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Tentative Contract Extension is Part of Long-Term Effort
Burrus Update #8-05, June 30, 2005
After more than four months of on-again, off-again discussions with postal management, tentative agreement was finally reached this week on a one-year contract extension. The process began when management casually proposed the concept of extending the National Agreement — an idea I initially rejected. However, further discussion lead to a serious exploration of what contract improvements the union would require in order to agree to postpone full-scale contract negotiations.
As internal discussions with top APWU officers transpired, we were unanimous in our view that our overriding obligation is to improve conditions for the members of the APWU.
We concluded that the test of whether to extend the Collective Bargaining Agreement should be based on comparing the possibility of achieving specific goals in full-scale negotiations set to begin at the end of August vs. the certainty of achieving specific objectives through a one-year extension.
Our discussion ultimately lead to the give-and-take of specific proposals, with the union identifying the parameters of a possible agreement and postal management responding.
The amount of the wage increase and the positions to be upgraded were the most contentious issues. As you can imagine, the union sought a larger wage increase and upgrades of many additional job classifications.
Despite our belief that our members deserve more, and despite our vehement objections, arbitrators have in the past granted wage increases based on the wage increases scheduled for the other major postal unions. The other unions are scheduled to receive wage increases of 1.3 percent in November 2005.
We also considered that the long, slow nature of negotiation and arbitration often delays and undermines any progress we make in that process: As negotiations and arbitration creep along, cost-of-living raises are lost and raises are postponed.
The overriding concept from the union’s perspective was whether we could win acceptable wage increases for all our members, while obtaining contractual improvements, including upgrades.
We determined that the final package must contain:
Each of these criteria was met, and tentative agreement was finally reached.
All of the past 11 contract negotiations, along with the previous contract extension, and this tentative agreement, are part of the union’s efforts to enhance the living standards and rights of employees, with each building upon previous achievements. None of the earlier agreements, standing alone, represented the end of the process, and this proposed extension is just one additional step on a long journey. We have more work to do, but this extension represents solid progress.
I will recommend to members of the Rank and File Bargaining Advisory Committee that they approve the proposed extension and submit it to the membership for a vote. If the committee agrees, I will ask the membership to ratify the agreement as well.
The proposed extension represents solid advancement toward the continuous goal of “more.” As Samuel Gompers, the labor leaders of the late 1800s said more than 100 years ago, “We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.”
William Burrus
President
