Burrus Says The Process is Completed

burrus-journal

Time for Solidarity

When the final count is announced, the 2010/2011 contract negotiations will be relegated to history to be recalled selectively from time to time by inquiring minds. As attention is diverted from negotiations to enforcement, it is expected that among the subjects that will be recalled by some and examined from this experience is the involvement of a former president, Bill Burrus in the debate and his conclusion that the tentative agreement was not worthy of our union.

While my interjection in the process was not dispositive, in a series of postings on the Burrus Journal web site, I explained my rational for criticizing the agreement and now that the process is completed it serves no purpose to repeat those allegations with specifics. The contract has been approved and there is no need for further debate. It is time for the union to come together.

Why?

As future discussions explore the 2011 ratification process, some will express opinions on the reasoning of Bill Burrus after having retired to inject his opinions in the debate. The question is no longer ratification or defeat, but as the former president who retired after 53 years of service, why did he find it necessary to engage and express negative opinions about the agreement?

I have heard and read the gratuitous advice that I would be more respected if I had kept my mouth shut and leave the editorializing of the agreement exclusively to those who favored ratification, no matter my convictions. This ignores the fact that I begin by respecting myself and if I had been silent while future employees, who will be so dramatically affected, were not provided voice and vote, notwithstanding the opinion of others, I would have lost my self-respect.

It is interesting that those who were most offended by my editorials on the agreement were more opposed to my conclusions than my framing of the facts so the focus became my agenda. Why would I oppose a contract so widely supported by others?

Stubborn Facts

I was not intimately involved in the final decisions in bargaining so it was expected that many of the facts I presented would not be totally accurate, but the basic principles of the negotiated agreement are in black and white and detractors elected not to challenge the facts.

  • Current members were asked to vote on contractual conditions that will not apply to them;
  • The salary of new hires will be reduced by as much as $500,000 over a career with proportional reduction in retirement;
  • Conversion of full time from 40 hours to as few as 30 hours will reduce earnings by existing and new employees by as much as 25%;
  • The Postal Service will generate savings in the amount of $3.8 billion over the 4 1/2 years of the agreement, generated from employee reductions
  • The language construction of the agreement is not consistent with proper English composition and for confirmation one has only to read the unchanged provisions of the national agreement as a comparison of sentence structure notwithstanding divergent conclusions, these were the facts.

So, unwilling to discuss the facts, some observers formed personal opinions of my motivation without benefit of direct discussions with me, These predictors obviously do not read my mind, at least I don’t think that they do, so for the record, this final post serves as my reasons for adding my voice to the debate.

Reasons I Engaged

Here goes, I agree with the conclusion of others that this agreement is “out of the box” and is a “watershed” combination of positive achievements, but where we disagree is I conclude that it includes unprecedented give backs. In the 40 year history of postal bargaining, no agreement comes close to the positive and negative changes. That is an undisputed fact. What is missing is that of the past union negotiators, none, not one was willing to agree to transfer the staggering sum of $3.8 billion from the employees to the employer. Concessions in this magnitude provide a lot of room to bargain on non-economic issues and Presidents Filbey, Andrews, Biller, and yours truly were unwilling to make that trade.

My decision to engage, contrary to the allegations of some, was not to supplement my opinions for those of the negotiators. I added my voice in representation of the millions of future postal employees who were denied the opportunity to weigh the achievements against the negatives. To debate and to vote.

Never before in the history of postal bargaining have the negotiators agreed to provisions that will not affect those employees who will vote. And please don’t recite for me that two arbitrators imposed new Steps. Arbitration decisions are not subject to ratification and there is no comparison between 2 new imposed Steps that blend into the pay scale terminating at 0 and 6 or 8 negotiated Steps terminating at I or J. The future employees who will be affected by this decision have been denied their voice and I determined that someone with national name recognition should speak in their stead. No national officer came forward so I was elected by default.

It would be wrong to negotiate provisions affecting postal workers in Detroit to be decided by union members in Cleveland. The same would be true to ask auto workers to determine conditions of employment for postal workers. Contractual provisions should be decided directly by the employees affected. That is what democracy is all about. How does one expect a member to respond to the choice of ratifying conditions that will adversely affect a person who is not even currently employed if in exchange he/she dodges the bullet of very bad things that could be imposed by an arbitrator? That is a no brainer for current employees, so the issue presented is not how a current union member will vote but why were they given this choice?

Two Tier Wage Exceptions

There are exceptional circumstances like the auto workers when pressured by Congress and the President, they negotiated a two tier wage system but in those circumstances the dynamics should be and were fully explained to the membership in advance and there was vigorous internal debate before agreement was reached. In this instance, there was no debate over the central issues and this draconian exception to democratic principles was announced as outstanding bargaining. To reduce income in the range of $500,000 in lifetime earnings for future employees and declare victory was indecent.

As I have included in several posts, I refrain from substituting my judgment for that of the negotiators. I do not know how I would have responded in those circumstances and what agreements if any would have been reached. What I do know is that as a matter of principle I would not have asked the current members to decide between arbitration and wage reductions for the unhired. That is not fair to the current members or to the future employees.

I did not negotiate such an agreement in 1980, 1990, 2000 or in 2010 (11 contracts in all) and would not be true to myself or the employees who I have been privileged to represent if I were silent because I am retired. If I felt it would be wrong during my active career, I could not live with myself if my convictions were influenced by my employment status and conclude that since I have a comfortable life style provided by postal employees the next generation must fend for themselves.

It is those very employees who will be hired after the effective date of the agreement that will pay my retirement over a period that I hope is extended far into the future. I respect the current membership too much to give them the Hobson’s choice of their economic and job security vs. wage reductions for individuals they do not know.

In the absence of a national spokesperson with name recognition, I served as the voice of those most seriously affected and that decision is a matter of personal conscience, beyond the ratification or rejection of others; that is how I live.

My Proudest Moments

In the future, in quite moments as I reflect on my contributions to postal employees over a long career, the exercise in the 2011 contract ratification will stand among my proudest moments. I have promised myself the writing of a book chronicling my life and the 2011 ratification process will be remembered. I waged the fight. Isn’t that what a union is supposed to do?

Journal

The Burrus Journal will continue as a resource and communication tool on matters not involving internal APWU decisions and policy. You are invited to visit from time to time, but I will not engage in the review of executive decisions unless at some future date the deciders make a conscious decision to again give the membership the choice of “them or me.”

Two weeks have passed so it is time to cut the grass again. If you are in the neighborhood, stop by and help.

Keep in touch.

In union solidarity,

Bill Burrus

Read the Burrus Journal here

9 Responses to "Burrus Says The Process is Completed"

  1. What is going on with VER?, is it a deal?, why is USPS silent, can you say what you think is happening with VER?

  2. Wish Burrus would have been in office until the last contract was done. It is great to hear his feelings and I agree with him, the APWU sold members out without caring enough to fight more, and hold onto what they could. Seems like APWU negotiating reps were either only out for themselves and or working both sides of the fence. Who better to have on USPS side, than union reps working together on their side. Things can never be put back and will only get worse from here. What is USPS really saving, more money for other crafts, more money for higher management? Makes me mad how stupid people are voting for things they didn’t understand more about and only taking what certain APWU union reps say at face value. When APWU showed “they settle for less” whether it got passed or not, we were royally screwed no matter what because APWU showed their loyalty was taking less. No matter what we gave them, which was way too much in this case, Issa and his henchman say it was too lenient. No matter what, they would say it was too lenient.. They don’t care and do not have to have their wages cut, lowered, reduced

  3. On January 19th 1985 a new 2 tier wage system went into effect.
    I was hired on this date at I believe a starting salary of $12.00 an
    hour.
    After a week of orientation we were told that the salary stated on
    our employment offer letter was wrong and that the salary was $11.00
    an hour because a new 2 tier wage system had gone into effect.
    I believe that an additional step was also added. I don’t exactly recall
    the amounts but I think I’m pretty close.
    We were told that if we didn’t like it we could go back to our previous
    jobs. (Yeah right).We were told to bring our employment offer letter to
    the work the next. day. (I didn’t return mine)
    A few months later when we figured out how the union worked we filed
    a grievance.
    The Union asked management for a copy of those letters.
    Guess what? They had lost all of them.
    The point is that this is not the first time that this has happened.

  4. We have been under a 2-tier system for years now…ever heard of “casuals”? PSEs will make more, receive benefits and have Union representation….What casual or TE would not love this deal? Plus they are put on a hiring roster..
    40 hour work week….give me a 12 hour shift on Mon. thru Wen. and watch me raise a family on 36 hours a week.

  5. Bill,
    Thanks for all your hard work that has led me to 27 years of employment with the USPS. I too would agree with you. So much for service, there will no longer be any!
    I for one will feel guilty working beside someone doing the same job as myself but getting paid half the wage. SO long good ole days!!

  6. Mr Burrus has every right to his opinion and the fact is he was right. Thanks Bill for your MANY YEARS of service to the members of the APWU , and in fact to the non-members as well!

  7. Bill,

    I raise my glass to your efforts during this charade. Most of us who actually are UNION and not just hangers-on respect your fortitude and courage to stand up for all members. The poison pill that made me vote no was the two tiered wage attack on the middle class (us). I spoke against it at my local’s meeting and argued with many who said it was “better than nothing.” My reply was that it would not have my finger prints on the knife handle that would be in the backs of my future bothers and sisters. Our local officers kept up the false spectre of the arbitrator to scare everyone into voting yes. The arbitrator would not have given us anything any worse than what we got.

  8. Most of the clerks I’ve talked to had one thing to say about the TA. “It won’t affect me, just the new hires. Besides, I’m retiring in x amount of years.” Solidarity?

  9. Thanks Bill, for the years of service and the fundamental sense of personal obligation and loyalty you have shown to the APWU.
    My opinion as a letter carrier is similar to yours, this is the biggest contract giveaway in, perhaps the history of any union. How the AFL-CIO could appoint Mr Guffey as the Vice-President of national is telling of the state of labor affairs.
    Union people do not seem to feel the sense of obligation to their fellow members as they have in the past. Allowing the contract to have anything less than a 40 hour work week is an abomination to all that unions were created for. How does anyone support a family on 30 hours a week? How do you go to work and arrange daycare when you have no schedule, just an arrangement where you work anywhere from 4 to 12 hours a day? How can you support a family, or for that matter yourself, if you are earning $12 dollars an hour under these conditions.
    It seems like the post office will become a revolving door employer, as people will take the job temporarily while looking for a better career job. Maybe management doesn’t care about providing good service to the public, but we as employees always have. It would appear that by providing such a poor contract and subsequently apoor work environment, that management is counting on people never staying to retirement, so they will pay little for retirement benefits.
    As a letter carrier and an admirer of Bill Burress, I applaude his efforts and his engagement, in a democratic union way, the constructive criticism he provided to try to show the membership BOTH sides of the contract and the fallout in the future.
    Bill, once again you did your job and your best and no one can ask anymore of others or themselves.
    Thank you,
    Mark Comerford

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