APWU Web News Article 69-2012, June 4, 2012
The APWU has engaged in informal conversations with the Postal Service about financial incentives for retirements and separations, but no official offers have been made or discussed, union President Cliff Guffey reports.
“We expect the Postal Service to make a formal request to negotiate over early-outs and incentives after several other outstanding issues have been addressed,” he said.
APWU members will be notified of developments. For the latest information, visit www.apwu.org
Come on guffey sign the papers and let me go. If you don’t sign clerks will come out of the union and you will not be re elected. So ready to go.
Right on dude. I have never worked for a poor man. I’d rather have rich friends than porch sitters waiting on the mail box money. The only profound thing Mohammed Ali ever said was, “If you keep the company of bums, you will become a bum.”……..enuf, I wished you worked in my office. The mission of the unions started out to protect the worker, to ensure a safe workplace and to negotiate for a fair wage in good faith, not to enrich union management living the elite lifesyle they now enjoy. “Whatever my hands find to do, I do with all my might, as unto the Lord, and not unto men.” God is my rewarder, not the union, not management, not any person. I lived just as secure and content when I made $7.93 with the post office as I do now making $26.00 per hour. God bless you all.
no early out money left. o-bummer has it all in his pockets. freeloading on your tax money for vacations, campaigning, getting those Hollywood types to donate to him. they are just actors who lack knowledge in politics, world events, etc. why should Hollywood care, when they are making their million$$$$. like Oprah, don’t hear from her anymore, cause she has lost million$$$$ thanks to that o-bummer. leaking secrets to the enemy every chance, corrupt white house/staff. no more ghetto country. better to know rich people than ghetto running your life to the ground.
My advice is leave NOW if you are eligible. Life is precious. Enjoy it while you can.
Like I said hangin…you haven’t been screwed yet by your own union like I was. Wrote a 6 page letter to national officer about what had happened to me and asked for a reason not to get out and the response…he didn’t blame me. So I hope they’ll let you get some of that officer only retirement plan that your dues paid for. Its the least you can do to show your gratitute…provide them a nice parachute you yourself can’t partake of. You are just a brainless lockstepping lemming that hasn’t gotten it yet. Watch “On the Waterfront” for some insightful analysis into unions. It doesn’t happen today you say? Really?
enufisenuf, the only thing I have against the union is that, not by choice, they have to represent scabs like you. You sound like a real winner. I am truly glad I don’t know you. No, I am not from a big city, but I don’t work in what you call “Timbuctu” either. You’re wrong when you say I haven’t been around long enuf. I am 64 with almost 33 yrs of service so, yes, I’ve been around long enuf. It’s people like you who think the union has to bow down and kiss your feet that makes me sick. You are arrogant and obnoxious and I bet everyone in your office doesn’t care for you. Oh, in case you can’t tell, I am a woman and I’m sure you hate women too. If you are so angry and bitter as you sound, get the hell out and give your co-workers a rest from your mouth and attitude. There is one, what you call “superseniority” in our office and no danger of me getting bumped by anyone in that category, thank you very much. There are some things I don’t necessarily agree with that the union does, but I am still a member. After all, the union is the reason we make the money we make and have the benefits we have. It’s just a shame that scabs get the same as union members.
So I say to you as you said to me…….screw you too……and the horse you rode in on.
hawki………I know that if this offer comes down or not, I have to get out. I would like to enjoy the rest of my life. I do know that when I am off work for a few days, I don’t hurt nearly as much. I have been diagnosed with that fibromyalsia. Whether that’s it or not, time will tell with meds. I wish you luck.
Sharon……I admire you for having the good sense to save money and do what you needed to do so you can have a good retirement. I will enjoy my retirement with or without money. I have twin granddaughters who are 5 and a grandson who is 19 and they are the joy in my life.
Well Still hanging’….sounds like we are in the same boat! I am also a youngish 60 yrs of age, and my body has just been broken by my job. Let’s see…three back surgeries, bi-lateral carpal tunnel….I have to drag my aching and in agony self to work. It is getting where I am missing alot of work, and I hate that. Just wish the buyout would hurry up! I could go ahead and retire, but I don’t want to take a monetary hit when it takes OPM months and months to get us our retirement pay!
still hangin’ ….your love affair with the union won’t last long the minute you are bumped by union stewards junior to you who have superseniority over you. Guess the principle of seniority fought for by the union doesn’t really apply to them. When it happens to you…a different song will come from your mouth instead of that bs vomit you post. Maybe you just haven’t been around long enough to be shafted by the union that’s supposed to be protecting you and fighting for you. Maybe you haven’t had due process denied to you by those sworn to protect your right to due process. Maybe you work in Timbuctu and have never been exposed to real inner city union doings like those seen in the movie, “On the Waterfront” where union bosses and their prostitutes don’t blink when it comes to screwing their members all in the name of politics. Screw you and screw your union! Yeah, thats right, el scabo…but it was the union that made me a scab…them and their politics.
P.O. job use to get good raises with each contract. Then as the years past somehow the union got weaker, and management got more, and more pushy. Along comes a president like Guffey who seem to have sold out the members.
Management was always a pain from the beginning, promoting idiots that was someone’s relative in the office tower. Been through almost daily harassments from some supervisors, managers, the idiots. Then those supervisors and managers are having sex time on the clock around the building, and when they get caught in the act, nothing happens. Unfair threatment, no punishment. But they get back on the workroom floor and continue to harass the employees, usually for no good reason.
Well, most of those idiot supervisors & managers are long gone, some dead too. Did meet a ‘few’ decent supervisors who treated employees with respect and fairness, but there were very few of those kinds of human beings at the P.O. Don’t forget the crooks that became managers at Bay Valley, like the evil turban head who stole over $4 million. Besides the dealings with bad management, there were quite a few good people you work with throughout the years. But surely, most do not stay in contact once they retire and leave. Out of sight, out of mind, better things to do than dwell on the old stuff. An older employee a long time ago once said that retirement is not the golden years. Guess unless one wisely saved $$ while working, then retirement will not be golden. Yep, the old P.O. is not what it used to be, a place to work with pride and joy. Seems more and more people just hate the place now. Although – still love ‘the job’, and the ‘place’. The ‘place’, the building itself, never did anything bad… it was mostly management that was pure evil. Some of the people you deal with daily when you are there, both employees and management just makes the day suck!!!
BTW – O.M.G. = Obummer Must GO = NO-bama.
Jackie:
I hope you are right, the Guff needs to pull a rabbit out of the hat
to save his position as Union President. Come on Guff and get on
with it, you know what we want, an Early Out, go for it, get it for us and
worry about the rest later, the work will return when we are gone, many
will not be Excessed and you will be the Shinning Star, just do the right
thing and you are golden on all fronts.
i think guff will come up with a better deal than the mail handlers.like $25,000
ans i will be la bound in aug.
jackie
The best of pay does not mean diddly squat if you are not happy with yourself. Before the post office I worked 2 years in the oil field in southeast Texas on a workover rig. Hot, cold, wet, dry, long hours covered most of the time with oil or brine water. I was hired as a custodian and I changed the entire appearance of our office for the good. I considered my job a blessing and still do today. It’s not the money you make but what you do with it that counts. If I can’t go home at the end of the day with a good conscience, then the fault is not the job, it’s mine. I trust to no one, no union, no manager for my happiness. I was happy on the oil rig and I am happy with the post office. If my job ended tomorrow, I would be happy with the prospect of a new adventure meeting new friends. I will not leave a bitter, complaining, unfulfilled old man with a chip on my shoulder. God bless you all.
You know, I was always grateful to have a good paying job to come to, and know that I would make enough money to pay my bills…maybe buy a house and nice car for myself. I was proud to be a postal worker, even though I had to sacrifice my love life because of the bad schedule (nights throughout because I was too junior to get a day job. Now with all that is going on, I just cant wait to get out of here and be in a different atmosphere, so I can be peaceful and happy. I was smart and paid off my house and didnt blow my money carelessly like so many others did. I also funded my TSP pretty well (wished I had put in more). Anyway, I think those that wont take this early out is going to be in for a rude awakening. Donahue is going to make life miserable for those that are left. More work…more crap. Less help. Maybe alot of pay cuts, and contract adjustments that arent going to be good ( for the employees) Alot of bad things are in store for the postal workers. When they offer the EO, after 24 yrs here….I am 56, I will take it. GOODBYE!!!!!! GOOD RIDDANCE!
I have read all these stories and I feel for all of us. Yes, th postal service has gone to pot and the ones that have caused this is certainly not those of us who have some years under our belts. I’m sure, like me, you all have worked very hard over the years. It’s hard to be proud of what you do when you see those who don’t work as hard get special treatment. Just like in school, they are the pets.
I’m sorry that so many of you hate your union for one reason or another. I am not, what you say in the “in group” of our union. We don’t have an “in group” at our office. We are all in the same boat and we all stick together. Our local membership has dropped dramatically since the closing and excessing of our plant. All we can do now is stick together. I wish all of you the best and hope things work out for all of us. I just wish I had saved enuf money along the way, I would have been gone. It’s my own fault and no one elses. Hind sight………….
The USPS seems to be full of people who have 30 years+. I cannot even imagine having that long in, but I’m holding on for dear life trying to get to retire. The union hasn’t done anything for me – EVER! And that’s why I am where I am at today…just hoping and praying that they’ll hurry up and offer us an early out with 1 or 2 years credit and I will be outta here! I’ve got the age, but not the years of service, close but no cigar. I use to love my job and was so thankful for it and the life it had given me, but the last 4 years have been absolute HELL and all they have done is jack with me and try to fire me for nothing, while the “know-nothings and do-nothings” sit around getting paid for just that – doing NOTHING! I was one of the hardest workers and everybody always told me to slow down, or commented on how hard I worked. That’s the only way I could be, and that’s what I THOUGHT I owed to the postal service.
But that is not what the idiots in management really want. Working hard gets you absolutely NOWHERE! And I have tried to get the union to help me in my plight, but they are all “too busy.” Hmmmm. They aren’t too busy to take my dues! I have even volunteered to help the union in many ways, but they don’t seem to be interested. I don’t know what else I can do, it all seems so ludicrous! They beg for more members, but I guess all they really want is the money, because if you’re not in the “in group” of the union, than they don’t really give a shit about you at all. Whatever Guffey’s motives, I suggest he makes this thing about the VERA come to quick fruition, for I see a mutiny mounting, and If I get screwed this one last time and don’t get to retire, then I will be at the head of the ship. I have a voice and I am gonna use it! And that goes for the stupid-ass lawmakers in Washington, too.
I’d just like to add one more thing. If it weren’t for our union, where do you think we would be? I am proud to be an APWU member and will continue to be one in retirement. If it weren’t for the union, we wouldn’t be making the money we make.
This Oct 6, I will have 33 years with the Postal Service. At first, I enjoyed going to work and did for a lot of years. It seems that after a while, the only people hired were only there(at least at my office)for the money. They didn’t want to work and still don’t. They closed our plant and excessed about 200 people 95 miles away. I am blessed that I have enuf seniority that I didn’t have to go. I am under csrs and, boy, am I glad that I am. It is getting harder and harder to go to work every day. For about the fourth or fifth time, I find myself on T1. When you’re in your 60’s, it’s not easy getting up at 1:15 a.m to be at work at 2:30 a.m. For the most part, my career has been a good one. We can pretty much wear whatever we want and are not confined to a cubicle. I am very thankful, as we all are, for the life I have been allowed to have thru my job. From the beginning, I said to myself, “You gotta take the bitter with the sweet.”
I will take the encentive, if offered. I am ready to go. I don’t care what it is. Someone mentioned how mgmt talks to us and disrespects us and pisses us off. Well, or course they are doing that. They want to push us out and that is their strategy. This place is literally killing me. I hurt all over every day, and don’t say it’s because of my age, because I am a young 60ish. I’ve decided to go even if we don’t get the incentive. The mgrs at our office are dumber than dirt. If they would just disappear and let us do our jobs, we will get it done everyday in a timely manner.
Thanks for listening and good luck to all of my fellow postal brothers and sisters.
My brother Cliff Goofey does it again, after the fact!!! Duh