{"id":10104,"date":"2015-02-19T08:38:50","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T13:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=10104"},"modified":"2015-02-19T08:39:37","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T13:39:37","slug":"apwu-members-bring-the-house-down-at-pre-negotiation-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2015\/02\/19\/apwu-members-bring-the-house-down-at-pre-negotiation-rally\/","title":{"rendered":"APWU Members Bring the House Down at Pre-Negotiation Rally"},"content":{"rendered":"

02\/18\/2015 – Over a hundred labor union members, leaders and activists participated in a spirited rally on the eve of APWU contract negotiations at the AFL-CIO headquarters on Feb. 18.<\/p>\n

Lively chants of \u201cWe want a contract!\u201d and \u201cWhat kind of power? Union power!\u201d rose up between passionate calls for solidarity.<\/p>\n

Actor-activist Danny Glover recalled how the Postal Service offered his parents a \u201cdifferent kind of life,\u201d with better opportunities for growth. He called their struggle a \u201ccommitment to change,\u201d for the better \u2013 exactly what the APWU is fighting for.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are standing up and fighting for not just yourself, but all workers,\u201d said Liz Shuler, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. \u201cWhat you do at the bargaining table will help every worker in this country \u00ad\u2013 and I know you are up for it!\u201d<\/p>\n

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Tefere Gebre added, \u201cThis is not just a postal workers\u2019 fight, this is not just a janitor\u2019s fight or a CWA fight, this is everyone\u2019s fight,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we pick up other people\u2019s fights as our own, no one can stop us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Hightower, editor of the Hightower Lowdown and\u00a0former commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, came from the Lone Star state to show his solidarity. \u201cI\u2019m here for the small farmers and small business owners.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m here for the inner-city people\u2026who want to see the Postal Service not shrink, but expand,\u201d he said, calling the post office \u201cthe heartbeat of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larry Cohen, president of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), said that he would be with the postal workers \u201cevery step of the way, saying \u2018No\u2019 to plant shutdowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe APWU is going to say to our government and our president, \u2018It\u2019s our turn!\u2019\u201d Cohen added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are standing up and we are fighting back!\u201d \u201cWe are coming at the Postal Service as one movement and we are saying \u2018Hell no!\u2019\u201d said Terry Melvin, president emeritus of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. \u201cYou are our postal workers and we believe in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elise Bryant of the Labor Heritage Foundation closed out the rally, leading attendees in a rousing rendition of \u201cSolidarity Forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Postal Service doesn\u2019t belong to the APWU, it doesn\u2019t belong to the management at L\u2019Enfant Plaza. The Postal Service belongs to the people of this country,\u201d said President Mark Dimondstein.<\/p>\n

\"1-APWU-New\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

02\/18\/2015 – Over a hundred labor union members, leaders and activists participated in a spirited rally on the eve of APWU contract negotiations at the AFL-CIO headquarters on Feb. 18. Lively chants of \u201cWe want a contract!\u201d and \u201cWhat kind of power? Union power!\u201d rose up between passionate calls for solidarity. Actor-activist Danny Glover recalled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10104"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10106,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104\/revisions\/10106"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}