The President has a Congress that is Republican after the mid-term elections. In light of this and in anticipation of getting down to some of his REAL agendas he has recently announced that he is going to seek to open for bid, to outside PRIVATE companies, many federal jobs, many if not all of which are union jobs.

While there has often been sufficient resistance to privatizing efforts in the past now it seems that the pieces are in place to get some of this legislation passed. I urged all of you to vote, and to vote your future. I hope many of you did so and expressed your concerns via your vote. We must now become more active in our efforts to secure our future and preserve our livelihoods.

I am not currently aware of any efforts underway to privatize the Postal Service but you can bet that it is only a matter of TIME. Now is the time for us to inundate Congress ant the President with letters telling them that we are opposed to privatizing federal jobs and especially the Postal Service. We cannot afford to sit idly by and let our fellow federal union workers be affected without trying our best to stop this legislation. Hopefully they will return the favor when it is our time on the chopping block.

I know writing letters and getting involved is the last thing on many people's minds especially in this holiday season, so I'm going to make things easy for people in the P&DC. I will have copies of letters, already addressed, that express our opposition to privatizing efforts and especially to preserving the Postal Service as a government entity. Just come and see me in the Flats section and I'll give you letters to mail. All you have to do is put your name and address on them and send them off.

There is only a small window of opportunity here for us to make a difference. When enough of these letters are received they will notice and something will be done. We have to do this and we have to do this NOW! Down the road it spells trouble for us and our jobs too.

By Theodore Torbich, Jr.

The American Dream - Union Made

The 2003 AFL-CIO Union-Industries Show - the largest exhibition of union workers' skills and services displaying millions of dollars worth of union-made, American-made products, will be held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, May 2 - 5.

This will be the third time in the Show's 65-year history that it will be staged in Pittsburgh. The show was first held in 1938 and was forced to skip some of the World War II years; but, restarting in 1948 in Milwaukee, the Show has run each and every year since. Other Show visits to Pittsburgh were in 1965 and 1982.

In recent years, the Show has evolved into an educational forum to provide participating unions the opportunity to showcase the skills and expertise of their members and the value they add to their communities and lent\d to the nation.

"The American Dream - Union Made" will be the theme at the Pittsburgh Show. Exhibits by unions and companies with union-represented employees, many from the Pittsburgh area, will cover floor space the equivalent of over four football fields.

Show goers who have ever wondered about what goes through a firefighter's mind as he or she enters a burning building, or what is involved in producing the special effects for a science-fiction movie, or what it's like to be an electrician, a welder, or a bricklayer, will be able to get their questions answered. The Show is considered by many as the largest career expo in the country. For young people, in particular, the Show is a great place to get a first-hand look at the wide range of good jobs that are available for those who prepare for them.

Scores of show goers will take home valuable prizes ranging from cars to a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, big ticket appliances to groceries and other giveaways. Admission is free.

Produced by the AFL-CIO Union Label and Service Trades Department, the Show is a collaborative effort by the area union families, in cooperation with the unions and employers throughout the State. The 2002 Minneapolis Show was a great success with some 25,000 Midwesterners turning out to see what the Show was all about.

"We are excited about the opportunity to host the 2003 AFL-CIO Union Industries Show in Pittsburgh at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. The Show is an educational and entertaining experience for the whole family," said Charles E. Mercer, president of the Union Label and Service Trades Department. "The exhibits, demonstrations and prizes offer something for everyone."

Show hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, May 2, through Monday, May 5. Those interested in participating or visiting the Pittsburgh AFL-CIO Union Industries Show can learn more at Union Industries Show.

Forget Enron, WorldCom, and the other public companies who cooked their books and, as a result, emptied stockholders' pockets. Upon information and belief, the U.S. Postal Service tops them all.

The powers to be at the USPS not only cooked the books, they also barbecued, deep fried, grilled and everything else known to man, in their accounting and reporting of their sponsorship of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France bicycle team since 1997.

Is this why the USPS continues to lose more than a billion dollars every year? Enron and WorldCom went bankrupt. Uncle Sam has bigger pockets to bail the post office out when periodic rate increases don't cover all the losses. Maybe Congress or a Presidential commission will answer the question in 2003. The losers of course are all taxpayers and letter writers.

Freedom of Information
After more than four months of requesting all pertinent material from the postal service under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in connection with its cycling sponsorship from 1997 through 2002, two basic conclusions can be drawn from the hodge podge of documents received by the Lake Worth Herald and Observer newspapers.

1. The USPS's bookkeeping efforts would fail any school's Accounting 101 class.
2. Postal executives live well when they travel.

Following the Lake Worth Herald and Observer newspapers' FOIA requests August 9 and September 6, the post office sent a half-inch stack of documents in October that an experienced forensic accountant would throw up his/her hands trying to understand. Very few pages were alike.

One can only imagine what the Internal Revenue Service would do to a company who reported its numbers in a like fashion.

Finally, responding to a third newspaper request for additional material and clarification, the USPS sent another 100 pages or so on November 18 that tried to explain the original submission and correct some information from documents previously received.

While we were trying to make sense out of the latest information, the post office sent an additional batch of material November 25 they found in one of the Federal Records Centers in California.

When one compares the first batch of papers to subsequent papers, conflicting reports turn up. We have not decided whether the USPSs's reporting is due to ineptness in their accounting practices or a deliberate attempt to hide expenses in their sponsorship program.

The Puzzle
As we start putting the pieces of the puzzle together, here are a few highlights from 2001:

*On July 3, 2001, then Vice President of Sales Gail Sonnenberg and her husband flew to Geneva, one day after the USPS raised postal rates. During less than one month, she expensed nearly $20,000 to the post office for two roundtrip flights and $1,020 a day hotel charges among other expenditures.

*Diane Regan [Sales] and her husband expensed $7,906 over a one-month period.

*George Hurst [Sales], along with his wife, expensed $7,237 in less than one month invoicing hotel charges of $198 and $187 for the same day, July 13.
Two weeks later he was in the Marriott Hotel at $335.

*Sales executive David Mastervich was in Paris, July 26-29 racking up $4,341 in expenses.

*John Kelly, president of package services, spent some $8,000 in one week led by $6,000 in airfare and $364 a-day hotel.

And This Year
After two more postal rate increases, the USPS took off to Paris in 2002. From expense reports, we have been able to pull out the following:

*Roundtrip airfares for the USPS contingent from the U.S. to Paris ran as low as $770 and as high as $6,700 and everywhere in between.

*Acting Vice President of Sales Michael Jordan and his wife spent $1,100 a day for five days at the Marriott Hotel in Paris on top of substantial food charges at Paris' finest restaurants, a side trip to Luxembourg, a $260 dinner cruise, adding up to more than $25,000 over a one month period. His airfare was $6,047 and $5,900 for two trips he made during the period.

*Anita Bizotto, Chief Marketing Officer, expensed $16,685 in one month in Paris and Grenoble, including, nearly $6,000 for hotel, over $2,000 for lunches and dinners and $259 dinner cruise.

*Public Affairs Specialist Greg Allen spent $8,269 over a couple of weeks while only spending $796 on airfare.

*Public Affairs Specialist Joyce Carrier spent nearly $11,000 in 19 days. Her hotel was $551 a day.

*Alixe Johnson, sales department, had cheap airfare of $770 but still managed to spend almost $8,000 in one week.

Our Preliminary Conclusion:
Neither snow, nor rain, nor sleet of day will stop some postal workers from living high on the hog in Paris in fancy hotels, haute cuisine restaurants; dinner cruises and upgraded air travel.

Algood Foods, producers of peanut butter carrying the Reeses brand name as well as generic peanut butter with store brand labels that include IGA, Safeway, Price Wise and Price Saver, has been added to the AFL-CIO National Boycott List at the request of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Algood also sells peanut butter as an ingredient for snack food products, ice cream, cookies and candies. Manufacturers purchasing Algood products include Hagan Daz, Meijers, Marzetti's, Pillsbury, Nabisco, Apple Valley Farms, and Nellson Candies.

Sixty production, maintenance and sanitation workers represented by Teamsters Local 89 at the company's main plant near Louisville, Kentucky were forced out on strike on October 14, 2002 over what are essentially dignity issues.

The strike was sparked when the workers voted to reject management demands for heavy-handed new rules on absenteeism, to remove union workers from equipment maintenance and repair functions and to curtail workers' voices in setting vacation schedules.

A coalition of students, religious leaders and union members led by UNITE launched a national campaign to send a message to the apparel maker and retailer Gap Inc. that consumers will not continue to purchase clothing produced under sweatshop conditions. The Don't Buy Me Gap This Holiday Season campaign coincides with the release of a new UNITE study, which details how Gap systematically drives down wages while exploiting the workers who produce its clothing.

In the report, Gap's Global Sweatshop, workers relate experiences of physical and sexual harassment, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, low and unfair wages and repression of workplace rights.

Gap Inc.-- which sells its casual wear and other apparel under the Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Gapkids and babyGap labels -- had sales of nearly $14 billion last year, making it the largest name-brand retailer in the world. As a result of its size, Gap sets the standard for wages in the global apparel industry. (For more information, visit www.behindthelable.org)

Another anti-sweatshop group, United Students Against Sweatshops, placed ads in newspapers at several leading universities urging shoppers to avoid Gap clothing stores this holiday season. To learn more, visit www.unasnet.org.

This is an extremely dangerous time for working people. Backers of a corporate agenda now control all branches of government. Working families need unions more than ever to balance corporate power on the job and in public policy.

And to influence public policy so it benefits rather than harms working families, we have to grow. To revive America's manufacturing base, to save Social Security from privatization, to ensure working families can get health care and medicine, we have to grow. To prevent the presidential dismantling of collective bargaining we've seen in the airline industry and at West Coast ports, we have to grow. We have to grow to keep workplaces safe and make them fairer, to safeguard pensions from corporate theft and to protect the rights of immigrant workers. To win for working families in 2003, we have to grow.

We know the corporate agenda backed by the White House and the congressional majority will not address the economic pain working families are feeling. More tax cuts for the rich aren't going to help unemployed workers find jobs. Prescription drug legislation funded by the pharmaceutical industry isn't going to resolve seniors' dilemma about whether to buy food or needed drugs.

by John J. Sweeney
The preceding is from America @ Work

Did you miss the "old" news? Is there a story or an item that you want to go back and review? Then the News Archives are what you're looking for! This is where we store back "issues" of safety and general news for member's reference.

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