Due Process, Your Union Right

No employee may be disciplined or discharged except for just cause — Those words come from Article 16 of the APWU’s main Collective Bargaining Agreement with the Postal Service and is consistent across all the contracts we have with the Postal Service and our private sector contractors. This language gives every employee, covered under one of our contracts, their rights to Due Process.

Due process is one of our most important union rights. In the simplest of terms, it means you have the right to your “day in court” to tell your side of the story and defend yourself if management wants to discipline you. There is much more to it than this, but in the end, you are able to have your chance to defend yourself before the Postal Service can take an adverse action against you.

Many of us have worked in industries where there is not a union and where we were at-will employees, meaning that there wasn’t a union contract that required just cause and due process procedures. One could be fired or have adverse actions taken against them without a chance to defend themselves. How unfair is it that you do not even get a chance to tell your side of the story or see the evidence against you?

I have represented hundreds of postal employees over the years in disciplinary proceedings from very minor issues to serious issues. As a union representative, I always ensure that the people I represent have their right to due process in the disciplinary process, no matter the violation. Every union-represented employee must be given these rights. It is a strongly held belief for me. If I am asked why I represent someone, I always make it clear that if I ever make the decision to turn my back on someone’s rights, that decision would render those provisions of our contract meaningless. Once a right is surrendered for one person, it starts the fall towards elimination of that right in its entirety for everyone.

But due process isn’t just something we all are entitled to in the grievance process. Due process is a fundamental right every person in this country has. The United States Declaration of Independence names three unalienable rights – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution disallows the government from infringing on those rights without due process. Everyone in this country has the right to defend themselves when they face losing any of these unalienable rights and more.

If you are charged with a crime, it is your right to defend yourself before a jury of your peers. If you were to have your driver’s license revoked, you have the right to a hearing. If your taxes are audited, you have a right to be heard and explain. If you are being evicted, a process must be followed before it happens. There are so many things where due process applies, that we probably take them for granted.

Today, this country faces the threat of losing our right to due process. Some people are being detained without any real due process. No matter what one’s political leanings are, I do not believe anyone thinks that our rights to due process should be stripped away from us.

Whether a person is accused of a crime, in the country illegally, protesting or saying things that are not popular, look different, or writes a news story that angers someone; that person must know that they will be granted their rights and have a chance to defend themselves in front of the appropriate authority before losing a single unalienable right. I will stand up for those rights for anyone in this country, even the people I disagree with. Will you stand with me? ■