{"id":6718,"date":"2013-11-08T07:22:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T12:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=6718"},"modified":"2013-11-08T07:22:50","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T12:22:50","slug":"apwu-president-issues-call-for-a-grand-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2013\/11\/08\/apwu-president-issues-call-for-a-grand-alliance\/","title":{"rendered":"APWU President Issues Call For a \u2018Grand Alliance\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>At Swearing-In Ceremony:Dimondstein Issues Call For a \u2018Grand Alliance\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/2-APWU-Pres.-Dimondstein.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-6647\" alt=\"2-APWU-Pres.-Dimondstein\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/2-APWU-Pres.-Dimondstein.gif\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In an impassioned speech before more than 1,000 union members, the newly-elected president of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein, issued a call for a \u201cgrand alliance\u201d to save the USPS as a public postal service and to protect postal jobs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWriting to Congress is important,\u201d he declared, \u201cbut it is not enough. Lobbying for legislation is important, but it is not enough.\u201d To succeed, postal workers must build a movement, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the Flint sit-down strikers occupied a General Motors plant in the 1930s, labor law reform was won. When women took to the streets to demand the right to vote, they won. When courageous civil rights workers fought segregation with sit-ins and boycotts, the 1964 Civil Rights Act followed,\u201d Dimondstein said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHistory shows that movements move Congress. Movements create legislative victories, not the other way around,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe must build a grand alliance between the people of this country and postal workers,\u201d he proclaimed. \u201cWe must mobilize our allies and their organizations, including seniors, retirees, civil rights organizations, veterans groups, the labor movement, community and faith-based organizations, the Occupy movement, and business groups in defense of America\u2019s right to vibrant public postal services,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The labor movement is in dire straits, Dimondstein acknowledged. \u201cAnything that stands for the public good \u2014 public libraries, public education, public utilities, public transportation and public postal services \u2014 is under severe attack, as are public workers and our unions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But postal workers are not alone, he said. Public workers in Wisconsin stood up and fought back, he noted. \u201cWal-Mart workers are stirring. Fast food workers are demanding a living wage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA revitalized labor movement is indeed possible,\u201d he declared, as he urged union members to join together to defend a public Postal Service and good union jobs.<\/p>\n<p>Eighty APWU national officers were sworn in on Nov. 7. Their three-year terms begin Nov. 12.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Swearing-In Ceremony:Dimondstein Issues Call For a \u2018Grand Alliance\u2019 In an impassioned speech before more than 1,000 union members, the newly-elected president of the American Postal Workers Union, Mark Dimondstein, issued a call for a \u201cgrand alliance\u201d to save the USPS as a public postal service and to protect postal jobs. \u201cWriting to Congress is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6718","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\/6718","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=6718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6719,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6718\/revisions\/6719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}