. He was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still has the shirts, lost the hair.
