NALC Activist Alert

Over 300 Motts workers in Williamson, New York are going on their fourth month of striking to urge Dr. Pepper Snapple, the corporation that owns Motts, to resume bargaining and prevent them from making further cuts to their pay and benefits.

 Although the corporation brings in $555 million in profits, they seem to be slow at getting the message that they can’t keep supporting the “low-waging” of America by filling their pockets at the expense of working families in communities like Williamson.

 Letter carriers know how important it is to prevent wealthy corporations from using the recession as an excuse to cut wages, slash benefits and even eliminate jobs—the worst solution for an economy that needs paychecks to fuel its growth. 

 Take a moment to stand up for your brothers and sisters in the labor movement and tell Dr. Pepper Snapple to sit down at the bargaining table and treat Motts workers with fairness: http://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/contact/

Al Cross, director of the University of Kentucky Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, recently submitted testimony to the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) advocating for the Postal Service to continue Saturday mail delivery service.

Simply put, Cross says eliminating a day of delivery in rural communities would do far more harm than good. The end of Saturday delivery “could exacerbate the decline of many rural communities and the quality of life in rural America, would have a major negative effect on rural newspapers, and thus on the communities they serve,” he writes.

 In rural communities across America, it is the United States Postal Service, and most importantly its six-day delivery service, that keeps these communities vibrant through the delivery of products and services. Additionally, the small-town newspapers that rely on the Postal Service to ensure their on-time delivery would be adversely affected. And for many small towns that don’t have access to the Internet, community newspapers are the only way residents receive their news.

 “The mail is simply a more important part of the public and civic infrastructure in rural America, where those infrastructures are thinner and shakier, than in the rest of the nation,” Cross says. Rural communities depend on reliable, affordable, six-day mail delivery, and the Postal Service needs to recognize this before turning its back on rural communities through the elimination of Saturday delivery.

Following NALC’s national convention in Anaheim, letter carriers were energized more than ever to save Saturday mail delivery and to deliver the message that “5-Day is the Wrong Way.”

Throughout the August congressional recess, letter carriers have been meeting with their respective members of Congress at town hall events, neighborhood picnics and in their district offices to secure support for H.R. 5746.

Cape Girardeau, MO Branch 1015 held its annual “steak feed” last week, where Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a strong supporter of six-day delivery, addressed the more than 75 carriers in attendance. Rep. Emerson is a good friend of letter carriers and is also a co-sponsor of H. Res. 173.

The congresswoman is pictured below displaying NALC’s “5-Day is the Wrong Way” T-shirt with Missouri State Association of Letter Carriers President Kevin Boyer [right] and with Tom Bolen of Branch 1015, congressional district liaison for Missouri’s 8th District.

On Tuesday, August 3, Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown contacted the Postal Regulatory Commission to make sure it knew that states like Oregon, which have established vote-by-mail election systems, would be directly and negatively affected by the proposed elimination of Saturday mail delivery. Voter turnout in recent elections in Oregon, which first executed its full vote-by-mail operation in 1998, has been among the nation’s highest.

 Brown said, “We know that Oregonians like vote-by-mail, because we can measure the effect it has had on turnout over the past few election cycles.” In 2004, Oregon’s registered voters turned out at an outstanding rate of 86.1 percent. Then in 2008, the voter turnout remained exceptionally high at 85.7 percent. “It has become an indelible part of our electoral DNA,” Brown said.

 “But reducing mail deliveries from six to five days a week would jeopardize a critical part of the voting routines that have become such a familiar part of our vote-by-mail experience,” she said. “I worry that any delay in the system, any action by government that clogs the process, could disenfranchise voters in Oregon and in the increasing number of states using mail voting.” Brown added that “reducing the number of delivery days could damage the system that Oregon and many other states have worked so hard to nurture.”

 There is still work to be done. The Postal Regulatory Commission will be making a recommendation to Congress on the proposal to eliminate Saturday mail delivery service, and letter carriers must continue working to enlist the businesses in our communities in support of Saturday delivery, to show that eliminating a day of service would be the wrong way for the Postal Service to grow revenue.

Click here to make sure your voice is heard!

Darla Peterson, vice-president of the South Dakota State Association of Letter Carriers, submitted an opinion-editorial to the Argus Leader that was featured in the August 14^th edition of the newspaper.

As a letter carrier who knows her community, from her many years of service, she writes that, “Rural communities across South Dakota depend on the service the Postal Service provides six days a week. Letter carriers not only deliver medications, newspapers, and greeting cards, but they keep an eye on those in the communities they serve. Affordable, universal service six-days a week makes the Postal Service unique, and rural communities are counting on Congress to ensure the future of Saturday service.”

 “For a business that services every single American, with a reputation for quality and dependability, making an overly brash decision with no foundation for being able to effectively change the USPS’s profitability is a reckless, knee-jerk reaction to a problem that merits a more robust solution,” the piece states.   Instead of a slashing a day of delivery, as it is six-day delivery that makes the Postal Service unique, the first step to ensuring the financial stability of the USPS to pass HR 5746. 

Click here to read the entire piece.

Last week, two lucky COLCPE contributors received some very exciting news. At the NALC 2010 Biennial Convention in Anaheim, President Fredric Rolando drew their names from a drum of thousands of COLCPE contributors to win two fantastic prizes.

Congratulations to Raymond Eisenberger, from Branch 542 in Norristown, PA for winning this year’s one-time contributor “Gimme 5” for COLCPE raffle. The NALC will be sending Brother Eisneberger a 42″ flat screen television. As a retiree, Brother Eisenberger only needed to give 60 dollars to qualify for this year’s raffle, but as a testament to his support of the NALC, he has already contributed $150 to COLCPE this year.

And Congratulations to Stephen Lipski of Branch 908 in Woodbury, NJ who won the automatic contributor “Gimme 5” for raffle. He and a guest of his choice will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the 2011 NCAA Final Four!

If you didn’t win this year’s raffle, don’t worry, there are more raffles to come in 2011. In May, the NALC announced this year’s “Gimme 5” competition in which states are matched against one another to grow the number of automatic contributors.

Winning state associations will have the opportunity to conduct raffles of their own to award three $200 American Express gift cards to three lucky Gimme 5 contributors. Every state, no matter their size or progress so far, has an equal chance at winning this competition. So don’t waste any time in signing up as many members as possible in your state, as the competition ends November 30th.

You can check on how your state is doing by clicking on this link. Good luck!

President Rolando and NALC’s Department of Legislative and Political Affairs would like to give a special thanks to all of those who volunteered at the political action booth at this year’s NALC Biennial Convention. Because of the work of these dedicated members, the NALC was successful in signing up hundreds of delegates to become new automatic COLCPE contributors, members of Carrier Corps and  e-Activists.

We would also like to thank the hundreds of dedicated volunteers who passed out t-shirts, box lunches, and bottles of waters to NALC members traveling to the AFL-CIO’s “Paychecks Pay the Bills” rally in L.A.

We especially want to recognize all the state chairs, congressional district liaisons, COLCPE coordinators, members of the distribution committee, and volunteers from Branches 24 and 1100, who were essential in assisting our staff at the political action booth and during the rally. We could not have done it without you.

As the NALC concluded its 67th biennial convention, nearly 3,500 letter carriers traveled to downtown Los Angeles to rally for jobs at city hall. Thousands of letter carriers joined hundreds of other union members to inform elected officials that the road to economic recovery starts and ends with jobs.

Recently re-elected NALC President Fredric V. Rolando was joined on stage by Sen. Barbara Boxer, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Rep. Jane Harman, Rep. Judy Chu, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to send the important message that cutting a day delivery would cost the public 80,000 good middle class jobs. This message was heard clearly by all of downtown LA as the union activists chanted “5 Day is the wrong way.”  Click on this link to see full press coverage of the rally.

More than 8,000 letter carriers are expected at NALC’s 67^th biennial national convention in Anaheim, CA.  The convention officially begins Monday, August 9th.