Posted on 10/27/2004 8:22:43 PM PDT by Bronc1
"...After sharply criticizing President Bush for the invasion of Iraq and his post-war policies, delegates at the APWU convention on Aug. 23-27 approved a resolution that stated: "Resolved, the AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION, AFL-CIO calls for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the implementation of a plan to turn over sovereignty to the people of Iraq as soon as possible, and the return of U.S. troops to their homes and families."...
(Excerpt) Read more at laboreducator.org ...
Three More Major Unions Oppose U.S. War and Occupation in Iraq
The growing antiwar movement within the AFL-CIO took another leap forward in the past two weeks when three major unions passed strong resolutions at their recent conventions, opposing the U.S. war in Iraq and calling for an end to the American occupation. They are Communications Workers of America (650,000 members), American Postal Workers Union (270,000) and Mail Handlers of the Laborers' International Union (50,000).
They join the Service Employees International Union (1,6 million) American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (1.2 million) and the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers (60,000), who have also denounced President Bush for his pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and declared they support our troops and want them to be brought home safely, NOW.
In addition, the anti-war movement within the AFL-CIO includes the huge California, Washington State and Maryland/DC federations, which together account for more than 3 million union members. In the past year, dozens of labor councils, regional labor bodies and local unions have taken similar action.
Also in the last few weeks, all of the AFL-CIO's allied organizations have condemned the war in Iraq and called for the immediate return home of U.S. soldiers. They include the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, the Coalition of Labor Union and Pride at Work.
The driving force in building and guiding the anti-war movement is U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW). Its Web site is www.uslaboragainst war.org.
The CWA resolution won the near-unanimous approval of the 1,400 convention delegates on Aug. 31, with more than 50 of them lined up to speak in favor of an amended version, a key paragraph which read: "CWA demands that the President abandon his failed policy (of preventive war) which has made our nation less — not more — secure, and support our troops and their families by bringing our troops home safely now, by providing adequate veterans' benefits and promoting domestic policies that prioritize the needs of working people who make up the bulk of the military."
After sharply criticizing President Bush for the invasion of Iraq and his post-war policies, delegates at the APWU convention on Aug. 23-27 approved a resolution that stated: "Resolved, the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO calls for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the implementation of a plan to turn over sovereignty to the people of Iraq as soon as possible, and the return of U.S. troops to their homes and families."
At the National Postal Mail Handlers convention, held Aug. 22-29 in Boston, an anti-war resolution was approved by the delegates, despite its rejection by the Resolutions Committee. A caucus of delegates worked out an amended version based on an article in The New York Times that swayed the delegates to favor the resolution.
What was unusual about the delegates is that more than 40% of them were veterans. The reason for the disproportionate number of union veterans is due in large part to the hiring preferences given to veterans and disabled soldiers by the U.S. Postal Service.
At one point, the names of hundreds of union members currently serving in Iraq were scrolled across the huge movie screen in use at the convention. The amended resolution reads:
"While the National Postal Mail Handlers Union offers its full support for the American troops currently serving in Iraq, the NPMHU also calls for a rapid end to the war and occupation of Iraq. The war and occupation were undertaken based on false claims of the anti-worker Bush administration and have resulted in the death of over 900 American troops and over 10,000 Iraqi civilians. The war and occupation have caused U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars which could be redirected to pay for badly needed social needs, such as jobs, education, housing, and health."
Since the conclusion of the three union conventions, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq has passed the 1,000 mark and, as of today, stands at 1,005.
Our weekly "LaborTalk" and "Labor and the War" columns can be viewed at our Web site www.laboreducator.org. Union members who seek information about the AFL-CIO rank-and-file reform movement should visit www.rankandfileaflcio.org.
FBI FBI FBI FBI FBI ..... JUMP ON THIS PLEASE.... I MEAN ALL OVER IT.....
More on all of that right here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1240255/posts?page=113#113
postaldave NALC member
There are bad people in every group , even unions. I've seen it first hand in other unions. No one is saying all postal workers are in any way involved, but it is possible that some may have done this. It is also possible something else happened. They need to look into every possibility. This is very important.
Anyone know if Heinz factories are union?
Traitors.
What difference would that make in this situation? Private companies like UPS are unionized also. At least in the USPS, you have all those ex-military people as workers and they tend to be very pro-military despite what the national union big shots may say. And like the NALC letter carrier said above, there's the presence of the Postal Inspectors to consider. Not only that, but anyone trying to pull this off in the USPS would have supervisors and co-workers watching also. 60,000 ballots arriving at a postal facility would attract attention. I guess anything is possible and every lead should be checked, but I don't think it's very likely that these missing ballots even got to the USPS.
Now, for the missing ballots, remember this stuff is entered FREE OF POSTAGE (Courtesy of the US Congress and "Motor Voter", a major portion of which is actually administered by the USPS).
That means that the documentation for entering mail is different from and less reliable than that required (or needed) when entering mail requiring the payment of postage.
Still, there's a history of this sort of nonsense at USPS. A Chicago postal clerk who misrouted Republican campaign literature from Chicago to points elsewhere got a plush job at Post Office Department headquarters courtesy of the incoming Kennedy administration. I've provided his name before! He eventually rose to become a major Assistant Postmaster General in the USPS. Many of the people he promoted through the years are now in the ranks of top management, so anything is possible. Dennis Hastert should consider a serious housecleaning over there!
Still, I suspect the pieces were simply never entered into the mail by the mailing agent employed by the local election officials. Somewhere one of his people (who held everything up) is holding the mailing pending receipt of the deposit to pay for the postage.
Unfortunately that scenario is all too typical of many in the mailing industry who think they are going to get rich doing mailings for government agencies or political parties.
My hope is that someday they impose a literacy test on candidates for employment in such places.
If privatizing the USPS would have no effect on the union membership, what are the chances that heavily unionized postal employees would be dead-set against privatization? I'm really curious about that one. There should be competition everywhere from big parcels to first class mail. Unions tend not to like competition (unless it's "fair").
Only place like it is Saudi Arabia (where they cut off your hand for stealing).
This means, of course, that America's most honest African-Americans work in post offices across the land.
The only postal workers I've ever known who engaged in any kind of election shenanigans were all white, Roman Catholic, and originally from Boston (for what it's worth). It was Larry O'Brien who gave the big promotions to the fellow I pointed to in Chicago. That doesn't mean those are the only ones ~ just the ones I knew. No doubt there have been others, but it's simply not a common thing.
Really, the odds favor a letter shop's employee being the guilty party in this situation.
Of course the union leadership would be against it. We know that unions, whether they be representing workers of UPS or USPS, raise wages by reducing labor supply. I'm an ex-postal worker who is not automatically against any privatization plan. But I don't think it means instant utopia to discard the workers who have kept the mail moving. And I reject any scheme based on the James Bovard fairy tale that postal workers are nothing but worthless parasites. Yes, I won't try to argue that postal wages follow the MR=MC model. But economic inefficiency doesn't equal lack of dedicated work by most postal employees. That's my beef, not against privatization, but against the ridiculous generalizations made against my former coworkers by some prominent people promoting privatization.
It's true...the big regional post offices have hollow walls and ceilings with secret doors and viewing ports with cameras running...(or at least they did several years ago) you never knew when or where a Postal Inspector was going to pop out and take someone away...(though they promised to nail us only for stealing...and not shooting rubber bands at each other)...
If you even put so much as a canceled stamp in your pocket and got caught you were history..
They liked to bait traps for employees to test honesty...and get rid of people in a high profile way...just to let the sheep know.. "They Are Watching You"...
Though the big busts were kinda cool as it broke up the boredom...
They used to hire lots of urban youths...on a part time limited term basis...with no background checks...and these cats used to be hauled off on a fairly regular basis...
The idea of huge numbers of ballots disappearing is not likely at least not on the floor...
But the possibility of them having their routing tags switched on the APCs containing them and then having them moved into a private mail carrier would be possible...or at least would have been the last time I worked there ...(nearly 20 yrs ago)..
As tags were switched all the time as mail needed to be rerouted...and many of the big aluminum carts (APCs) were covered with a water proof vinyl
You cant really see what in the carts...so these tags could be switched around...and the carts sent off by truck...and few if any would be the wiser
If sent out of a large PO by private carrier these could also be switched or transfered along the way...unless they are all logged in by bar code automatically like UPS packages are these days.. and routinely scanned...then the point at which they were last logged in and by who would be a matter of record...
But if only the tags are scanned then putting phony tags on a cart could send it far far away and make it pretty tough to track it down for perhaps a couple of weeks...
Some of the private carriers I used to know...actually loaded up in the early evening and took their trucks home with them overnight and then delivered the mail to the various POs on their routes the next day..
Anything could have happend to the mail in their trucks over night at their private residences or in the parking lots where their trucks spent the night.
Though the theives would have to have at least a couple of people involved both on the loading docks and at least one conspirator inside the private carriers.
The more people involved the riskier and harder to conceal the crime becomes
The POs I've been in were pretty much dominated by one particular minority group.
And they tended to be quite far left in all attitudes...the article stating that the Mail Handlers union voted against the war in Iraq.. does not surprise in the least..the LSM crews and the OCR crews were even more liberal,
at least in the big urban POs...
20 yrs ago the unions were controlled by one minority group and there was even a union within the union that whites could not belong to... complaining about the unfairness of that... was something you did not want to do btw...
Politics in the USPS is un American...all paid for by US tax payers...
The USPS is a private business unless it is losing money and needs more funding..then it suddenly becomes a branch of the Federal Government...
I remember my boss trying to recruit me to go down to Chicago's main PO to work as a supervisor..once the the POs got rid of their armed guards...The large urban POs became nightmares to work in ..
Supervisors were required to work in pairs and threatened regulary Union thugs were nearly impossible to fire...gangs were pretty much taking over..there were assaults and rapes in the underground parking lots..Chicago's PO was more like a scene from that Kurt Russell movie "Escape from New York" than a US Post Office..Having worked as a bounceer and a prison guard right after college I had all the necessary skills to work as a supervisor in the Chicago PO..They would not let us carry concealed...so I turned the job down..
One of the most bizarre things I saw there was after the midnight shift got off and about 100 people filed out a door to the underground parking lot and stepped over the body of a homeless man who they pushed out of the way to get the door open...
I reached down to see if the guy had a pulse and many of the folks complained outloud that I was stupid for touching the guy...who knows what he died of...
I called out for someone to call 911 and all I heard was ..."You do it stupid ..youre the one worried about him"...
One lady stopped to help me...one of those people with a heart..
God bless her...
I came to the conclusion that the prisons I worked in were a safer environment...than the USPS Main urban POs
The USPS should have been privatized eons ago..but then the urban middle class would be pretty hard hit...
The Post Office is the largest provider of 'work fare' in the nation
This is the only reason it is still in business
Are there postal employees who are capable or who would likely engage in election fraud?.........absolutely... We know there are or have been postal employees who... go postal...this kind of crime is not as over the top as that kind....so there should be even more who are capable.. Most of the folks I worked with were decent but there were a few Who were quite capable of such things...and angry enough..hopefully they have outgrown their attitudes
If large numbers of ballots are missing I think it is quite possible they are dissapering off the loading docks..
I dont know if there are enough postal inspectors to track this as I doubt the ballots are more carefully guarded or tracked then any of the other valuable cargo that comes through the USPS IMO
Thank you postaldave. When I bring in packages to send to troops, I have been treated with the utmost respect at our post office. In fact, they know me now, and offer any special assistance they can provide me.
Are you sure? When you mail it it, you have to put a stamp on it. My daughter's ballot (she's going to school in Denver) showed up here marked "Returned for insufficient postage" in big red letters. I stuck a stamp on it and put it in the mailbox.
Which brings up another issue: How do you know if your absentee ballot ever gets to the counting table?
True...
the infowarrio
you are racist and simple don't know what your talking about. you want to know why we don't get the black vote? it's you, you are the problem. supervisors and inspectors are democrats? are you crack? what poll did you get that from? put your KKK hood back on and go back to the hole you came from.
"Most of the big USPS Postal Centers--General Mail Facilities(GMFs are dominated by blacks and government employee unions. A black employee has to be convicted of a major crime to be fired and even then his corrupt union and the NAACP would defend him or her. I would not be suprised if they were dumped in the garbage at a GMF. Also, postal supervisors and inspectors are heavily Democrat as they don't want postal privatized."
"Thank you postaldave. When I bring in packages to send to troops, I have been treated with the utmost respect at our post office. In fact, they know me now, and offer any special assistance they can provide me."
you want to know why? those "troops" are postalworkers. we have HUGE amount of reserve that are over there now. those are our co workers fighting this war.
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