Decertify NRLCA Poll

[Gotrope]

You get what you pay for

No kidding. My past State union dues were $2880 a year. You most definitely were defended and contracts were brutal for employer.
I make 3x the pension from other job as feds will give me. $250k free lifetime life insurance and free healthcare. Free gym membership, too.

 

[Gotrope]

The ability to strike is what got them their deal. Without that ability no union will be able to make things better. That’s the only leverage we would have against USPS.

Well, they could try the media information angle like other unions try. Seems to help.

 

[Waynorth]

The ability to strike is what got them their deal. Without that ability no union will be able to make things better. That’s the only leverage we would have against USPS.

the fear of strike was a large part of why they got the deal sure but your paying dues to a union that can neither strike nor bargain in good faith a union that when questioned from media outlets about rural carrier issues recently RRECCS the union cowardly does not comment. Why are they afraid to throw the post offices dirty laundry out there? NRLCA is in place to protect are wages and our well being not the post offices.

 

[BluesClues]

What's the backup plan? Hope Teamsters represents us? Nothing official has been stated that teamsters will represent us from Teamsters if the NRLCA is actually decertified AND they have told us in the past that they do NOT want to represent us. You have no back up plan and are just accepting what a single angry individual who managed to get a decently sized petition against the NRLCA going says and THAT is concerning. If we have no union at all we will be steamrolled by the USPS out of the little scraps of benefits we have left. I don't like our union and it's actions, but I'm not going to vote to decertify it when there is no plan in place after it is decertified.

So give me your references, where did it say or state that the Teamsters would not want to represent us? Without good evidence of this, or more recent communication from the Teamsters regarding their lack of desire to represent us would be helpful.

 

[Surprise!]

The ability to strike is what got them their deal. Without that ability no union will be able to make things better. That’s the only leverage we would have against USPS.

Why so? We lost what we have against people that do not have the right to strike. Why are they dangerous and we are not? I don't see any place that the Postal Service won a real fight because of direct authority over us. We lost because we agreed to be taken. We took the Postal Service word that we were getting a fair deal. We listened to the people on this board that preached the Postal Service mantra.

The Union directly gave up pay with out a fuss. How do you strike against something cheerfully accepted? We don't learn how to position our selves we base it all on how we feel about it. I think as a group we defeated ourselves.

 

[Edge]

Actually, you might be on to something and got me thinking. While this initial effort is just but one step in the process, say a decertification vote occurs and the effort prevails. What that means is that the NRLCA and those in office as we know it / them are done. All new people could just assume the positions. And I mean all new people, too. The custodian who has been working at Duke St. forever..................gone. No more of the same people for decades dodging their routes and just shuffling positions on the board just to give the illusion of change.

Hey boss can I get in on that duke st custodian position?

 

[Worve]

Hey boss can I get in on that duke st custodian position?

You sure you want that job, can only imagine the amount of you have to muck out of the stables I mean offices.

 

[DB.Cooper]

No kidding. My past State union dues were $2880 a year. You most definitely were defended and contracts were brutal for employer.
I make 3x the pension from other job as feds will give me. $250k free lifetime life insurance and free healthcare. Free gym membership, too.

Doesn't NALC pay a bit more than us as well....

 

[Gotrope]

Doesn't NALC pay a bit more than us as well....

Each nalc local is different but, mine pays $63 a pp for regs. $36 for cca.

 

[EthelAnne]

Edited to say....let's say we pull this off and get the Teamsters. Le's say they do a really great job for us....that could prompt NALC to follow our lead. We aren't much of a bargaining unit in number, but we have many bigger bargaining units under our employer that are watching and could decide to drop AFL-CIO.

I think people who believe the Teamsters will bring unicorns and lollipops to all rural carriers if they represent us might learn a lot by looking at the AFL-CIO and their affiliation with the APWU and NALC (spoiler alert: clerks and city carriers do not all have unicorns and lollipops).

I don’t know precisely what it means to be “affiliated” to a massive labor organization like the AFL-CIO but I think it would mean at the very least it gives you access to some of the broad, wide-ranging resources, knowledge and experience of that organization.

I think this is the enormous, over-riding problem with NRLCA: power is concentrated in, literally, a handful of people who have no experience outside the very narrow world view as rural carriers and the USPS. The NRLCA sees this as their selling point: we are experts on the rural craft! No one knows it like we do!

But they don’t know much else beyond the rural craft. And that broad, wide ranging knowledge that a large labor organization could bring has value. A Teamster or AFL-CIO may not know what a lock pouch stop is, but they may bring negotiating skills, PR and media relations skills, lobbying skills that I just don’t believe the eight people on Duke Street have in their repertoire.

Organized labor in this country, for all the good it has done, has a long history of corruption so many of us have legitimate reasons to be skeptical of aligning with the Teamsters or the AFL-CIO (which, as I said, hasn’t brought unicorns and lollipops to clerks and city side), but I think we need to dilute the power of the people on Duke Street—it needs to be diffused so there are twenty, thirty, fifty people making decisions there. That will force them to work toward consensus and more fairly represent membership. Right now, we’re being dictated to by a handful of people who are only consulting with one another and all agreeing with one another because they are working on maintaining support for the next NRLCA election.

 

[EthelAnne]

And this point has already been made in this thread but it needs to be repeated: representation by the Teamsters or the AFL-CIO is going to cost us. But as I said upthread, you get what you pay for …

 

[Surprise!]

What would happen if the NRLCA would just halt this evaluated crap and fight like crazy for one pay table hourly rate for all career? I really think the Teamsters would do a better job of dropping that bomb.

Edited to say....let's say we pull this off and get the Teamsters. Le's say they do a really great job for us....that could prompt NALC to follow our lead. We aren't much of a bargaining unit in number, but we have many bigger bargaining units under our employer that are watching and could decide to drop AFL-CIO.

NRLCA is in the top 30 largest unions in the United States.

 

[KDM]

Yes. This is exactly what I hope to gain.

When we continue to work without a contract with no strike rights then we have no leverage no matter what union. When the other unions settle for 1.3% no other union will expect more. We need new members that will fight against some of this RRECS stuff and other benefits to increase hiring and retaining all employees.

 

[lbpd16]

When we continue to work without a contract with no strike rights then we have no leverage no matter what union. When the other unions settle for 1.3% no other union will expect more. We need new members that will fight against some of this RRECS stuff and other benefits to increase hiring and retaining all employees.

“No strike rights”

This guy gets it!

 

[Dahanan1975]

What's the backup plan? Hope Teamsters represents us? Nothing official has been stated that teamsters will represent us from Teamsters if the NRLCA is actually decertified AND they have told us in the past that they do NOT want to represent us. You have no back up plan and are just accepting what a single angry individual who managed to get a decently sized petition against the NRLCA going says and THAT is concerning. If we have no union at all we will be steamrolled by the USPS out of the little scraps of benefits we have left. I don't like our union and it's actions, but I'm not going to vote to decertify it when there is no plan in place after it is decertified.

He has made it plain that if another union is not secured he would not go through with decertification of nrlca.

 

[Gotrope]

Here’s the real conservation.

This union suffers from a failure of engagement from carriers on the local level.

Every issue a carrier wishes to discusses comes from a base root of not enough carriers take the time to be involve.

I’ve dedicated my time since 2017 to understanding the why.

The why is simple.

Carriers nationwide do not find hope in tomorrow in the current direction of this union.

While I’ve tried in my time as a rural carrier to bring an honest conversation for the future.

The system that has been built within the NRLCA is too deep for the changes that need to happen yesterday.

There isn’t the one or a group of individuals really speaking towards a positive future. It’s just the same conversation, different cloth.

I’ve spent a lot of time debating this question of decertifying the union.

And if Johnny Chandler and I forgot the name the other individual that is involved. He has a meeting scheduled to talk to the Teamsters.

If that meeting is successful on garnering Teamster support in the event this movement being successful and moving toward the next step of a nationwide vote to decertify the NRLCA and at the same time choose the Teamsters to represent Rural Carriers nationwide.

I say go for it. Shake the puzzle pieces up in the hopes an honest conversation can be had. In the hopes that politics be removed. That carriers nationwide one day may look to a union with the hope of a better tomorrow.

That hope for a better tomorrow does not lie within the National Leadership of the NRLCA.

You do realize it's against federal law to run a raid on an existing union? That means no one may speak to the membership prior to their decertification vote. Tiny felony repercussions.
I still think hard term limits for union role would improve things. Spread valuable knowledge among more people and those temporarily in positions would be more willing to fight for real gains since they know their position is temporary.

 

[Gotrope]

Never said anything about a raid.

The teamster situation isn’t a raid. It’s just a member that is leading the cause looking to erase doubt that if successful there will be another union willing to step up and represent.
I’m just voicing my support for this movement because of my opinion the NRLCA will never change that the roots of the current mindset have been set too deep for anyone to attempt change.

Just my opinion from my time analyzing the situation.

In legal terms, a union voted in by membership cannot be taken over by a hostile raid of another representative group. Only if those members vote to decertify representation may another group speak to the members about representation.
At the last decertification vote, nalc said they would consider representation of rurals. However, federal law forbid any discussion on the topic between membership and nalc because technically, the members were under a duly recognized union to represent them already.
We all have issues with nrlca being a dog and pony show. I would be cautious of discussing a new rural union unless the current one is defunct.
You are welcome and encouraged to discuss the value of keeping the current shambles.

 

[Unclewolverine]

In legal terms, a union voted in by membership cannot be taken over by a hostile raid of another representative group. Only if those members vote to decertify representation may another group speak to the members about representation.
At the last decertification vote, nalc said they would consider representation of rurals. However, federal law forbid any discussion on the topic between membership and nalc because technically, the members were under a duly recognized union to represent them already.
We all have issues with nrlca being a dog and pony show. I would be cautious of discussing a new rural union unless the current one is defunct.
You are welcome and encouraged to discuss the value of keeping the current shambles.

Tell this to all the people complaining about not wanting to vote for decertification unless we already have another union lined up.

 

[RollinRural]

When a union is decertified, the previous contract is no longer in force because one of the parties — the old union — is no longer around. This means that the benefits afforded by the previous contract are no longer in effect.
Say goodbye to your 5% match, your healthcare, your step increases, and everything else.
Unless you have a union lined up who can negotiate a new contract right away, we’re all screwed. With the NRLCA, at least our current/old contract is still effective until a new contract is ratified. With decertification we lose that.
Come in to work and do whatever route the manager wants you to do because there’s no contract protections.
Genius idea folks. Good luck with that…

 

[Gotrope]

Tell this to all the people complaining about not wanting to vote for decertification unless we already have another union lined up.

I don't know that too many people actually understand the process. There is a period of time after a successful desertification vote where the nrlca would still exist under trustee as a representative arm awaiting transfer of membership owned liabilities and properties to next representative team.
I do get very sad when others purposely spread misinformation. I was somewhere recently when a union person said, " evaluation is the best way. I'd rather get paid 8 hours and go home at noon."
1) they clearly haven't delivered mail in eons if they think anyone is working a 4 hour day anymore.
2) how unsafe and risky speeds is that carrier flying at to accomplish noon?
3) 8 hours is 8 hours. Both are paid the same, one does much more work for 8 hours pay than the other. City carriers don't tend to wear out body parts as fast as rural.
4) they are comparing two different types of payment systems which do not equate. If the city carrier were evaluated, they too would be going home earlier and exhibiting more risk acceptable behavior to do so. You put rural on the clock, watch them slow down.


At times nrlca puts out very misleading, if not downright dishonest information and slow thinking puppets parrot it to others.