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April 3, 2026
An Epidemic of Insanity?
Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.So the abuse, fraud, graft and corruption associated with USPS outsourcing makes management’s subcontr...
April 3, 2026
Drug and Alcohol Testing – USPS
In a Step 4 settlement dated July 19, 2006, the APWU and USPS agreed that the Postal Service will not require employees to participate in DOT drug-and-alcohol-testing pools when the employees are unable to perform safety...
April 3, 2026
The Decision: Quit Smoking
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 44.5 million American adults are smokers, 24 percent of men, and 18 percent of women — slightly more than one out of five overall. The breakdown by race/ethnic...
April 3, 2026
USPS Partners With Align Networks
The Postal Service has notified [PDF] the APWU that it has established a relationship with Align Networks to provide physical therapy services for employees with work related injuries and illnesses. APWU strongly discour...
April 3, 2026
What’s Different About Staples?
Many APWU members have asked, “What makes the Staples program so important? How is it different from the other programs that outsource postal retail functions – the grocery stores that sell stamps and the Village Post Of...
April 3, 2026
Staying Active, Organized
What are APWU retirees doing these days? Retirement is a lustrous and valuable two-sided coin. It is a stage on which to enjoy the liberties of free time and leisure, of relaxation and pleasure. Retirees are seizing the...
April 3, 2026
Dispute Filed Over Sunday Premium For Administrative Leave
The union has initiated a national dispute over whether an employee who is on administrative leave is entitled to Sunday Premium pay for hours he/she would have otherwise worked on Sunday.
April 3, 2026
e-Team Report, May 24, 2013
Support the Postal Service Protection Act Lawmakers ask PMG to stop accelerated consolidations and wait for postal legislation Obama Cabinet picks still waiting for Senate confirmation U.S. Treasury Dept. to dip into Pos...
April 3, 2026
Cancer Research Project Deserves Union Support
We’ve all been touched by breast cancer. Whether we’ve personally experienced the disease or have a relative, friend, or co-worker who has had to deal with the challenge head on — we know the devastating effects of breas...
April 3, 2026
e-WHEP Staffing: Coming to a BMC Near You!
Last year, the Postal Service tried to pull a slick maneuver on Maintenance Craft employees at Bulk Mail Centers (BMCs) by improperly changing staffing models – and implementing a new program before notifying the union o...
April 3, 2026
Dispute Over Sunday Premium When on Administrative Leave Appealed to Arbitration
The Union has appealed to arbitration a dispute over whether employees on Administrative Leave are entitled to Sunday Premium pay for any eligible hours they would have worked if not for being placed on administrative le...
April 3, 2026
Retail Robberies: Staying Safe
There has been a rash of armed robberies of retail clerks recently in the Eastern Region, including a number of situations where clerks were confronted while having guns pointed at them. In another case, the perpetrator...
April 3, 2026
Priority Mail Sales Down, Parcel Post Up… Troubling?
April 3, 2026
Memorial T-shirts
These shirts pay tribute to our APWU-family members who have been killed in action. To our knowledge, 17 members of the APWU family have paid the ultimate price while fighting in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
April 3, 2026
Article 1.6.B Merit Award
A national-level award by Arbitrator Das on the issue of "whether consistent with the exception in Article 1.6.B of the National Agreement ... a supervisor at a small post office, whose position description includes the...
April 3, 2026
Important Retiree Legislation Mired in Congress
By the time you read this, a full year will have passed since Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) introduced H.R. 1231, a bill that would allow federal, civilian, and military retirees to pay health insurance premiums on a pre-tax bas...
April 3, 2026
Aging Baby Boomers Expected to Almost Double Nation’s Senior Population
Two newly released reports from the U.S. Census Bureau project that the 65-and-older population in the United States will nearly double by 2050. That segment of the population is expected to jump from 43.1 million in 201...
April 3, 2026
Our Retail Units Are Not for Sale!
As the old adage says, “the handwriting is on the wall!” The message, “privatize America’s Postal Service,” is in bold print. Just take a look at the retail side of the USPS and you will see a shift from traditional post...
April 3, 2026
Raising Awareness to Save Lives
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that every 13 minutes someone in the U.S. commits suicide. More than 38,360 Americans died by suicide in 2010.
April 3, 2026
Arbitrator Rescinds ELM 546 Changes Agreed to in APWU-USPS 2006 MOU
Arbitrator Das, ruling in an NALC grievance in which the APWU intervened, ordered the Postal Service to rescind changes agreed to by the APWU and the USPS in a 2006 MOU "Re: Limited Duty and Rehabilitation Assignments Wi...
April 3, 2026
‘Driver Safety Instructor’ Challenged
The Postal Service last year revised the driving instructor examiner (DIE) position, changing it to Driver Safety Instructor. The new position, DSI, is nothing more than a modified DIE. After reviewing the changes, we me...
April 3, 2026
APWU Urges Locals with DBCS Machines To File OSHA Complaints
April 3, 2026
e-Team Report, Feb. 17, 2012
Payroll Tax Cut Extension and H.R. 7 Take Action to Amend S. 1789 Over 100 House Members Seek to Extend Moratorium on Closures
April 3, 2026
A Bad Bill Made Worse
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Reform approved the Postal Reform Act of 2014 (also known as the Carper-Coburn Bill) on Feb. 6, clearing the way for the bill to be considered by the full Senate....
April 3, 2026
Management Publishes New Drug and Alcohol Testing Policy
The Postal Service has finally published a new Drug and Alcohol Testing policy, Management Instruction PO-720-2010-1 [PDF], which became effective Dec. 31, 2009. We first announced an agreement with management on a new d...
April 3, 2026
Expectations Filled With Hope
While we shared memorable moments at events with friends and family in 2008, almost all of us will look back at 2008 as a year when we survived numerous personal challenges — not only those that come with aging, but peri...
April 3, 2026
Organizing at DHL Subsidiary: Activists In It for the Long Haul
APWU representatives and activist workers at ABX Air, a subsidiary of DHL, are settling in for a long campaign to organize approximately 3,000 ground workers at the global delivery company’s Wilmington, OH, plant.
April 3, 2026
APWU Vows to Stop the Great Postal Giveaway
(This article appears in the January-February 2014 edition of The American Postal Worker.) In a deal that has been in the works at least since March 2012, the USPS announced in November that it was launching a pilot pro...
April 3, 2026
The Challenges We Will Meet In Collective Bargaining
The APWU will officially open negotiations for a new National Agreement with the Postal Service sometime in August, approximately 90 days prior to the current contract’s expiration on Nov. 20, 2010, and just days after t...
April 3, 2026
Dispute Over Limitations on Casual Employee Assignments is Appealed to Arbitration
The APWU has appealed to arbitration a dispute involving the provisions of Article 7, Section 1.B.3 of the National Agreement that prohibit casual employees from performing assignments requiring training and testing.