WEBVTT - The Decline and Fall of the American Post Office 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.960 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:08.360 Welcome Tock It Up and Hear, a podcast about things 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:10.880 falling apart and putting them back together again. I'm your host, 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:14.600 Bio long so long ago, in a galaxy far far away, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:18.279 we talked about the collapse of the US Postal Service 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.840 and the absolute horror show that's been inflicted on postal workers. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:26.840 When we last left our intrepid heroes, things were not great. 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.960 They have continued to be not great. And with us 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:36.000 to talk about this entire shit show is bad Mouth. 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.120 He's a letter carrier and for it Worth and Tommy Espinoza, 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:41.960 who is a former letter carrier and former union steward 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:46.400 for the Post Office Union. That one. Yeah, look, it's 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.160 like I got up at seven am this morning. It's 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:51.239 up and that as I got up, you're getting you're 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:54.360 getting tired. Via, But both of you two, welcome to 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:56.160 the show, and I'm excited to talk to you both. 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.040 Yeah, it's great to be back. 0:00:58.200 --> 0:00:59.280 Yeah, thanks for having us. 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.000 Yeah. So all right, let's start in a place where 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.199 many things start, which is to say, the nineteen seventies, 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.800 the full crow upon which history pivoted. So one of 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:12.680 the things that we talked about, listener sort of last 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.800 episode is that post office workers are not legally allowed 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.679 to go on strike. This is sort of nonsense, but 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:23.040 it also doesn't mean that it's never happened. Oh, by 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:24.959 the way, is this we're about to talk about wildcat 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.839 strike disclaimers? No one here represents a union, there speaking 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.120 of their individual capacity, et cetera, et cetera. None of 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:32.920 this is legal advice. I do I have any more 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.959 caveats that we usually say for these things. That's roughly 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.360 all of them. Yeah, but did you want to talk 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:44.240 about sort of the last time that things kind of 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:46.640 looked like this and what happens? 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:48.600 Yeah, tell me you want to take that one. Yeah. 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:53.279 So, just going back to the nineteen seventies, the working 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:57.120 conditions for a letter carriers were so bad that most 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.920 of them couldn't afford the cost of living. They found 0:01:59.920 --> 0:02:03.000 themselves in a position where they are working for a 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:08.600 quasi federal position and are finding themselves on welfare, struggling 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.320 just to find the means to get to work, oftentimes 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:15.160 having to work a second job if they even have 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:16.320 time for a second job. 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.120 Because the Post Office has. 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:22.919 And still is very good at skipping around a lot 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:27.440 of labor laws. I think nowadays people probably work around 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:31.400 sixty hour weeks. I think probably at a minimal around 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.720 fifty hour weeks, especially around the holidays. And it's not 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:39.920 just letter carriers, this is people inside of the distribution centers, 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:41.399 inside of the warehouses. 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:43.360 Things were not good. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.760 And on top of the actual working conditions themselves, the 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:52.840 environment was incredibly toxic. There was a long history of abuse. 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:58.600 You're dangling people's livelihood over their head. Think you're like 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.480 holding a carrot over them, know, and it really pushed 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.240 people to an edge. We saw a lot of violence 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.480 on the workroom floor, not only from supervisors but from 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:11.799 carriers that just snapped. 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.160 Yeah, it was a time of great disparity. 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.720 Yeah. The thing with the post office is tom was 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:20.880 mentioned and they dangled a carrot, but there's never any 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.080 goddamn carrot. It's all stick. It's supposed to be carrot 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.440 and stick, it's all stick. There's no carrot there. Management 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:29.000 in the post office is just trying to get you 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:31.680 to move as fast as possible and cut corners, and 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:37.160 that erode safety, it erodes service, and it just a toxic, horrible, 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:42.080 horrible environment. And so back in the seventies before the 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.560 wildcat strike, it was illegal then, just like it's illegal now. 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:49.720 The NELC National Association of Letter Carriers Congress called all 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:52.960 the shots like we had some collective bargaining rights but 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.680 not full collective bargaining rights. But like back then, adjusted 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.920 for inflation, starting wage was fifty thousand a year around 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.120 about and it topped out at about sixty eight thousand 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:07.920 dollars adjusted for inflation, and that took twenty one years 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:12.360 to get to that point. Yeah, so it's pretty wild 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:17.279 and like very similar to today. Now starting wage adjusted 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.799 for inflation is just over forty thousand dollars before taxes. 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.800 So we're making even less money now than we were 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.320 before that wildcat strike, right, And a couple of other 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:31.640 real familiar things like you know, on popular wars, rampant inflation, 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:35.880 you know, Yeah, every time you turn on the radio 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.800 or TV, there's some lunatic politician that you can't stand 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:40.520 hearing about. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:42.920 Yeah, time is a flat circle. 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.000 But Vince Sobrado, who was an organizer out of New 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:51.000 York City, the ANOC didn't strike all over the country. 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.920 It was New York and Chicago and San Francisco. It 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.680 was some major hubs, right, And Vince Sobrado came out 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.400 of that and we won in that strike one collective 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.960 bargaining rights. Now the thing we gave up, and it 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.599 was a trade off. So we have a no layoff clause, 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.720 so they can't lay us off, but we gave up 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.760 the right to strike, making sure that there wouldn't be. 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:15.240 Another wildcat strike. Yeah. 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:17.359 Right, So that's kind of why our hands are tied 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.000 in that sense. Now, if we have an impasse with 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:23.000 our with our negotiation, and like we get a tentative 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.919 agreement and we during the ratification process vote that down, 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:29.839 now we can either try and go back to the 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.920 bargaining table or it gets brought in front of an arbiter, 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:35.920 basically an impartial judge, and they'll have a panel. The 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.760 Post Office will pick two and the NELC will pick two, 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.520 and then I think there's one impartial that's supposed to 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.680 be impartial between that. I believe that's how the arbitration 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:48.159 process works. We got to prove our case in front 0:05:48.200 --> 0:05:51.719 of impartial arbiters instead of going on strike. 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.200 Yeah, and so, as we sort of mentioned before, one 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.200 of the things about the Post Office is it's similar 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.440 if people remember the rail like the rail strike that 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.240 didn't happen where there's all of these troops you have 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:03.719 to jump, you'd be able to go on strike. And 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.480 that's because again, like rail workers, postal workers don't operate 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.000 under the normal sort of national labor relations board like framework. 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.839 Right now, admittedly there was a very good chance that 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:15.960 it like in like seven months, we don't even have that. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.520 No one has that anymore. But you know, as we 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.680 are right now, yeah, it's I think things are going good. 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:26.200 But as things are going right now, let's get in 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.239 to the current tentative agreement, and I guess we should 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:31.680 actually we should roll this back a little tiny bit. 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.800 For people who haven't listened to these episodes before, can 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.400 you explain what a tentative agreement is? 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.120 Right, So, a tentative agreement is effectively the first draft. 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:46.279 When you are going through and negotiating, you will reach 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:51.160 a contract where management and the union kind of agree 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.760 and they put it before their union members. And the 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.799 idea is that your union members are able to vote 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:02.240 whether or not this tentative agreement. And again, like that 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.000 mouth was saying, if it gets rejected or if it 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.440 gets turned down, then it goes back to the drawing board, 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.920 or we get an arbitrator, and it goes through a 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:18.840 lengthy process. Our specific contract has been under negotiation since 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:24.680 before I was in the Post Office. The amount of 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:26.440 back pay that they're going to have to pay on 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:30.000 some of these races is kind of insane, and I 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.720 imagine that a lot of people won't see it for 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:34.760 a long time. But yeah, that's what an a tentative 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:38.320 agreement is. A lot of people think that it's a 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.240 bad thing to go back to the drawing board, or 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.720 a bad thing to renegotiate or be put before an arbitrator. 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:46.800 I largely think that is a myth. If you think 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:51.040 about any sort of negotiation, the first the first offer 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:53.240 is never the best one. I think a lot of 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:57.400 people are just afraid that somehow you would end up 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:01.760 giving more than you're getting. And I think that's just 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.840 the way that the rhetoric has gone for unions lately, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:05.600 and I. 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:07.080 Guess I need to adjust that a little bit. 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:11.040 Because the Teamsters, they even like the Service Workers' Union, 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:16.600 they're all really doing well. The Communications Union, we're in 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.080 a little bit of a different age. But a lot 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:23.560 of the Post Office is old heads, military veterans, that 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.080 kind of sort who just come from a little bit 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:30.240 of an earlier time when the labor movement was really 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:31.840 starting to plant their feet on the ground. 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.160 Yeah, a lot of them are still dealing with I 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:39.160 like most of us are the hangover from the Reagan years, right, 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.680 So they're all terrified of union stuff. Even though they 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:44.920 love the union and they're in the union, they're very 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.120 distrustful of it. And they don't think that we can 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.600 ask for what we deserve. They think we need to 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.840 ask for what they think we can get based on 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.000 the shit that management is saying because they're again still 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.640 shell shocked from the Reagan years and all the anti 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:00.440 labor stuff. 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.520 And that's how a profound impact on most of the 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:08.000 unions that survived that period. A lot of them didn't, right, 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:10.120 Which is which is you know, part of part of 0:09:10.120 --> 0:09:13.160 why you get people who behave like this. But on 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.280 the downside is it means that you get handed a 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.400 lot of deals that absolutely suck. But do you know 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.880 what else absolutely sucks? It's the roddicts and services. That's 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:39.320 for this podcast. They probably don't I don't know. We 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:44.960 are back, so let's talk about what the tentative agreements 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:50.000 that y'all are being asked to sign is right now. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:50.520 Yeah. 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.400 Yeah, so it's been I think we're coming up on 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.760 six hundred days since our last contract expired. 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:57.160 Jeez. 0:09:57.360 --> 0:09:57.640 Yeah. 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:00.559 Yeah, there's people that just want their backpay. So even 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.679 if the back pay is dog shit, they're desperate because 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:08.520 inflation is eight percent across the country in some places, right, 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.360 and like people are just desperate for that chunk of money. 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:15.280 That delaying process feels very very intentional. 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:16.240 Yeah. 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.280 So the Tenet Agreement comes out around five hundred days 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.360 after negotiations were supposed to have started, and there's all 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:24.959 sorts of nonsense going on during then. But we're getting 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.640 promises like it's going to be a historic agreement, we're 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.320 going to get significant raises. We're going to go to 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.280 an all career workforce, which, by the way, we. 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:34.320 Don't have right now. 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:38.080 That is by the way, yeah uh okay. So in 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:42.520 every other trade, you have an apprenticeship program, right, so 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:44.600 when you get on the job, you're wet behind the ears, 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.520 you're brand new, you are automatically career, you are automatically 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.080 paying into your retirement, you're automatically getting the regular benefits 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:54.439 everyone else is. In most trades, you're paying half the 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.880 dues that the journeymen are paying, and you, you are 0:10:57.880 --> 0:10:59.400 considered a full employee. 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.200 You're the new jack. You're getting all the shit jobs, 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:02.880 but you are a full employee. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.000 The post Office has a position called the City Carrier Assistant, 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:10.480 which on paper and how they'll tell you, sounds like 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.480 an apprenticeship program, but it's really more like they took 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:17.439 an apprenticeship program and an unpaid internship and jammed them together. 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:21.040 Because these kids are coming in and I'm not even kids. 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:23.360 I'm forty years old. I started as a CCA at 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.640 forty years old. They're coming in making less than twenty 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.320 dollars an hour. They're not considered a career, so they're 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.400 not paying into the retirement. You haven't got all the 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.800 same union protections. Your benefits are super low. You get 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:38.960 five days of annual leave a year and no sick 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.040 time like it's it's yeah, it's a meat it's a 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.480 meat grinder. So that was a big thing, and it 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.960 creates a whole thirred tier because we already have two different, 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.760 two different tiered wage system, which sucks enough, and you 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:51.439 anyone that pays attention to labor. 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.600 That drives a huge wedge between. 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:58.679 Workers, and it crushes solidarity at kneecaps a union, and 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:01.439 now with the CCA position in this non career workforce, 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.000 it's created a whole third tier. 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.079 This is one of the things that the UAW is 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:07.839 fighting for. It's like, is eliminating tearing system all together, 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:10.720 because if you're actually trying to get a functional union 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:12.960 and make people's jobs better, that's the thing that you do. 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:19.200 And having a third tier yeah not good, extremely bad. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:20.680 Yeah, exactly. 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.319 And it's because they've adopted sort of this Amazon model 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.320 of doing things where they just have this burn andsurn 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.920 situation where like Amazon Bezos said that he doesn't want 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.760 anyone working for Amazon for more than like two years. Yeah, 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.600 if they have these people constantly and they're constantly burning 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:37.520 through and they never have to pay full benefits, they 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.200 never have to pay into their retirement, they never have 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:42.680 to pay them more than twenty dollars an hour, and 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:44.720 they can just get you to work your ass off 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.320 and burn out and quit within two years. As people retire, 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:53.400 their labor costs go down. It's evil. It's absolutely it's 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.760 some jack welch hateful bullshit. 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:01.080 So touching on that, if people are really quitting before 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:04.080 they reach a point in their career where they're educated 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.160 and can stand up for themselves or stand up for 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.680 each other on the workroom floor. That's one of the 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.920 major reasons that our union is failing. And like you said, 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.480 you use the exact example that I would have. The 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.960 Amazon model is working really well if you can just 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.480 make it so that people are so miserable they quit 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:25.640 their job before they understand what their rights are, how 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.880 they can protect each other, what even the contract says 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:31.720 on the basics of when can you call out, when 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.920 are you required to come in? Can they send you 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.520 home early without your pay? That's massive And when we 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.200 were talking about the conditions of the nineteen seventies and 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:45.480 how long it takes you to get to the top 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:50.200 of the pay scale, this third tier actually increases that 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.880 time by sometimes three or four years. I've known people 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.079 who have been ccas for three or four years. I 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.840 don't think I've seen beyond that, but it wouldn't surprise me. 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.880 What this does is it means that before you go career, 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:07.240 you're spending all this time you're effectively a fully trained, 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:12.959 full employee, completely capable of doing everything that's required of you. 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.199 You're just not getting any of the career benefits making 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:17.920 a minimum wage, and on top of that, the way 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.800 our benefits work is it does come out of your paycheash. 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:22.920 Sheet's not like other jobs where it might be a 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:27.400 separate package or already calculated. In for instance, a lot 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.720 of the trades, they'll say, hey, you get twenty three 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:32.840 an hour, but the reality is you're making around twenty 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.640 nine or thirty. Because you're not paying into your health 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.360 insurance or your retirement or anything like that, you're effectively 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:42.320 making less than minimum wage. You're almost paying to go 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:46.200 to work as a CCA then just to be yelled 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.240 at and told that you're not going fast enough even 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:52.480 though there's no street standard. But that's getting into a 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.640 little bit of nipicky key contract stuff that language. 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.560 But yeah, so yeah, that's one thing that they're promising 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.160 is to get rid of that non career workforce. So 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:04.560 this TA comes out and after hearing that we're getting 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:06.920 rid of the non career significant raises, it's going to 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.720 be historic for us. What they offered us was one 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:10.680 point three percent. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:13.760 Jesus Christy. Yeah, I mean this is some thing for 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.560 if you are in a union and you hear your 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:20.800 leadership say the words historic contract. You are screwed. That 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.800 agreement is going to suck. I remember on this show 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.160 literally live and recording right before they're supposed to be 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:30.000 the teamster's ups strike, right Like, I'm literally on the 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.920 episode with two of the union people and we get 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:35.960 the text of the contract in the middle of recording, 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.040 and we get the thing with it is this is 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:39.880 an historic contract and we're like reading it in the 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:41.880 middle of the episode. Was like, wait, this fucking sucks. Shit. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:46.240 It's like, that's how you know you are duped when 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:48.280 you get the historic when they start pulling out the 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:49.560 historic contract thing. 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.880 Yeah, you think if you're making six figures a year, 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:55.360 you could understand how to buy a used car and 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.680 know that you promise low and deliver high. Like, I 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:00.720 don't understand how they exist figures of the year. They 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:04.400 haven't figured that out. But yeah, so in this contract, 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.000 one point three percent, and that's enough to piss anyone 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:08.920 off because that drops about the same time that we 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:11.800 all see the longshore men getting going back to the 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.040 table because they didn't get sixty percent, you know what 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:18.280 I mean. Yeah, I'm surprised more people just didn't call 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.440 in sick because we all got this news on the 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.920 worker and floor, and I was like, did you see 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:25.640 this shit? I know people that quit that day, you 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.400 know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's it's wild. So 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.360 one point three percent. They're keeping the city carrier assistance, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.800 the n career workforce. They're removing some of our union 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:37.320 protections right like it used to be. You have a 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.200 twelve sixty hour rule. You don't have to work more 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.000 than twelve hours in a day or sixty hours in 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:44.720 a week. You can say I can't do this, I'm 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:48.800 going home, and the union could protect you. Now, if 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.040 you are a CCA, or if you have signed up 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.120 to do overtime and they tell you to stay sixteen hours, 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.440 you have you have no choice. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:17:01.720 Jesus Christ. You gave up things for a one point 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:05.360 that's that's a one point three percent raise, is like, 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:07.800 like that that's the kind of thing that you get. 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.159 If like I don't know, say, like you got like 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:16.920 some unbelievable concession package somewhere else, maybe conceivably you would 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:18.560 take that, or maybe maybe it's a thing where like 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:20.520 you're you're you're like a nurse and your problem doesn't pay. 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.320 Your problem is you're working like two million hours a week, 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:26.639 But like that's that's a that's a you got concession 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:30.200 somewhere else kind of thing, not a we gave up 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.840 stuff for like the worst rays you've ever seen. 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.920 Yeah, I mean it makes you think about, like what 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.080 was there? What was their first offer? Like, mind you 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:42.080 it's been it's been over five hundred days of negotiations. 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:43.760 What was the first offer? We got to put the 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.520 fuel in the mail trucks ourselves? Like what you know 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.680 what I mean, what Tom do you want? Do you 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:52.120 want to talk about? What the tone of agreement doesn't address? 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:57.440 So the tenetive agreement we spoke about the Post Office 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:01.800 is strategy for uh, dealing with our grievances or how 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:05.119 to combat the union last episode, and so for the 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.119 people that didn't listen to it or just need a refresher, 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.639 the Post Office has found this extremely effective strategy that 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.160 if they just don't agree at any point in our 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.320 in our grievance procedure, which is if they violate the 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.439 contract and we want to be made whole, whatever that 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.040 may look like, they can just keep on saying no 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:27.880 and push it up to arbitration, because there is a 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.719 grievance procedure that ends up with a third party intervening 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.520 as well, and if they push enough of those grievances up. 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:40.840 We have a major backlog on this process because our 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:45.200 final resort is now just the standard of operation, and 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:48.960 what that means is that there's nothing to force the 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.639 post Office to comply with the contract if someone wasn't 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.320 paid correctly, or was missing a whole day of pay, 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:59.480 got sent home, or was put on emergency placement, which 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.880 is a process where they say you did something dangerous 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:04.280 and so they can take you off the clock. 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:05.320 It could be. 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.720 Months or even a year before your case is even 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.080 looked at. They do have a process, of course, where 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:15.359 they try and prioritize it, but it's obviously not working. 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:18.600 The other thing that the contract doesn't really touch on 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.080 is our uniform situation, where the companies that make and 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:28.480 manufacture the uniforms for our letter carriers and actually for 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:32.080 all the positions in the Post Office are effectively trying 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.200 to sell you a shirt for like eighty dollars or 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.520 correct The most egregious one is like your winter parka 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.560 is posed to four hundred dollars and your balance that 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:46.200 you're you're given is I think three eighty FM I 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:47.159 don't know it's been more. 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:49.160 It's up to four ninety nine. 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.400 But the rain trench coat, just the raincoat is four 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:56.080 hundred and sixty five dollars and you have to get 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.520 it through a vendor, so you can't even pay them 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:03.240 money to do that. A pair of polyester pants that's 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.760 going to fall apart in two months ninety. 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:06.960 Five dollars, Oh my god. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:09.560 Oh yeah, no, it's it's wild. It's wild price gouging. 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:11.760 And they were going to address that. And what they 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.800 did was they increased are they increased our uniform allowance 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.600 by thirty five dollars, which is like three pairs of 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:21.880 socks from those magazines, right, incredible stuff. 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.240 Yeah, it's it's it's wild. 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.760 Someone should dig into who's running that company and like 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:31.880 who they're working with to get those contracts, because probably 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:32.840 a fun story there. 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:34.800 I think it's like four out of five of the 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:40.040 approved manufacturers where the distributors are owned by the same people. 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:44.879 So oh great, okay, yeah, I'm bequeathing this as a 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.159 gift to I know there's a bunch of journalists. You 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.640 listen to this, go go do that story. I guarantee 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:52.679 you'll find some unbelievably unhinged stuff. 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:55.439 And a quick shout out to any letter carriers that 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:59.120 are are listening to this. If you don't use your 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.840 entire allowance, look out for the ccas, look out for 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.760 the PTFs, the non career and the fresh faces on there. 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:08.760 If you don't use the entirety of your uniform allowance, 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:10.560 to the way that they view it is that they 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.239 can give us less money, So use all of it. 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.720