Burrus Says APWU Has Decided That YOU Will Not Receive a Retirement Incentive

An Awkward Place

The APWU National Executive Board has endorsed the decision to withhold agreement on a monetary incentive for retiree eligibles in response to management’s refusal to implement newly negotiated contractual provisions. It is apparent that the union’s interpretation differs from that of management on key provisions and the traditional negotiated means of resolving such disputes, the initiation of grievances, has been rejected. This decision is highly unusual in that the retirement incentive would be used as a benefit for the represented employees and to deny it as a means of punishing management is a clumsy means of contract enforcement.

The target of the union’s response is awkward at best because incentivizing retirement eligibles is a management tool used to accelerate attrition with the objective of reducing the total number of employees more rapidly than the normal flow of voluntary retirement. This tool is used most often when there is a surplus of employees or there is a monetary benefit to the employer when replacing a highly paid employee with a new hire with significantly lower entrance wages. The employer has a host of options to reduce costs beyond the separation of retiring employees, but the target is to reduce costs and this is only one of the tools available to employers to reduce payroll. If a particular means is not available, such as lay off or reduced hours, management often turns to consolidations or other ways of reducing expenses. So if the option of voluntary retirement is unavailable the principle objective of reducing costs will continue to be aggressively pursued. Management has the tools to reduce labor costs without accelerating attrition

Early in the APWU bargaining process the union adopted an objective of reducing postal costs and agreed to a number of contractual provisions geared towards this objective. In fact, one of the selling points for the contract was that it “saved the USPS money.” I have long held that management no matter how ineffective have the resources and the knowledge to better determine the basics of employment without the help of the union. In those circumstances when one specific remedy is made unavailable, like accelerating attrition, management will turn to plan B to achieve its objective. When denying a retirement incentive, the ultimate loser is the employee who is denied X dollars to bridge the adjustment from a regular pay check to an annuity, not the employer So the action of the APWU executive board serves only to shift the means of postal management to achieve its primary objective of reducing payroll. For each dollar of savings not generated through the replacement of retiring employee with a new hire under the reduced wage scale it will be recovered through additional consolidations, subcontracting or other means of management induced efficiencies. Retirement incentives are a tool, not an objective.

Included in the considerations of union responses to management intransigencies is the denial of management initiatives reflecting union solidarity, but it is the individual employee who will bear the brunt of a loss of income. Every employee leaves employment with the only question being the timing of his/her separation so the denial of a substantial incentive is a high individual price to pay for a mano to mano sense of collective activity. In the end, it is “we” who have decided that “you” will not receive a benefit. That is an odd place for a union to find itself.

 Bill Burrus

Burrus Journal

9 Responses to "Burrus Says APWU Has Decided That YOU Will Not Receive a Retirement Incentive"

  1. I will drop out of the union soon…they are holding up my VER….I want to early retire so badly but my age is only 51…I don’t want your DAMN incentive just VER…at least I can get something when I retire….so I can spend my retirement life oversea in SE Asia…you get it Mr. Guffy!!!!

  2. At the end of the day all they care about is their salaries. I am a letter carrier and Rolando makes over $200,000 a year including his benefits. That is the reason why he doesnt want 6 day delivery becvause he will lose union dues and salary. Dont be fooled they dont care about us either. Cancelled my dues this year and dont regret it. I outperform all the carriers in my office and they make more than me. Whatever, just know they are all out for themselves!

  3. Hey Harold & all:
    I’m way ahead of you. After 27 years of paying dues I dropped out over 10 years ago and have never regretted it. All for one, one for all? Smells like rotten eggs to me. I’ve been trying to ignore the naysayers (those who said an incentive would never happen) and I know it ain’t over till its over, but … once again I’m deeply disappointed in the APWU forcing us to take a 20K hit for the team?

  4. Quitting never accomplishes anything. Management is probably laughing at all this talk of firing Guffey and members quitting the union.

    Don’t be so greedy. If you are ready to retire, go ahead and retire.

  5. Are you serious they give money to pms who only sit and talk on the phone when the clerks are the heart of thier office we bring in the revenue and they reap the rewards Pms ruined the service they should have been given nothing

  6. I call on every member to drop out of the union as soon as there anniversary date comes up. Tell President Guffey that you are dropping out due to the lack of respect he is showing the members of APWU. I call on the entire Executive Board and President Guffey to all resign immediately and we repace them with someone we can believe and trust. Put the offer on the table for the members to decide and stop holding us hostage.

  7. Mr. Guffey needs to be impeached or recalled at the convention. This man works only for his own interests.

  8. Myself and some other warwick r.i. clerks will be getting out of your union soon enough !!!!!!!!

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