Let’s Work Together to Strengthen Our Union!

(This article first appeared in the January-February 2017 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

I want to wish you a happy and safe new year and thank you for being a member of American Postal Workers Union. I am excited to start 2017 as your newly elected Industrial Relations Director. It is an honor.

I am very grateful for the confidence you’ve placed in me for the next three years. I am humbled by the outpouring of support from national officers, local officers, and members on the floor. I want to personally thank all the brothers and sisters who worked very hard on my behalf. Whether you supported me or not, the election is in the past. I look forward to working together with all of you in 2017 to protect and increase the rights of members of this great union, the American Postal Workers Union. 

Before I share my APWU New Year’s Resolutions, for members that may not know me, I want to spend a few sentences to tell you a little about myself. I worked for the USPS for 30 years. The Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union allowed me to provide for my family. That is an opportunity I want to ensure continues to be available for many more generations of postal workers.

I am a proud father of four, and “Papa” to four grandsons. I have been married for 29 years to the love of my life, Tammy, whom I met on the workroom floor. She is a former postal worker and is from a union family. She serves as the current secretary of her local chapter of the Ohio Association of Public School Employees. She supports my work with the APWU each step of the way.

I am so thankful for what the union has done for me and my family. I have worked as a clerk and a maintenance employee. As a union representative, a position I started in my early twenties at the local level, I represented all four crafts: Clerk, Maintenance, Motor Vehicle Service and Support Services.

I had the privilege of serving this great union as a Maintenance National Business Agent (NBA) in the Central Region for 15 years. Before being an NBA, I served as Vice President, Maintenance Craft Director and Assistant Clerk Craft Director for the Greater Cincinnati Area Local. Through these roles, I gained experience preparing, presenting, and testifying in national arbitrations. As an NBA, I worked on the last two contract negotiations and handled over 30,000 grievances. I put millions of dollars back in the hands of our membership. I look forward to using this experience as the Director of Industrial Relations.

New Year’s Resolutions

My primary New Year’s resolution for 2017 is to hold management responsible for violating the National Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). To do this, we must work to get a faster grievance procedure at the national and regional level. To accomplish this goal, we must work together to address the grievance backlog. If we cannot get timely resolutions to contract violations then our contractual rights are weakened.

As I traveled, this was a primary concern for our members throughout the regions. I heard your concerns and will be working with the other officers to address this issue. It will take all the officers at every level of this union working together to achieve this goal. By the time you read this, the first step should be accomplished, filling all the district contract and discipline arbitration panels with arbitrators.

Another important New Year’s resolution is to require management to comply with every settlement and arbitration award. I will work vigorously to achieve this goal, as resolutions to grievances have no meaning if they are not complied with.

My third New Year’s resolution as Industrial Relations Director is to improve communication and provide a flow of information to the members between the Industrial Relations Director and the other officers, stewards and members of this great union. One step toward that is to make the Industrial Relations Director website page more user-friendly for the members.

A fundamental right of a worker is to go to work and return home alive and in one piece. Safety is a priority of mine. It is an issue that starts on the workroom floor. I will work with the members to find solutions to safety hazards. Together, we will improve the working conditions and safety programs in the APWU.

Although the union had a successful contract campaign in 2016, and this is just the beginning of 2017, I will start working with the other officers to prepare documentations and strategies in order to strengthen your rights in the 2018 contract negotiations.

You, the members, took a stance and voted for a change in the Industrial Relations Department. It is now time for me to work diligently in 2017, take the trust you gave to me, and find a way to strengthen this union, the contract, and the grievance procedure to better the working conditions for all APWU members.

The union plays a role in the life of 160,000 current members on the workroom floor. We must come together as a union in order to better the working conditions of our fellow brothers and sisters and the labor movement as a whole.

Future generations of workers are counting on us. I challenge you to make your own resolution to increase your union involvement and strengthen our great union!