News

The main discussions at the Biennial Congress of the National Association of Letter Carriers, UNI Post & Logistics largest affiliate in the United States, centred around the need to fight the proposal by the US Postal Service to cut postal deliveries down to 5 days a week and also the need to develop a collective bargaining strategy to deal with the shrinking letter mail volumes.



In a passionate and rousing opening address on Monday 9 August to the more than 7,000 delegates present in Anaheim for the 67th Biennial National Association of Letter Carriers Convention, President Fredric V. Rolando spelled out the challenges facing the NALC. Rolando called on each individual carrier to save the United States Postal Service, even if it means saving it from postal management.



The Convention also held a large number of workshops designed to help union members to develop their skills and to understand a range of issues facing postal workers, such as the need for innovation and the new postal technology.



Head of UNI Post & Logistics Neil Anderson, speaking on the second day, after taking part in a workshop on the Monday with other international guests, John Baldwin from the CWU, UK and Odd Christian Overland from PostKom Norway, said; “You know all too well that you have to watch what’s happening in the rest of the world. In the Netherlands, its postal service, TNT, proudly points to the 11,000 jobs it will shift to part-time positions and that it will deliver mail only three days a week, to save costs.” Anderson said. In Italy, however, “six days is not enough for them. “They say, ‘The Internet is our competition,’ and we will continue to deliver not just six days a week, but twice a day, with express and parcels in the afternoon.”



“They’re saying, ‘To give better service, we have to give more service,’ Innovation is our future,” he said.

“Innovation is how we’re going to meet the competition in the future.”



Billy Hayes, General Secretary of the CWU, UK spoke on Thursday and told delegates the fight to maintain the post office as a public service owned by the UK citizens was a struggle the CWU would not give up. He said all postal unions needed to stand together across the globe and take their fight for good jobs and decent wages to every postal administration and postal company. He said the CWU, like NALC, would fight to maintain a 6 day delivery service.



Odd Christian Overland from Postkom, UNI’s Norwegian affiliate, told the delegates that like the US, union members in Norway had stood up to demand that the postal market not be liberalized and that a proper viable universal postal service needed to be maintained.



The Congress concludes Friday with the delegates joining a huge rally in Los Angeles demanding the US government take action to increase employment and create more jobs. Orange County, where the Convention is being held, sadly boasts one of the hugest levels of unemployment in the United States.



All the Convention news can be seen at; http://www.nalc.org/news/conv/index.html