Sterling Ricks June 25, 2002

Some of the Ex-members and non-members need to read and learn what our Union is up against in the following years to come. The Postal Service has a Transformation Plan that most likely includes the following.

Transferring postage sales to private retail operations.
A Transformation Plan proposes to significantly reduce the number of postal retail employees.
Replace retail employees with minimum wage, non-union retail workers with no knowledge of postal rules and regulations.
Postal customers will no longer receive professional assistance with their mailing needs.
Convert retail operations to the private sector.

This is a major effort to privatize retail operations; the only defense that Postal Employees and their customers have against this is the Postal Union. The Union is the only organization that can and will fight to protect our jobs from being turned over to the private sector. To stop these actions from happening is going to take sacrifice, dedication, and unity. The word unity means that all postal employees need to get involved and speak out against these actions. The best way to do this is to be part of the Union and show that the bargaining workers together in the fight against Privatization of the Postal Service.

Last week a member stated to me that they heard that they saw a CBR stating that they did not have to use sick leave for SICK LEAVE DEPENDENT CARE.

I looked and could not find it, but with help from another Steward this is what we found in the May 96 CBR. Sick Leave Does Not Have to Be Used for Dependent Care. The U.S. Postal Service agreed with the APWU February 22 (1996) that the Memorandum of Understanding providing for Sick Leave for Dependent Care does not require that employees use their sick leave when taking leave to care for sick family members. Though employees are entitled to use up to 80 hours of earned sick leave to care for sick family members, employees have the option of electing not to use sick leave for that purpose.

This Memorandum of understanding goes on to state that even though the employee does not have to use Sick Leave, any leave they use counts as part of the 80 hours given to them in the Sick Leave Dependent Care Memorandum.