By Lisa Herrera, Field Representative, East Bay (Calif.)Area Local #47
Don’t Let Them Cut Your Throat !
There is so much disruption on the work room floor with management running amuck excessing from almost every office. Why would any postal worker expose themselves to being terminated?
Management is out to cut 100 million work hours by the end of this September. They are only half way to reaching their devastating goal. So why do some workers stretch their necks to be cut by an uncaring indifferent management?
Dang I wish I knew! Employees are being fired for Unsatisfactory Attendance because the employees do not protect themselves by being regular in attendance and properly substantiating their absences and fighting back against improper AWOLs.
Employees are being terminated for being off their assignment, outside the building, inside their cars while on the clock. Workers are being placed on emergency suspension pending removal for fighting or making threats.
Some employees are being investigated by the Office of Inspector General for not properly accounting for postal funds on the windows and face not only termination but criminal proceedings.
Why are these employees letting management cut their throat? It is not worth it! Times are hard and jobs are not easy to come by. These workers who put their jobs in jeopardy may not even qualify for unemployment insurance if they actually lose their jobs.
The Union’s hands are often tied when employees deliberately expose themselves to termination for misconduct. In the good ole days the Union could step in and offer mitigating factors to lessen the degree of discipline. Those days for the most part are gone. Now, the Union has to come in and pretty much find a fatal flaw in the discipline process in order to resolve a removal at the lowest level. Now a day we often have to go all the way to arbitration even when we do find those fatal flaws. Gone are the days of reaching Last Chance Settlements. Gone are the days of management compromising on removable offenses.
Management is out to cut work hours don’t let them cut your throat! Protect yourself. Stay away from conduct that may incriminate you or cause you to lose your job. Do not put your job in harms way. There is no other way for me to put it! There is no other way for me to plead with our members to make sure they help protect their jobs against an uncaring management.
When an employee is disciplined management has to prove the misconduct, that there was a rule on the conduct and that the employee knew the rule but broke it anyway. The Union then has to show that there was no just cause to discipline the employee. Give us something to fight with? DO NOT LET THEM CUT YOUR THROAT!
Wow there is a lot of hate out there. Let’s work together and look at ourselves to save the company. We can work together thru love and stop hating. Thanks for listening..:)
Management do not have to cut the throats, their throats will be cut when PO goes privatize.
It is management fault for everything. Most of the comments on hear are stupid with the exception of Henry. Everyone needs to wake up and realize that we have to step it up and cease all this bs. Instead of talking crap about management, get on the people who are bringing the Postal Service down: Fake injured employees, crappy carriers, clerk, supervisors, and postmasters, a contract that needs to be updated, union stewards that use the union for selfish reasons, etc. We are loosing out company people! Wake UP!!!!!
Who us watching the managers who do personal errands on the clock.The service is gone from the postal service.TIME FOR SOME FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY from the top down. We would all be better off.
Very true article, Lisa. Management, I believe, is no longer permitted to resolve grievances at the lowest level possible. They do want to purge the rolls of people, and are looking for any reason to go after people. Yes, some of them are “asking for it.” They’ve been asking for it for years. But others are just slightly strange oddballs who for the most part are okay, then something happens and its like chumming the ocean to attract sharks.
I read somewhere that the USPS wants to cut the rolls by 300,000 people by the time their END program is accomplished. That means they have to get rid of thousands of people in just months.
And why would they offer incentives to early retirements, when they can just fire people and get them out cheaper? It makes sense to me, in a sick twisted way.
My question though, is why aren’t they purging management, when management does stuff like changing color codes on mail, hide mail, make sexual comments to unsuspecting women, mishandle paperwork, fake clock rings, and cost the USPS thousands in EEO settlements?
To me, purging should cross the aisle and go both ways. There are lots of bad apples in mgmt too, and thats why we need the UNION around, to make sure that management’s dirty deeds don’t go buried. We shouldn’t have disparity like this.
And we need to understand that we all think we are the best workers around, but management is looking at each one of us not as people with lives, and families, and injuries, and illnesses, but as numbers that need to be cut. In any way they can get away with.
So continue to sound the warning Lisa. Because after they cut down the easy targets, they are going to go for the people who do not deserve what is being dished out.
I agree with a lot of these views on the slugs, but i have to say i get tired of seeing these so called great workers that show up everyday and don’t use their sick leave and when at work they are worthless usally leaving most of the work for other people to do for them. I have seen more people who miss a lot of work, work harder then the ones that show up everyday so those who show up everyday don’t pat yourself on the back unless your actually working.
Vpohio, sounds like you were passed over for being a 204B, tis tis tiss. It might be that your supervisor saw you as an idiot. Look in the mirror, you would pass over you too. No offence, don’t cry, don’t file a grievance, don’t file an EEO and don’t ask for your mommy. It will be ok, I promise.
Yeah,
Look at our brother and sisters in the steel industry, lumber industry, auto…etc. they stuck it to the man, but the fight DOESN’T CONTINUE because they are clsoing up shop…If the PO goes away there will be no one to stick it to…WAKE UP…
Also to you Management and mgmt wanna-be’s. If the union didn’t win the pay and benefits that it has, you wouldn’t make what you make either. Wake up, cause if we go down, you have the farthest to fall.
The most important thing that ALL postal employees MUST remember is that the biggest benefit of having the union that you are BITCHING about is the pay and other benefits that are WON for ALL of US during contract negotiations. EVEN THE SCABS!!! The PO surely does not give us a DAMN thing out of the kindness of their cold hard hearts…Do you think you would make the money you make with the education and knowledge you have in the REAL world. Sure doesn’t sound like it from what I hear from you. If so, get your complaining and ungrateful asses another job. The unions are working hard to keep each of us employed with good pay and benefits. It’s time to appreciate it and support them in their increasingly difficult task. “THE FIGHT CONTINUES”!!!!!!!!!!
John Foreign (and cohorts):
Indubitably, management SCOUNDRELS and scab VERMIN will chastise me and my analysis, but they must squarely address the evidence here lest they be laughed off as retaliating against me for exposing them as the SCOUNDRELS and VERMIN they are.
Hey! No offense intended. Okay?
John Foreign (and cohorts):
As a management SCOUNDREL and SCUM that you are, your post at least raises an important issue for employees:
Can we afford any longer to allow management scoundrels to decide on who their 204Bs will be?
In that scoundrels fear selecting those employees who may later threaten their positions, the scoundrels usually select the dumbest employees available (usually SCABS) to be their 204Bs.
This USPS policy should be placed under close scrutiny.
I’m all for diversity, even though it is divisive, but promoting only the dumbest seems suicidal. Remember, PMG Potter was once a 204B. Scoundrels promoting scoundrels, who then promote scoundrels, and so on, seem to explain why our leadership scum has run USPS into the ground. It is not a matter of intent, it is a matter of intelligence and ability. The average scoundrel has a diploma with a “D” average GPA. As the scoundrels move up, they supplement their resumes with “George W. Bush type college credentials,” (It’s common for universities to GIVE famous people, or high ranking individuals, degrees in order to later use in advertisements to boost their schools’ prestige.) and this then gives the scoundrels the facial arguments for moving higher and higher. Unfortunately, because these scoundrels did not EARN their degrees, they are totally lost when confronted by atypical problems. As an example of this, let’s look at the George W. Bush case:
George W. Bush led companies lost money every year he was in charge. Given an ownership “slice” of a baseball club, which he did NOT manage or direct, he was able to “cash in” on the “Bush” name and get citizens to support the “public spending of tax dollars to build a new baseball stadium.”
Now, seriously, did it really surprise you that he ran the American economy into the ground in 2008?
Thank God she doesn’t represent me. It sounds
like she lost her way.
Its about time the rank and file wake up and rid themselves of the fecal matter APWU and Burass its exalted grand poobah. All he does is collect money for you then look for one cause to harp on and screws all the other members over. Vote this slug out of office.
I often am asked, “Why are you defending so-and-so?” I always answer, “Why wouldn’t I?”
As a co-worker, I may not like how a fellow employee acts or performs, but as a Steward, I have a job to do. I don’t always agree with what I have to do, but I volunteered for this job, get paid to do this job, so how can I not do my job?
I understand, probably more than most, what needs to be done. Hell, I want it done. Fire these lame ass employees that are always calling in sick, crying because they don’t get their way, being lazy, whining about every dumbass thing they can think of, the list goes on and on and on and on.
This being said, THEY STILL NEED TO BE REPRESENTED BY TH UNION. Whether they be members of SCABS. It doesn’t matter. That is what we all should expect of the Union. We may not like it, but it is what it is.
Oh and the Post Office drinking fountain water tastes like crap!!!
Our supervisors let people go home and pay them as if they are there working. There are several clerks that go home at least four hours and management pays them for the rest of the day. If the rest of us try to go home, we have to use annual leave. We are suppose to make 4 clock rings a day, but these clerks will only make two if they decide to stay all day. They will hit begin tour and they never hit out for lunch, they just go home with a no lunch everyday. But they sat in the break room for hours eating, sleeping, watching tv.etc. They never have to go on the window either. Management makes the rest of us go up there, but these clerks can leave the building on the clock, go pay bills, buy food, sit in their cars etc., management takes care of them. I wonder if the inspectors are watching that?
Come to our office. A tub of mail was found under a case because the carrier did not want to deliver it in the rain. After a fews days off, his route was being inspected. He backed into a customers car (no damage)and drove off – with the inspector in the car. He is still employeed. Our office has no supervising leader but two incompetent supervisors where carriers know what has to be done before the light dimly lights in their heads.
Got a letter of removal last year for calling a supervisor an asshole. Mgt place me on non pay status until the union won my case. It took almost 3 mos. 3 mos of not getting paid, but won every penny of it. I called the supervisor the A word for his provactive action. Never did made a threat, just to let him know what a bastard he is.Went through EEO, but it’s just a management tool of worthless time since management would just lie on their affidavits. Now I have a law suit pending for discrimination and emotional distress they brought upon me. I just want to see this bastards grilled by my lawyer infront of a judge and jury and see whether they will lie even more. Lawsuits is the way to go. It cost more and will take a longer time but its worth it.
Good article! The Union has to represent those employees who screw up all the time or else they can be sued. Every now and again someone really is innocent!It’s a trade off, but you’re right Management is driven to cut craft. They blame us for the decline in profits. Maybe some of that is true. When employees are living in the past instead of looking at what is really happening. How many people who work for the USPS would last 5 minutes in the private sector? Not many!!! In the real world people who don’t show up for work get fired. People who refuse to do as instructed by their supervisor would be out of a job. Behavior modification is needed now, before it’s too late.
I quit the APWU 5 years ago and DON’T REGRET IT!! They fight for the wrong people…those that DON’T come to work, DON’T perform, and have the tendancy to cause trouble for others. FIRE THE WORTHLESS AND TERMINATE THE UNION OFFICIALS who represent them. Start at the HBG PA P&DC.!!!
when they (Management) watches as you sit in a barber shop for an hour and a half . one should feel lucky that they only took that time off of the two hours overtime that you claimed…
if all carriers took there breaks there lunch on the street took all the safety practices they are suppose to in doing there job.managements hands around our throats would not be so tight
My dues go to pay for these slugs playing games. Everytime, one of these idiots do something stupid that they SHOULD be fired for my union spends my dues in paying half for the Arb and for our local officers to sit at the hall. LET THEM BE FIRED. If you show up everyday, don’t deviate from route and do your job, you have nothing to worry about. I been with USPS for 26 years and have never been called for the office. 4 more to go…. I say fire them….
All employees need to check thier clock rings. We are finding that management is going in and changing employees clock rings to eliminate over time and penalty over time. What they are doing is this. If an employee runs 10 to 15 minutes of over time or penalty over time they are going in and extending the employees lunch period to eliminate the over time. The brave or really stupid managers ar going in and disallowing time or even just deleting clock rings all together. Check , if it happen to you file a grievance right away. Postal inspectors and OIG should be notify ASAP. and take pictures as the walk out management in cuffs and post on union bulletin boards
Good article to inform all current employed usps personel to watch their backs. USPS is backstabbing their employees at a great intensity.
Lets get rid of the INCOMPETENT UNION SLUGS any way we can!!
Forget waiting for a “Monatary Incentive” that will never come. Retire if you can and be “Free” again!
It is amazing the people that trust management. DON’T TRUST ANYONE!!! Just show up to work. I was always told,”we just want you to attend”. so after awhile I’m like, ok I’ll play the game, I’ll attend. If you get my drift. Their best employees attend. Whether they do anything once they are there is another story. BUT THEY ATTEND!
YES!
Love the racists! They try to make someone else seem stupid and they themselves are fools for all to see. Good on ya O Bam. Ye of little brain power.
With rare exception, if the employee is getting fired or suspended, it is 99% of the time their fault. The union wastes constant hours defending these slugs!
Lisa- yo b an idjit! Mgmt not cut dem dudes throat- dey cut der own. Dem idjits fired dem selfs, mgmt only administred it. Dey all deserved fired!