Chapter Four

How Can Postal Unions Effectively Fight Privatization?

INTRODUCTION

Since the 1970s, postal union members and leaders have appeared to be trapped in a popular and media stereotype that they were overpaid, slow, prone to violence and impossible to fire. These perceptions, built over the last two decades, have had the effect of making union leaders shy away from asking for public support. This was not always the case; leading up to and during the 1970 strike, postal workers actively sought popular support for their wage demands, staging public events such as "pray ins" for wage increases and bringing groups of letter carriers in uniform to quite publicly apply for welfare.

The success of the unions in bargaining for wages over the course of the next decade changed their economic reality and public perceptions of postal work. Often, thousands of people in a single city would come to take the competitive examinations from which workers were hired. At the same time, postal rates were rising as the old Post Office Department was turned into an independent corporation and gradually produced a surplus. From all appearances, stamp buyers were paying for wage increases, and the interests of postal workers were objectively counterposed to those of the general public.

When privatization or contracting were argued as cost-cutting measures, the picture was complicated further for unions. If they themselves accepted this explanation, it would be even more difficult to get public support for either wages or for continued public operation of postal services, since the implication would be that in-house operations would be more expensive. Therefore, the unions' ability to effectively mobilize opposition to privatization became dependent on their analysis of the problem. If privatization is motivated by, and effective for the purpose of cost cutting, then the only possible union response is to help find ways to produce services more cheaply, whether that be by reducing labor costs or increasing productivity. Some public sector unions have been forced to bid against contractors, reducing their wage demands. When some unions have found valid cost arguments, they have also worked to improve productivity or service.

If, on the other hand, postal privatization and contracting have not resulted in lower costs or been motivated by a desire to cut costs, then there may be a basis for a broad coalition against privatization. As shown here, contracting measures have been a result of pressure by contractors and the private sector mailing industry for access to government markets and funds. Most often, steps toward privatization have increased costs to the public in a variety of ways. In addition, privatization robs citizens of any chance to control decision making about services.

If postal privatization is ultimately hostile to the "public interest" and beneficial only to large businesses, unions can potentially mobilize a coalition to defend, or possibly even expand, public and publicly-owned mail service.

Another, related problem confronts postal unions. In order to defend their incomes, they must find ways to raise wages throughout the industry. Organizing into unions and bargaining for all workers in the economic sector is the traditional strategy that labor organizations have used to take wages out of competition and create higher standards. Thus far, though, no USPS-based labor union has done this.

Postal unions, then, have two immense tasks to undertake in response to pressure for privatization. First, they must defend wages and working conditions by organizing all workers in the mailing industry, especially those who work for contractors of USPS. Second, they must unite diverse support for public ownership into a broad and powerful coalition. A dramatic change in strategy, organizational methods and internal culture will be necessary to accomplish these goals. This chapter examines these issues and makes recommendations for postal unions in general, and for the American Postal Workers Union in particular, the author's union.

TWO RECOMMENDATIONS

This paper recommends that postal unions do at least the following to build an effective response to privatization:

1. Organize private sector postal workers into unions and attempt to organize the industry by creating alliances between unions in the package delivery and mailing industries, both within the United States and internationally. In order to do this, the unions will have to substantially change their culture and practices and will need a serious effort to educate their members about the threat of privatization.

2. Propose an alternate reform, showing the potential for improved and expanded service. The Postal Service, for instance, could provide electronic communication as well as "paper" communication. The unions should challenge the composition of the Board of Governors and special task forces and advocate the involvement of residential customers, community-based non-profits, small business and environmental organizations on all official postal advisory bodies.

Before explaining these recommendations, it will be helpful to review the current state of postal unions and the pressures they face due to the growth of the private mailing industry.

THE STATE OF POSTAL UNIONISM IN THE U.S.

Over 735,000 postal workers are represented under the terms of 12 labor contracts with the USPS; the vast majority of those are members of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), the National Postal Mailhandlers Union (NPMHU, an affiliate of the Laborers International Union) and the Rural Letter Carriers Association (RLCA). There are also unions for nurses and guards and separate labor agreements covering auxiliary services. In the private sector mailing and package express industry, almost 200,000 United Parcel Service employees are represented by the Teamsters union, and among Federal Express Employees, the pilots are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association. Outside of these pockets of union strength, employees in the mailing industry and most of the package delivery industry lack representation and face "at-will" conditions of employment. At most, a few dozen presorts nationally have any union contracts, nor does any union prioritize organizing private sector postal workers. Organized labor's power to improve wages and working conditions in the mailing and parcel express industry is contingent on the strength of the four large postal unions and the Teamsters at UPS -- on their power in the industry and their potential to organize collectively. Before the 1980s, the unionized Postal Service and the unionized UPS workers unquestionably had some power over what was a "duopoly," but as competitive businesses or contractors expand their share of the wage market, the ability of the unions to improve conditions or wages will be diminished. How, or whether, they respond to this crisis is uncertain.

The unions that organize and collectively bargain for USPS workers have been called "enterprise unions" by some commentators, meaning they have no membership outside of the Postal Service. They have naturally seen their survival as linked to the fate of the Postal Service. With increasing contracting of their work and with the expansion of the private mailing industry, union members find their power to bargain for wages and working conditions waning. They have fought to maintain a public postal service through lobbying and legislative action and sometimes through direct action protesting specific contracts.

None of the postal unions has lost membership from contracting thus far, because overall postal employment has held steady with mail volume growth, and the unions have maintained their share of membership at approximately 80% through effective internal organizing. The APWU has 83% of its bargaining unit as members, the highest percentage of any AFL-CIO union in an open shop. It is the growth of the private sector mailing industry and the absence of union representation among contract and presort workers that threatens the unions' economic power. Since privatization is a central goal of USPS management, federal employees will have increasing difficulty in raising or protecting their wages, benefits and working conditions.

DOWNWARD PRESSURE ON WAGES

All of the unions' contracts with the Postal Service expire in November of 1998, and they enter negotiations during the summer of 1998. These negotiations are expected to be difficult, as the ongoing privatization of postal work and the threat of contracting work out can force the unions to make concessions in pay, benefits, or work practices. Certainly, this was the case with the contracting of Remote Video Encoding. To negotiate a settlement to bring the work back into the USPS, the American Postal Workers Union accepted a settlement wherein 70% of the work hours in the video encoding facilities were performed by Transitional Employees -- workers with no health care benefits, no sick leave (a limited amount of personal leave), no "just cause" provisions for termination of employment, and no guaranteed hours. The TE pay scale for November of 1997 was $10.69 per hour for most categories; on the same date a new career employee at the same level would earn $12.06, be guaranteed 20 hours of work, receive 75% of medical premiums paid, and have substantial vacation and sick leave. Arbitration panelist and economist Joel Popkin estimated that, because of restricted hours, transitional employees in the remote encoding sites earned on average $15,000 annually.

Postal unions constantly face the issue of "comparability" when contracts are arbitrated, because the Postal Reorganization Act requires that "the Postal Service shall achieve and maintain compensation for its officers and employees comparable to the rates and types of compensation paid in the private sector of the economy of the United States." While the requirement for comparability was intended, in 1970, to raise postal wages, it has been used by management in negotiations in the 1980s as an argument to lower postal wages. Private sector postal workers in presorts, contracted postal stations and private mailbox and shipping services earn about half of union postal wages (See table 4). Since compensation for the contracted postal operations and presorts is substantially lower than union pay levels and contracting of operations continues at a rapid pace, the pressure on wages will increase.

Private mailers' organizations will also have an influence on postal wages and other issues in contract negotiations, even if they are not formally represented at the negotiating table. A recent example of their influence occurred in Canada. In 1997, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers struck Canada Post for 15 days. Before the strike began, Canada's Public Works Minister Alphonso Gagliano had promised the president of the Canadian Direct Marketing Association, the mailer's organization, that the postal workers would be quickly legislated back to work if they struck. A delay in parliamentary action drew CDMA President Gustavson into the negotiations as a public figure -- so public, that Gustavson felt compelled to issue official denials that he had played any direct role in the negotiations. A year before the strike, however, the CDMA submitted a proposal and plan to reduce Canada Post's labor costs by $350 million.

The CDMA's parallel organization in the United States is the Advertising Mail Marketing Association, (AMMA) whose officers and board members represent Reader's Digest, L.L. Bean, R.R. Donnelly, ADVO, Inc., Publisher's Clearing House, Time, Inc., and Metromail (a presort business). AMMA is an aggressive lobby and constant presence in Congressional hearings and on postal task forces. The organization recently publicized a speech by USPS Chief Operating Officer (now Postmaster General) William Henderson given at the National Postal Forum, a business mailer's conference, in which Henderson blamed cost per work hour for increasing postal prices and vowed to contain costs through outsourcing, using the "right mix" of employees and overtime, and bargaining aggressively in the 1998 contract.

DECLINES IN UNION REPRESENTATION, WAGES

Postal wages will be hard to maintain with large and growing contingent of non-union workers in the private mailing industry. The organized labor movement has a similar problem across the U.S. economy. From a height of almost 35% of the workforce organized in the 1950s, union membership has declined through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s to a current low of 14.1%. Accompanying a decline in unionization has been a decline in average real wages across the economy, which fell by 19 percent from 1972 to 1995. According to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, the falling proportion of workers represented by unions has contributed substantially to the wage decline and made it more difficult for union workers to negotiate wage increases.

The larger labor movement's hard times have led to a discussion among union members and their allies that focuses on ways to rebuild the economic and political power of organized labor. The first contested election in the AFL-CIO since the 1920s resulted in the election of John Sweeney, who was previously the president of the Service Employees International Union, one of the few in the federation whose membership had grown in recent years.

Sweeney and thousands of other unionists have come to the conclusion that labor must begin an aggressive organizing campaign and must also rebuild its leadership on social and political issues. He has stated,

Sweeney has urged unions to dedicate 30% of their budgets to organizing new workers, but progress has been slow. Unions spend most of their funds on representation and focus on servicing their current members; a decision to spend one third on organizing would mean cuts in other areas, and cutting representation funding could trigger opposition from some members.

ORGANIZING PRIVATE SECTOR POSTAL WORKERS

None of the postal unions has members who work for private sector employers, and none has made a serious attempt to organize private sector postal workers. Within the APWU, however, there has been an ongoing campaign, led by scattered local organizations of the union, to mobilize the union's considerable resources for organizing. The union has no organizers on its staff, according to Director of Organization Frank Romero. Though the Organizing Department of the national administration spent $1.2 million in 1995 and 1996 and $858,000 in 1997, most of the funds are rebated to local chapters as an incentive for signing up members who are already covered under the contract. The postal unions have a large internal organizing task since, by law, the contract with USPS cannot compel union membership and does not include any agency or representation fee. The Organizing Department funds pay for pamphlets and brochures, t-shirts, aprons, and prizes awarded for organizing. In 1997, only $41,810 was spent on "non-postal organizing."

Since 1988, a group of working members and local officers of the APWU have promoted resolutions at national conventions that urge organizing private sector postal workers. According to Lou Truskoff, former president of the Greater Seattle APWU:

At the 1996 national convention, the union's National Executive Board faced the contracting of Priority Mail processing centers and had sponsored a nationally-coordinated, highly successful series of picket lines protesting USPS contracting out under the theme, "SOS: Save Our Service!" Tens of thousands of postal workers and supporters from the labor movement and community organizations picketed in small towns and large cities alike. The local unions' efforts were rewarded by member participation and positive media coverage. The National Association of Letter Carriers had its own picket lines June 18; the two organizations' leaderships could not agree on a common date. Union members all over the country joined each others' picket lines, however, and most were successful.

At the national convention the following August, with contracting of many operations and growing pressure from the membership, the National Executive Committee of the APWU proposed a resolution to levy a special dues assessment of 20 cents per member per pay period, or $2.5 million over 2 years, to support organizing of private sector postal workers. More than two years after the convention passed the resolution, the union has yet to develop any coordinated or national effort. A small campaign to organize an equipment repair contractor's employees in North Carolina was begun using organizers from the Communications Workers of America, but the progress of this campaign was not reported through the union's newspaper. The other funds have remained unspent as of May, 1998. At the union's 1998 national convention, the assessment for organizing was not renewed, so the future of funding for organizing is uncertain.

TWO SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLES

If APWU's national officers have been unwilling to organize private sector workers, other unions have begun to organize non-government postal workers. Two successful organizing campaigns carried out by locals of "non-postal" unions have shown the willingness of private sector postal workers to fight to join unions. The Service Employees International Union led hundreds of video encoding workers in Oakland, California in a hard-fought campaign for union recognition and a fair contract in 1993, and a local of the Teamsters union in Seattle, aided by the Seattle APWU local, was successful in winning an election at an automated presort firm, Postal Services Inc., (PSI) an Omaha-based chain. Both the SEIU and Teamsters' efforts were given some aid from the unions' respective international organizations.

The owner of PSI merged two smaller mail sorting companies into the largest automated presort in Seattle. The company's customers included the State of Washington, several agencies affiliated with the City of Seattle and its county government, and many of the larger banks and department stores. Three times a day, USPS drivers hauled away a trailer full of sorted mail from the warehouse-like building. PSI had the same high speed equipment the Postal Service uses.

The company had a policy of hiring young Asian workers, including many women and new immigrants, acting on a stereotype that such workers were timid and appreciative of any employment. Wages were $5 to $7 an hour, with no paid holidays, vacation, sick leave or health care benefits. Managers admitted (to a union member applying as a "salt" -- a person who gets a job to help organize a union) that an independent person couldn't live on such wages in Seattle and discouraged any workers with higher expectations. One Caucasian job applicant was told she "didn't want this job . . . besides, we like the Orientals with their nimble fingers."

Teamsters Local 174 in Seattle had elected a leadership that was committed to organizing and allowed its staff organizers input in choosing targets. The local hired two interns from the AFL-CIO's Organizing Institute, two young Asian-American women, and created a plan to cooperate with the Seattle APWU in carrying out the campaign.

APWU members loaned their office for meetings, volunteered to visit workers' homes in support of the union, attended organizing committee meetings, and invited PSI workers to educational events. APWU truck drivers and clerks, who knew PSI workers from daily visits to the plant, gave encouragement, and the local officers wrote letters of support which were passed out to PSI workers. Tours were organized of the Seattle USPS Processing and Distribution center for the PSI workers, so they could see the same work being done for more than double the wages, in only slightly different circumstances.

After a weekend of house calls to PSI workers by members of Teamsters, APWU, and the inside union committee at PSI, nineteen people - more than a quarter of the PSI work force -- came to a Sunday night meeting with postal and Teamster union members, Jobs with Justice organizers, and a pro-labor State Representative who had been an organizer for a health care union.

PSI's manager attempted to discredit postal unionists' participation by charging in his memos that "The Postal Service Union (sic) is behind the Teamster effort to unionize you. The Postal Service Union wants to put our company and companies like FedEx and UPS out of business because these companies are a threat to their union jobs."

On December 20, 1994, the workers voted 43-28 to join the Teamsters union. Community support was vital to the union win. A delegation of Asian community and labor leaders visited the company officials to support workers demands. Asian community newspapers reported on the workers' organizing progress and a candlelight rally to "shine a light on injustice at PSI" was sponsored by Jobs with Justice, drawing over 150 people on November 17. Rally participants signed a giant letter to PSI executives asking for union recognition and a fair deal for the workers. Postal Police were present at the rally and inside the PSI building, though they had no authority over the facility or the mail it contained and in spite of the presence of city police. USPS managers threatened to discipline postal workers who supported the PSI unionization, but no threats were carried out.

The union win was noted in the national industry publication, Business Mailer's Review:

Though the above report was incorrect in its statement that APWU was legally prevented from organizing private sector postal workers, the existence of this news item indicates the relative rarity of union organizing in presorts and indicates some worry that the campaign might be expanded to other shops.

The PSI workers were unable to get a signed agreement with the company over three years later. Though there was some support from Asian community leaders and a section of the labor movement, neither the APWU nor the Teamsters mobilized any national resources to extend the organizing or pressure PSI, nor did the public sector unions representing city and state workers make an issue of public agencies using private and anti-union mail sorting facilities.

A MORE POWERFUL CAMPAIGN IN OAKLAND

Workers at a privately contracted Remote Video Encoding facility in Oakland, California provided the best example to date of successful organizing by private sector postal workers. The facility, contracted to Envisions Corporation, opened in early 1992. The company was paid $1,900 for each worker it hired off the welfare rolls, and the mayor and local newspaper had publicized the "new" jobs. Workers were well aware that they were doing postal work for far lower than postal wages, so they contacted the Oakland APWU.

The national union's officers cautioned the local against organizing the plant, saying they feared organizing would endanger a pending arbitration decision on the contracting. The APWU referred the workers to the Service Employees International Union Local 790A, a Bay Area public sector local.

Envisions' workers complained of strong-arm management, racial discrimination and a driving pace of work. "They fired people at the drop of a hat," one worker told a reporter for the Oakland Postal Worker. Workers suspected that the incentives paid for initially hiring people gave the company a big stake in keeping turnover high. Most of the workers were African American and Asian women, many of whom were hired directly from welfare roles. Two of the workers, fired for their union activity, became full time union organizers. Local 790a also supplemented its staff organizers with volunteers from other public sector locals in the area.

Despite an attempt to divide workers along racial lines by the Envisions management, the union supporters remained united and in an NLRB supervised election voted 192 to 65 for the union. The local bargained a contract that included improved pay, more holidays and personal leave, just cause provisions, and a grievance process. When APWU prevailed in arbitration and the private contracts were canceled, many of the workers were hired as "transitional employees" and are now members of APWU.

Workers who sort mail are often aware that postal workers are paid higher wages and have better benefits; it is natural that they call on the APWU, as phone center workers have in Denver. If the union chooses to make its $2.5 million "war chest" available to support local union efforts, there is more support now available through the AFL-CIO's organizing programs than in the past.

FOLLOWING THE WORK

Two other public sector unions have had success in following their privatized work recently. The American Federation of Government Employees signed its first major contract with a private firm in March of 1997, when it became the bargaining agent for 365 employees of Hughes Technical Services Co. in Indianapolis. The contract had comparable, if not better, pay and benefits than the federal employees received. Though AFGE remains opposed to privatization, the union decided to represent workers when it loses a battle against contracting. AFGE has other active campaigns at workplaces recently contracted. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association is also expanding into the private sector. NATCA won elections at three privately-contracted air traffic control towers in February, 1997. Both AFGE and NATCA won the elections after protesting the decision to contract to private companies.

There is no law or internal rule that prevents the postal unions from organizing private sector workers. The APWU's constitution states that the union's jurisdiction includes private and public sector postal workers:

But APWU national publications and internal communications indicate no immediate organizing plans. Members in the local areas are raising questions at conferences of local presidents and on internet conferences, demanding to know when the vote to organize will be implemented.

A resolution passed by the APWU Presidents' Conference called for the creation of an "action response committee" to counter the "Postal Service's concerted and aggressive attack against the APWU." The committee met and recommended that the union immediately begin organizing contracted facilities, organize the "casual" employees within the Postal Service (temporary employees with no benefits, market wages, and no union representation) and form a long term strategic plan, responding to the Postal Service's Five-Year Strategic Plan. The Action Response Committee also called for a media/educational campaign, coalition building with other unions, and a public relations campaign.

While local leaders are calling for a five-year strategic campaign, national leaders have been slow in responding. According to the APWU's national Organization Director Romero, the enthusiasm for organizing is "in the field," but the culture of organizing is not present at the national level. In a May, 1998 interview, Romero said the union intended to start using some of the 1996 money and would begin to work with the AFL-CIO's George Meany Institute to teach private sector organizing.

The inaction on the part of APWU's national leadership is puzzling, considering the seriousness of the USPS' contracting program and the rapid growth of private mailing businesses. The union's national leaders have indicated informally that they do not believe dues income from low-wage workers would ever pay for the cost of organizing and representing them, so they may be unwilling to risk current financial resources for an outcome that may not "net" them any funds. Further, none of the leaders has any experience organizing new industries or shops and may not know how to lead such a campaign. A third possible explanation is that they have not studied, and therefore do not really understand, the seriousness of the private sector challenge.

RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

Along with their reluctance to organize, the postal unions have not done the kinds of research and education that are necessary to both make a case to the public or to their members. A reader leafing through the 1998 issues of The American Postal Worker, the APWU's official tabloid, would not know that five Emery Priority Mail Processing Centers had opened, that hundreds of low paid workers were answering postal phones, or that the presort volume jumped by almost 20% in each of the last two fiscal years. APWU members in the field see the expansion of these businesses and are aware of the contracting, but they are not given information about contractors or about the strategic plans of the USPS and mailing industry. They do find contracting out referred to in top leaders speeches and articles, but details and strategies are lacking.

The educational workshops for the APWU's 1998 national convention did not include any programs on privatization or on the private sector mailing industry. To the extent that information has been distributed or research encouraged, it has been through local and state organizations or rank-and-file caucuses such as Workers for One Postal Union. The Washington State American Postal Workers Union members have sponsored research through their state labor center and have supported resolutions at national conventions to organize private sector postal work since 1988. The New Vision caucus in the National Association of Letter Carriers also advocates organizing private sector postal workers; the caucus ran a candidate for national president of the NALC, Jon Gaunce, in 1995.

The discovery of private sector remote encoding sites in Mexico was a result of rank-and-file initiative; Cindy Martinez, President of the McAllen, Texas APWU local was told by union members at the remote encoding site that their Mexican relatives were being solicited to work in a plant encoding U.S. mail for private presort plants. Mexican-American union stewards crossed the border and were able to get into the plant identify the corporation. They found out that Texas Governor Bush had ordered state mail routed through presorts, so that even the mail for the state of Texas was being coded in Mexico.

While the local efforts are important, the national union, with a full time director of research and education, has not produced any information about contractors, mailers, or their organizations. With a total budget of $41.7 million for the national office of the APWU in 1995, only $34,000 was spent on research and education for over 300,000 members. Expenditures in 1996 and 1997 were only $26,000 and $14,000 respectively.

In contrast, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) administers a member education program funded at 3¢ per member per hour. The union has created an educational program on privatization and deregulation entitled, "CUPW, Post Office and Society," which is used at residential schools and weekend conferences to educate rank and file members, stewards, and officers and help them become more effective advocates for public service. The union also issues informational bulletins called "Negotiations Backgrounders" which are required by the union's national constitution. These contain the economic and political information that underlie the union's bargaining strategy. CUPW has 45,000 members and a far smaller budget but places a premium on member education. The union's publications are well researched and cover employer strategy, the effect of rates, automation, wages' holding power against inflation, members' opinions on job security, progress toward shortened work time, and international monopolies in shipping and express.

Similarly, the Teamsters union has used member education effectively before its 1997 negotiations with United Parcel Service. Though the union struck UPS for two weeks, the nearly unanimous support given by the union's members to the strike was not a foregone conclusion. The union spent more than a year surveying workers, educating them about the employer's business plans and profitability, and asking tens of thousands to sign petitions, attend rallies, blow whistles, and appeal to the public in support of their demands.

The postal unions could use information on contractors to strengthen postal workers' understanding of bargaining issues, to develop organizing campaigns, and to create coalitions with community, labor and consumer organizations. In several cities, for instance, labor organizations have attempted to expose and halt incentives and tax breaks to corporations that pay low wages. Research into contractors could help unions and other community based organizations effectively oppose "corporate welfare."

AN INTERNATIONAL UNION COALITION IN THE INDUSTRY

Increasingly, postal workers, UPS workers, Federal Express employees and private mail industry workers are finding themselves facing similar wage cutting, similar surveillance and tracking, similar repetitive strain injuries, and similar corporate employers. The mailing and package express industry is becoming more concentrated globally, with TNT, CNF, FedEx, and UPS dominating the global market, often in partnership with national public postal services. A few powerful providers manufacture mail sorting equipment, and many of those, like Lockheed, are also interested in operating postal systems.

In the past, postal workers, FedEx workers, and UPS Teamsters have looked at each other as "the competition," and there has never been an attempt to set wage and safety standards across the industry. This competitive outlook is fostered by the managements of UPS and the Postal Service; both put out pamphlets and posters trying to motivate their employees outwork the competition. The 1997 UPS strike, however, and the outpouring of labor solidarity that greeted it, went a long way toward breaking down the barriers between postal and UPS workers. Postal workers in virtually every city saw common issues, goals, and problems and joined UPS picket lines. Several locals made impressive donations to strike funds. This recent change in attitudes, and some recent organizing by the Teamsters union, show the potential for industry-wide bargaining and organizing. The Teamsters union is currently attempting to organize Federal Express employees, and some preliminary discussions took place at a 1997 labor conference between Teamsters working for United Parcel Service, Teamsters organizing Federal Express workers, and members of all four postal unions about similar working conditions and labor-management problems.

The ability to set wage and safety standards across the industry would benefit all the industry's workers. A step in this direction would be to call a conference to find common ground between postal, UPS and Fed Ex workers. Common work could begin through support to each others' union organizing campaigns in the industry and by joint legislative work on occupational safety and health and other labor-related issues.

The postal unions participate in the Post, Telephone and Telegraph International labor body, but their relationship to this organization must become more central. For instance, USPS held a conference called "FuturePost" to gain information on privatization measures and "reform" in other countries. Postmaster General Runyon brought selected postal administrators from other countries to testify before Congress, but no worker representatives of those countries were there to respond to the pro-privatization testimony. Postal labor unions would have learned a great deal about defending working conditions, wages, and service had they held a parallel gathering. A start in this direction occurred in August of 1998, when APWU and NALC members in Washington State held an educational conference with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Union members from both sides of the border discussed organizing, international privatization and the impact of new technology.

As global concentration increases in the industry, organizing across borders is no longer a moral imperative, but an economic one. A global market is challenging all unionists to improve their knowledge, their organizing, and their solutions.

AN ALTERNATIVE REFORM

The postal labor unions are facing the kind of "reform" that favors transnational corporations in the mailing industry and large advertisers and contractors, but another kind of postal "reform" -- one that favors residential customers, small mailers and workers -- would be possible. The USPS Board of Governors, the mailers' organizations, contractors, and the private mail sorting industry are in consensus that the USPS should continue to lower compensation of its current workforce, contract more extensively to private industry, and continue to give incentive rates to business. There are lobbying organizations and commercial organizations supporting this agenda, and the private mailing organizations desire an even larger role in postal policy -- bulk mailers even want to be consulted during the selection of the next postmaster general.

Postal unions have the potential to form a coalition that could challenge the industry/mailer/government forces. Below are some suggestions on ways postal unions could address issues and constituencies in order to build an alternative model to the way the postal service is currently run.

BETTER SERVICE

Postal unionists would gain public support if they were seen as advocates of better service. The national unions have featured slogans for "better service" in national days of informational picketing, but they have not defined an alternative standard. Local union chapters, however, have challenged service cutbacks. In 1990, the Postal Service "realigned" delivery standards, largely in response to the bulk mailers and presorters who valued predictability over speed and wanted to deposit their mail at later times. Areas that had formerly been "overnight" delivery areas were compressed, so that cities 200 miles apart no longer committed to overnight service, and areas that were 2nd day delivery often became 3rd day delivery. On a national level, the postal unions did not challenge the realignment, but in many cities, unionists opposed the slower standards and set up local informational picket lines. The union sought to place the responsibility for slowed mail on management, not on the workers, and they made alliances in several areas with rural organizations, local government officials and small businesses.

Letter carriers, in their June 18, 1996 picket lines, protested later mail delivery times that were occurring because of automation, which was, ironically, supposed to make mail travel more quickly. With automated sorting into carrier sequence, all of the mail must be stored over the evening and sequenced together at the end of the shift. Carriers were getting out on the street to deliver mail later in the day than when they had sorted their own mail by hand.

Postal unions have advocated extended hours, convenient locations, and expanded facilities for window service, though not on a coordinated level. This would be a promising campaign, as many communities do not have enough post office boxes available, and evening window service is often only available at locations near airports.

Better service could mean expansion to other related areas of communications. In Europe, for instance, postal services are providing computer access or are internet service providers. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has called on Canada Post offer to services like bill payments, catalogue sales, greeting card sales, packing material, fax and photocopying services and have advocated that the Post provide a full range of electronic communication service at postal facilities, like e-mail, facsimile and internet access. The union has recently succeeded in negotiating an experimental plan for rural internet access.

The Swedish National Post Office is developing an "@post" service, which will allow all citizens access to the internet, rather than just those with a computer and a modem. The plan is to give all citizens their own e-mail address and install computers in popular places. The postal service would provide electronic bill paying and e-mail "look-up" service.

The American Postal Workers Union could advocate that the Postal Service become an internet provider and offer service at all postal locations. Internet service through the post office would allow people to truly match hard and electronic copy. Currently, postal counter computer terminals are "dumb" -- i.e., not linked to the internet. People who did not have computers could send or receive electronic messages at their post offices, and the address systems could follow zip codes. Electronic and hard copy interface could increase the speed of messaging as well, as the Postal Service would already have the delivery infrastructure to offer same-day delivery of urgent messages transmitted electronically to a local post office. The Postal Service is already exploring methods to authenticate electronic communications; it could go farther and offer fast hard-copy delivery of authenticated documents.

Rural residents and poorer communities would benefit enormously from expanded service and internet capability, and it is highly unlikely that any other entity would provide such a service. Libraries, which in some major cities provide computer access, are usually no more than "bookmobiles" in rural areas, if they exist at all, and office service retail stores which offer access (like the Kinko's chain) are expensive and not located in poor or rural areas. Internet service and bill paying services could create more customer service jobs for postal workers, as first class mail eventually declines as a share of the communications market.

BACKING RURAL RESIDENTS

The postal unions have an immediate opportunity to form a coalition with rural politicians and organizations. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has proposed the Post Office Community Partnership Act (HR 1231), that would give rural communities a say over postal building codes, locations, relocations, consolidations and closings. The Postal Service would be obliged to consider the impact upon a small town's downtown core business area and would be obliged to consider the community's opinion on the decisions. It would expand the appeal rights of local communities before the Postal Rate Commission, which approves office closings.

Rural representatives to Congress have been opponents of postal privatization, as their citizens understand that there is no profit to be made serving sparsely populated areas. Postal workers badly need allies and would do well to take an example from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers' coalition with an organization called Rural Dignity in Canada to stop closings. The postal unions have not publicized the Community Partnership Act, but they could win allies by energetically supporting it.

Some new initiatives could boost mail volume, or hedge its decline, and advance the social goals of labor and working class organizations. An example is the mail-in election ballots that in several states have proved extremely popular with voters. Postal workers could also gain allies by advocating expansion of voting-by-mail.

CHANGING THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS

The Board of Governors is mandated to broadly represent the public but remains a business and political elite. There is no law that determines whom the Board members shall be; they are presidentially appointed and could represent a variety of interests.

Postal workers have always been unrepresented on the board, as has organized labor in general (See Table 4). Tony Huerta, a retired official of the Letter Carriers union, waged a lonely campaign for a board seat after Clinton's election in 1992. The Federal Times endorsed the concept of a worker governor, explaining that workers know more about the operations the post office, and union members are familiar with a variety of labor and regulatory issues that are important to public decision making. NALC National president Vincent Sombrotto wrote a letter to President Clinton supporting Huerta, but the union did not campaign in support of the recommendation, and none of the other postal unions mentioned Huerta or any other candidate. In 1998, however, Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.) introduced an amendment to the postal reform bill proposing a postal worker seat be reserved on the board. The board member would be Presidentially appointed and approved by the postal labor unions. Fattah said that adding a voting craft employee to the board might improve labor-management relations.

Naming a worker governor, and supporting the appointment of civil and human rights activists to the board, would be an important way to address many issues that are not addressed in contract negotiations. Postal workplace violence is an example. Since just 1983, 38 postal workers have been killed and 28 wounded in internecine violence. The General Accounting Office, in its 1994 report, "Labor-Management Problems Persist on the Workroom Floor," characterized the postal service as having a "highly autocratic management style." Postal workers have been fired for having a water container that was deemed "too large," for "taking little baby steps" delivering the mail, for wearing t-shirts with messages that managers construed as threats. The USPS unilaterally canceled its Employee Involvement program with the letter carriers, and internal employee opinion survey results were used in contract negotiations to attempt to lower wages. The problems with postal work culture are difficult, but no significant start to solving them will be possible without a change in the aims and composition of the executives. A campaign for a worker governor would give unions a way to discuss these issues in a larger community.

A CONSUMER VOICE

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader has long been a critic of the corporate priorities of the USPS and of its governing structure. Residential consumers lack a voice in policy -- Nader advocates that the Postal Service be required to send out two invitations per year inviting residential customers to join their own advocacy group. Nader argues that the USPS promotes the Postal Form and other organizations for business voice, so he argues that it would be proper for USPS to promote a residential voice.

AN ENVIRONMENTAL VOICE

Households get far more advertising mail than they do correspondence, parcels or bills, and some estimates say almost half goes into the garbage unread. Mailing list sales invade privacy, and disposing of junk mail takes time from the recipient's life. There are many ways postal workers could work with environmental organizations to cut down on solid waste and paper usage, often in ways that would not damage business. In each delivery station, approximately one ton of mail goes to waste; third class or unaddressed mail with old or defective addresses is not forwarded or returned without an additional fee. Mailers could be required to pay for returns, and bulk mail could be required to have a "refused" box patrons could check, indicating their desire to be removed from a list. The Dutch post office now has a "yes/no" sticker residents can put on their mailboxes to reject advertising mail. Postal workers do not need mountains of junk mail; productivity and volume have increased, and postal workers could work toward a shorter workday with no pay cut should volumes eventually begin to decline. The overtime built into the postal service's planning could be eliminated; certainly, no postal worker would mourn the abolition of mandatory overtime.

There are many possibilities, and certainly the necessity, for some truly positive postal reform. By allowing transnational corporations, advertising mailers, and private mail sorting interests to define "reform," postal unions lose their potential friends and allies in opposing privatization, wage-cutting and speedup.

SUMMARY

Postal privatization and contracting provide a good case study of the economic, political and social realities of privatization. Placing large public enterprises in private corporate hands is a practice of governments that are already dominated by the interests, politics and personalities of transnational corporations. The motivation for these practices is not efficiency or internal operational crises -- it is the desire of the corporations in the respective industry to gain access to large national and global markets and to profit from employing labor, not just from supplying technology or products.

If union members proceed from an incorrect assumption that cost-cutting or right wing social conservatism is at the root of these policies, they cannot have effective responses. If they analyze the goals and strategies of privatization's advocates, they will realize the inadequacy of methods from a previous era in fighting this trend. If, on the other hand, postal unionists proceed from an understanding of the transnational corporate power that currently dominates the public and private mailing industry, they will see the need to defend wages and working conditions through union organizing and they will also see the need to pull together a broad coalition for a more democratic, but public, reform.

The economics of the mailing and parcel shipping industry have already changed dramatically. As governments accommodate or accelerate these changes, there is no one watching out for the interests of workers, working class communities, the environment, small business, residential customers, or non-profit organizations except unions, because of their long term interest and "citizenship" in these industries. Unions can and should take on the preservation of public services as a social good and should advocate the expansion of services.

Unions also cannot ignore the growth of low-wage work in their traditional fields and must begin organizing broadly across the mailing and package sorting industry. To do this, they will have to challenge their own traditions of organizing and bargaining only for a strictly-defined set of workers.

A study of postal privatization also contains broader lessons about privatization across the U.S. economy and around the world. In most cases, for-profit corporations' desire for new business motivates plans to privatize services from telecommunications to education. Many unions find themselves at the center of these conflicts and must find a way to define and mobilize around "the public interest."

The most unsettling challenge for labor organizations will be to develop a political approach and voice in the community that contests corporate claims to represent the public interest. If they successfully develop a new definition of "public interest," however, and act effectively to bring together a new coalition, they can sow the seeds for a new season of growth and social power.

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