Postal Service seeks key concessions as contract talks open with largest union

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/01/AR2010090106219.html

By Lisa Rein and Ed O'Keefe
Thursday, September 2, 2010

The U.S. Postal Service, headed toward a loss of at least $7 billion this fiscal year, opened contract talks with its largest union Wednesday seeking cost cuts that could reshape the nation's mail-delivery system.

In addition to concessions on wages, health benefits and working conditions, the Postal Service says it must pare its full-time workforce and expand the use of part-timers to stay afloat. Postal officials said that with declining workloads -- Americans have sent 20 percent fewer letters and packages since 2007 -- they can no longer guarantee eight-hour shifts for clerks, mail handlers, carriers and other workers.

"We can't count on things returning from the past," Anthony Vegliante, the agency's chief human resources officer and labor negotiator, said this week. "We have seen a lot of things happen in the last three to four years we never expected to happen."

A shift to part-time and seasonal work will probably be just one sticking point in contract talks that could be the most acrimonious in years as the economic slump and the shift to the Internet continue to eat away at the Postal Service's core business.

Union officials said that while they recognize the Postal Service's precarious finances, they will fight to preserve hard-won working conditions and benefits that include the most generous health-care package in the federal government.

FULL 2 page story at link.

[Abq_Sarah]

1. I predict

There will be no negotiated contracts in the next two years. The APWU, NRLCA and NALC contracts will all be imposed through arbitration.

There are a lot of problems with the postal service but those problems weren't created by clerks, carriers or mail handlers. They were created by idiots who have never handled a piece of mail but know all about how clerks and carriers should perform their jobs. If the people making the decisions had spent a month working in the crafts, on the floor and on the street, the postal service wouldn't be the dysfunctional fucking mess it is today.