Hey Postal Worker!
These were very short pieces I wrote while fired in the 90s to get people to think a little differently. If you were around then, you will recognize some of the references. The short piece was next to the mailing address for our bulk rate mailing to catch the eye of postal workers handling, sorting, and delivering our newsletter. The piece was also targeted for the membership and their family members who pick up the mail. Sometimes a family member will motivate the postal worker in their family to pay attention to issues that affect their family. The pieces usually started with a question and ended with a positive suggestion. The first piece below introduced the idea of Hey Postal Worker! to readers. I am not sure of the order the others appeared. The original articles were titled with Hey Postal Worker!, but I titled them to present them here.
Introduction to Hey Postal Worker!
You might be a mailhandler moving the mail, a clerk sorting flats, a city or rural carrier delivering to a mailbox. You look at the address and see the headline next to it that says, “Hey Postal Worker!” This little space is especially for you at work. A brief message to get you to reflect on your life as a postal worker and hopefully work to improve it. As a matter of fact this whole back page is for you… Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out where the mail goes. Might even have to ask someone else!
Who is Your Competitor?
Who is your competitor? Prior to the UPS strike, more than a few postal workers viewed UPS workers as the competitor. That’s what USPS management was telling us. But seeing the UPS workers on the picket line, fighting for more full-time jobs and better pay, made a lot of postal workers realize that they were fighting for the same things we were. If they won improvements in their negotiations, it would place us in better position during our negotiations. We do have competitors, but it is the USPS and UPS management, not the UPS workers.
Love is a Subversive Act
Do you feel that you are spending all your life at work? Do you plan to work 40 hours a week until you retire? Is work what life is all about? What can be done to improve our situation? One thing you can do is to bring some life into work. Act and work in a manner that honors people first. There is no reason why our lives should be on hold while we are at work. The smile, the conversation, the caring for others make for a more human workplace. Resist being turned into a machine. Love is a subversive act in the Post Office. And that’s what unionism is all about.
Who is the Customer?
Who is the customer? The USPS tells us that since they provide a big slice of the revenue, the corporations that do the large mailings are our main customers. The Board of Governors, Rate Commission and the USPS are working with business interests to lower the rates for large mailers while hiking the rates for non-profits and households. Our wages and working conditions are being attacked to serve the needs of corporations. A coalition of postal workers, non-profits, and households could restore service to “our customers” and insure good jobs for all of us in the community.
Bills Instead of Taxes
Why does the corporate owned media place so much emphasis on lowering taxes? Why don’t they put the same amount of emphasis on lowering bills? The stories on taxes often recommend privatizing government services to lower costs to the taxpayer. What usually happens with privatization, however, is that union jobs with decent wages get turned into non-union jobs with low wages. The business owner that takes over the service gets the profit. Instead of public accountability, we get corporate control. Instead of paying for the service through taxes, we pay with a bill. Ain’t that a scam?
Resistance
What is the strongest response you will offer to abuse and contract violations at work? What is the strongest response the majority of people will offer? Is it enough of a response to prevent management from continuing to do whatever they want?
Management is constantly evaluating the ability of the workforce to resist their policies. If there is little or no resistance then management can and will move easily ahead with whatever plans they have. The responsibility to make our lives better is on us. What will you do to help?
Large Men Playing With Balls
Why is it that 50,000 people, mostly grown men, will fill a stadium to watch large men play with a ball, yet only relatively small numbers of people will be on picket lines, at rallies, and other places where important struggles that will affect worker’s lives are happening? It takes a lot of hype to make this situation seem normal. The same corporations who hype the stadium events do their best to downplay the picket lines and rallies. Don’t believe the hype. The real battle is between workers and corporations, not Seahawks and Dolphins.
Do You Know Your Goals?
Do you know your goals? Do you know who you are? If you don’t know the answer to these two questions, management will be glad to define them for you. Management might give you some free clothes with their definitions right on it. Although often nice, to management you are hands, employee, worker, servant, slave. Your value is less than the machine you work on. Management spends a lot of time defining who you are because they know that if you start thinking of yourself as a human being, you might start acting like one. And that is a dangerous idea.
Are You Competitive?
Are you competitive? Competitive about what? Large corporations with the assistance of the US government want workers in the mailing industry to compete with each other to see who can work harder for less money and benefits. That’s what the USPS is ultimately after in their campaign for us to “beat the competition.”
If you want to be competitive, let’s compete on the issue of improving the quality of our workplace. The Teamsters made some gains in their strike and breathed some life into the labor movement. Now it’s our turn. Let’s show them what Postal Workers can do to improve the workplace.
Why Are We Here?
Management often tells us that we are all here to get the mail out. Sometimes to suggest that everything else, like the union contract, is secondary. I wonder how many managers would be working here if they were paid minimum wage. Postal workers do take pride in getting the mail out to the public. However, most of us would not be working at the Post Office if we did not have a union contract that gives us a decent wage, benefits, and working conditions that provide some measure of stability in our lives. Our lives are important. We don’t live to work; we work to live.
Where Do You Get Your Information?
Where do you get your information? Most people vote and make other decisions based on sifting through the information they have been exposed to. Do you get most, if not all your information, from corporate owned media like Gannett, Knight-Ridder, Westinghouse (CBS), General Electric (NBC), etc.? Postal workers are familiar with how the USPS tells the “news.” Corporate owned media tell their “news” in a similar manner. Help workers tell their side of the story. Support union and community owned media whenever you can.