The Time Has Come We read daily in the newspaper, hear on the radio, and watch on television, all of the problems the Postal Service is having. Thousands of our union brothers and sisters may be without jobs. Post offices are to be closed, other offices are to be relocated to another office. Our own Brynn Marr Station is on the list. The Postal Service has already gone on record that it cannot pay the $5.5 billion it must pay to the retirement fund. All of you know that we have billions of dollars overpaid to the system, but they want more and will not let us use our overpayment to pay our bills. It seems to me that some folks are doing their best to get rid of our company. Even with all of this going on, we still can’t get carriers to get involved and help with the fight. At a recent branch meeting a shop steward said to me, “There are people here I don’t know.” What a shame. Our very jobs are on the line but some of us just don’t seem to care. We don’t give to COLCPE. Sign up with e-Activist. Get in the know. Standing around the workroom floor complaining will get nothing done. Get involved. We’ve found out that a free meal will not increase attendance at our meetings. Maybe we should have the next meeting with no meal and save the money. I’ll bet that the ones who always show up will still attend. They will come because they care. They care about the Postal Service, their jobs, their families, and their Union. Without the Postal Service we will have no Union. For those of you who do not have the time to get involved: If you’re not careful, and if some people in this country get their way, you will have a lot of time. The time has come to get it in gear and be a part of the fight.

It Is Up To Us Five two letter words. They may be the most important words to letter carriers at this time. With the way the letter carrier city routes are adjusted under the newest system, the way we conduct the management of our routes is most critical. We have to make sure that our clock ring moves are correct at all times because a wrong move or the failure to move will make our routes seem longer or shorter depending on what our clock rings show. Stay on your route while working on another route and your route is longer. Do something other than case the mail you have in front of you and you do not make standard. When you do a bump on another route and you enter only the delivery time on your 3996 the travel time to and from that bump will credit to your route. These mistakes will make your route appear to be longer, which will result in a route adjustment to shorten your route. This in turn will impact on other routes. Also, just the opposite will happen if you make entries that do not give enough credit to the duties that take you away from your route. Incorrect entries will shorten your route and will cause a route which is over eight hours to be added to. It is up to you to make sure the data in your clock rings is correct. It is your clock ring entry that is used to make the decision when it comes to myrap, jrap, this rap, or that rap. Your entry...your entry...your entry. I cannot say that enough. If you do it wrong, be it by mistake or by plan, the result will make a difference to you and your route. Do it right. It is your job. It is up to us.

Unions Are Bad for America Now that I have your attention, read on. We read these words about how bad unions are almost daily in our newspapers and hear it on the news. Most of the time these words are spoken by people who know nothing about our nation’s great unions. If my memory serves me correctly, was it not the unions that gave working Americans the eight hour day, the forty hour week, and overtime pay? In the past, Americans found they worked endless hours with no end in sight until the unions fixed that. If that’s being bad, and since I’m a union member, then I guess I’m bad. Was it not the unions that got working America decent pay and benefits instead of the crumbs that big business threw at us? If so, then I guess I’m bad. And on safety in the workplace: wasn’t it the unions that brought safety to a head and demanded better working conditions in the places in which we had to work? Ask the mine workers about that one. If that’s bad, then I guess I’ll just have to be bad. Unions give thousands of hours and billions of dollars to local and national charities every year just to make this a better world. That parent who takes their child to the MDA probably doesn’t even know who it is who makes it possible so that maybe some day we will find a cure for what their child has. If that’s bad, then I guess I’ll just have to stay bad. And what about NALC’s annual food drive? To date we have collected over one billion pounds of food. Those same people who call us bad wouldn’t do so if they knew the food they just picked up at their local food bank to feed their children came from a big bad union member. So if you’re one of the bad, I’m proud of you. Stay bad. America needs you. ********** It is only fitting that we hold our state convention just a few short weeks before our national headquarters start our contract talks. While at this convention we must do all that is possible to show our support to president Rolando and his staff. As your Area 3 Representative I stand ready to do what is asked of me. As long as my union wants me to serve our letter carriers, I will serve. We all need to be ready to do what is necessary to get us through this difficult time. Be ready, be strong, be united.

Now is the Time For those of you who don’t make it a habit of attending your branch meetings, you might want to reconsider. With the state the Postal Service is in now we all need to keep up to date on what’s taking place with our jobs. As I write this, the APWU is still in contract negotiations and it’s been noted that the USPS has offered a two-tier pay system for new hires into their craft. New hires would be paid at a much lower rate of pay than those already on the rolls. I know for a fact that our union is, and always has been, against such a pay system. Later this year our national officers will sit down at the bargaining table to hammer out what may be one of the most complex and challenging contracts of the NALC’s history. Our national leaders must find a way to preserve the benefits and pay we have now in light of the Postal Service’s current financial situation. Former Postmaster General Jack Potter jumped from the sinking ship. It’s up to the unions to save the Postal Service from itself. The strongest of all the USPS unions is the NALC. Our national headquarters will show the USPS how to save what it has and how to “make it work.” This will not be an easy job because I feel that postal headquarters has already given up. We can see these defeated attitudes in our own managers and postmasters. Their time wasting system is easy to fix but they refuse to listen to those of us who do the work day in and day out. I can only guess that they feel we are trying to take their authority away from them. We don’t want their authority, we just want to save our jobs. Now is the time to do just that.

A Big Dead Tree On the 16th of October of this year I was returning to Jacksonville from a NALC Training Seminar in Durham. I took the exit off Interstate 40 to NC 24 to Jacksonville. On the left is a large gas station and just past that is a farmer's field. Across the field is a stand of trees. In front of those trees stands a very big dead tree. It struck me as kind of sad because all of its bark was gone and its majestic branches were bare of leaves. I know that at one time the tree must have given the men who worked those fields relief from the summer's heat in the shade it provided. It produced the oxygen man breathes, but now it is dead and useless. In some ways we as union members are like this big dead tree. Sure, we pay our dues, but that's all we do. We don't offer any help for the problems we deal with on a daily basis. We are quick to put the union down and to speak against it, but we won't offer suggestions to correct the things we consider problems. Most of our words are self-centered and don't benefit the union as a whole. I think it's time that some of us evaluate our actions and see what we can do to assist our union in its daily dealings with management. If you have a problem with the way things are done, don't talk about them on the workroom floor. Come to the meetings and provide suggestions on how to correct the problem. I know we have a lot of excuses as to why we can't come to the meeting, but very few of us have a real reason. Are you like that big dead tree? Or are you ready to step up and do your share of the work?

Even When No One is Watching Not long ago I was driving in the Hubert area of Onslow County when I passed the Bear Creek Church. On the marquee of the church were placed these words: "Always do what is right even when no one is watching." As letter carriers we are often placed in a position where these words would apply. Except for the time we spend in the office we are on the street and alone. Sure, we see our customers in their homes or at their businesses, but they really have no idea what we do. It seems that not a day goes by that we are not given another item to take out while on our routes: curb your wheels, set your brake, scan something, put it in neutral, don't back up unless, scan something else, smile, be nice, be courteous, scan again, lock up, wear your seat belt, scan some more. And the list goes on and on. I have heard carriers say that they do not have time to do all of the things that management wants us to do. They are wrong. You have the time and more. If you do the things we are told to do, and you do them each and every day, after a while it becomes natural. It becomes a part of your day and a part of your route. It is often said that we own the street and we always will. The postmaster general has even stated that management has little control over our street time. No matter how much or how little mail we have, we must still go from box to box. There is no way around that fact. Most of the time no one is looking, but we must always do what is right. It really is not that hard. After a day of delivery on your route you will have done all that is required of you and no one has been watching. But think of this. How do you know that no one is watching? Big Brother is out there.

Been in the Tool Box Again Management just cannot seem to sit still. Things have been pretty quiet in our office. Not a lot of forced overtime. No discipline. No nothing. Just a lot of good hardworking carriers coming to work, doing our jobs, and going home. Then comes a new form to bother us with. The form is called the "Carrier Expectation Worksheet." I have been told by my supervisor that it is nothing more than a tool for them to work with and that no discipline will ever come out of the data printed on the form. I would like to point out that the form is not on the list of official USPS Forms, not assigned a form number, and the information printed on it is not worth the paper it's printed on. This union has filed numerous grievances concerning forms made up by management and has won them all. The information on the form is based on DOIS alone. There are so many problems with this so-called tool that it really is a joke. It has accomplished one of the effects management wants. It has some carriers concerned about the information contained in its data. We must remember this data is based on a flawed system, DOIS. Garbage in, garbage out. Do not let management intimidate you with this form. Just take it from the supervisor, smile, say Thank you, and put it where you want to. There is one section that concerns me. Under the section titled previous day's performance, there's a column listed as Scheduled Time. This is the time the carrier is scheduled to be at a scan point. There is no scheduled time to be at any scan point on your route. A grievance has already been filed on that subject and the settlement says that carriers will scan their scan points when they get to them. All this column does is give the appearance that we have a scheduled time to be at a scan point. This is management's attempt to set a street standard. Let them put what they whatever they want on the form. It's their tool, not ours. This will be just like all the other timewasting tools management has come up with. Give it time and it will go away. If a carrier is disciplined by a manager using the information contained on the form, you must contact your steward without fail. The worksheet may be their tool but our toolbox is also full of tools. But unlike their tools, ours work.

The Tiger is Loose There was once a man who worked in a zoo. He was a very good employee. He was never late, always did his job and very seldom complained about anything. One day his boss came to him and told him that a tiger had gotten loose and he wanted him to go and capture it before it hurt anyone. The boss said, "L.C., here's a paper box and a piece of rope. In your spare time go and capture the tiger and put him back in his cage." Well, L.C., not knowing too much about tigers, soon found himself in big trouble. It didn't take the tiger long to destroy the box, eat L.C., and floss his teeth with the rope. I believe the tiger is still loose today. There are many L.C.s working all over this great land who find themselves trying to capture the tiger. We come to work in the morning and the supervisor will get on the intercom and we will hear the words, "People..." (Remember, I wrote about that word before), "People, we are down to four-and-a-half routes today, so I will be forcing the house." Our post office has lost four letter carriers to retirement or transfer in less than a year. They have not been replaced. Our managers are told by District to capture the undertime (spare time). Four-and-a-half routes, thirty-six hours of work. We are not allowed to bring the off-duty overtime desired carriers in; TEs cannot case mail or hit collection boxes. So, after the thirty-six hours of work is split up among the on-duty overtime carriers, there is still plenty of the tiger-time left over to force on the non-overtime and our own route carriers. It makes no sense. This isn't rocket science stuff. You violate Article 8 enough and some slick NALC steward is going to get you. That $6,408 equates out to (using the same pay scale average) $260.91 straight time hours or at 40 hours a work week comes out to 6.52 carriers: The invisible work force. Why hire new carriers? We can just pay the unseen carriers. What a way to run a business. At that rate we won't last long. Like I have said time and time again, if I ran my business that way, I would have no business to run. Hey, Postal Service, wake up! It's your job that you'll do away with, and I'm not hiring. Remember that slick NALC steward I wrote about? He is alive and well. He takes the clock rings and does the numbers and pretty soon a whole bunch of L.C.s get money. What's cool about this is that they didn't even have to chase the tiger. If we had enough "people," we could do the job on straight time and not overtime. I always thought the straight time rate was less than the overtime rate. Look around. See if there's a tiger loose in your office. For Tiger-Catching Training, attend your branch meetings.

When Was The Last Time? Think about this for a while: When was the last time that the mail was up and you were told to make a final pull? You made your pull and the clerks were still throwing mail. You were told to go and load your vehicle, but don't move your hamper because the parcels are not finished yet. When was the last time you started your mail vehicle and the tank was empty only to find out that the TE who used your truck could not buy fuel because they do not have a Pin number? When was the last time you scanned a parcel or any other mail piece, and it scanned the first time? I scanned a parcel 14 times just a few days ago before it registered. I have written about this fine piece of equipment before. When was the last time you were on a street and a customer approached you and asked if they had any mail only to find out that they didn't even live on your route? I thought I would just throw that one in for fun. In keeping it short and to the point, when was the last time you saw or heard any other employee from any craft except the carrier craft, receive discipline? Why is it that the managers only seem to worry about us while all other crafts are left to do pretty much what they want? Maybe it's because most (but not all managers) were at one time city carriers who couldn't cut it and all they can do is manage. Just maybe. I Remember When I remember when a person could drive into a gas station and buy gas for thirty-two cents a gallon and get their oil, windshield washer and tires checked. Now most everything is self-service. I remember when a movie was a dollar fifty and popcorn a quarter. Not any more. I remember when we cased our flats in a flat case and would then pull one set at a time and sequence them. Then here came the one-bundle case. Soon to follow were SPD, DSP, DPS, and whatever. We were told DPS was the way of the future. All I know is that when I cased all my mail, it was correct. I rarely brought any mail back. Now we carry a tray with dividers so that we can bring back all that DPS that was given to us in error. On any given day I will bring back 30 or 40 pieces of mail. That is letter-sized mail. I again will rarely bring back a flat that I mis-cased. Now we are going to DPS flats. I am waiting for the Postal Service to tell me how great this will be. I guess I will have another tray for the DPS flats that do not belong to the route. I remember when a manager would tell a steward during the grievance procedure that his interpretation of the contract was this or that. Now the JCAM spells out the contract to all of us. The JCAM is what it is. No interpretation is needed. Oh, and I almost forgot. Scanners. What a piece of junk. It will not work in the rain. But we do. It will not work in bright sunlight. But we do. Progress. Have we really gone forward and made life better? I think not. What about the special building built for the flat sorting machine that was too small for the machine? It seems the ceiling was four feet too low. I remember when children could do math with a pencil and paper. Now when the battery goes dead on their calculator, all work stops. I remember when I worked for the United States Postal Service. Now I just work at the post office. I remember when life was simple. Do you remember when?