President Dimondstein Delivers State of the Union Address at the APWU 27th Biennial National Convention

On Opening Day of the APWU 27th Biennial National Convention, President Dimondstein delivered his State of the Union address. See belwo for the full transcript:

Union Greetings APWU Family!

Welcome delegates to the 27th Biennial Convention, our grand union meeting under our theme, “Energize, Organize, Mobilize!” as we gather in the great labor city of Detroit.

I salute all of you – frontline fighters! Be proud of your passionate work for safer workplaces, better staffing and service, defending co-workers against injustice, organizing the unorganized, enforcing the contract and standing in solidarity with all workers. Without activists like you, there would not be an APWU! Look all around and you see a rainbow of delegates from all walks of life, united in a common struggle for justice — give yourselves and each other a standing ovation for we are “Union Strong, All Day Long!”

I am honored to come before you to share the “State of Our Union” and highlights of our work over the last two years. But first some observations about the times we are in:

Our times are both dangerous and promising. On one hand there is rising bigotry and a torrent of white supremacist race hatred, deepening attacks on workers’, women’s and democratic rights, coordinated voter suppression tactics largely directed at undermining Vote-by-Mail being pushed behind the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, a reactionary and deeply corrupt Supreme Court  and a profit driven climate crisis threatening life on earth. Our tax dollars and weapons are shamefully being used to unleash war crimes against innocent men, women and children of Gaza. The current threat of fascist dictatorship, and with it the crushing of the labor movement, is very real is witnessed by the despicable coup attempt of January 6th.

Corporate power consistently tilts the scales to favor billionaires at the expense of the working class. Obscene income inequality shockingly results in the three  wealthiest U.S. individuals having a combined wealth exceeding the bottom 50% of the population, some 160 million people! The bloated military industrial complex enriches Wall Street and multi-national defense corporations at the expense of the peoples’ needs.

Any of you who were at our last Convention, or have heard me speak since, have heard me raise those concerns before. The truth is that those threats are not just still with us two years on, they continue to grow in their seriousness and the danger they pose to working people, our democratic rights, and the very future of human life on this planet.

But while we have much work ahead of us workers are on the march and rising in the face of these crises — drawing on lessons of the pandemic and life experience – that it is we the workers versus the bosses, Wall Street vs. Main Street and Labor vs Capital. Support for unions is at its highest point in decades, and highest among young workers. We have witnessed significant union organizing successes and many workers – delivery, auto, warehouse, hotel, railroad, actors, retail, grocery, and education — ready and willing to withhold their labor to get what they have earned and deserve as the workers who create all wealth.

These struggles remind us of our militant history of the 1970 historic postal strike. Those who came before us engaged in an unlawful victorious strike and won a much better life for themselves and those postal workers who followed. (Strikers in the room stand up!!!)

So how are we doing in these times full of challenges but also opportunity? The state of our APWU is indeed “Union Strong All Day Long!”

Since our last convention postal workers have benefited from the implementation of the strong union contract ratified with a 94% vote in early 2022. With our strong COLAs, we have weathered this period of high inflation, aptly called “greedflation” as corporate profits soar as life is harder on working people. COLA gains amount to a phenomenal $5,325 a year for full-time career workers and $2.67/hour for PTFs, in addition to annual wage and regular step increases. While our hard-working PSEs do not receive COLAs, once converted they will pick up the COLA in the career pay scale. And with the great advance in the last contract of automatic career conversion after two years for most PSEs, we have secured the conversion of over 25,000 PSEs since our last convention added to the stunning total of 131,000 union won conversions since 2014!  “Union Strong All Day Long!”

With the current contract due to expire on September 20th we just opened negotiations for a new main collective bargaining agreement covering the wages, hours and working conditions of approximately 200,000 postal workers, the largest union negotiations in the country this year.

Negotiations are never easy. Two sides enter the battlefield with different priorities and perspectives.

I am once again honored to be your lead negotiator and to be working with a strong negotiating committee. Industrial Relations Director and chief spokesperson Charlie Cash has been skillfully leading the preparations including meetings with economists, attorneys, union staff, and the negotiating committee. We have reviewed resolutions from previous conventions, as well as the recent contract survey. The Rank-and-File Bargaining Advisory Committee has been appointed and met.  

Our general goals I am sure you agree with: Protect the many gains of the past, including our incredible career “no-layoff” job security protection, the 50-mile limit on excessing, and our full COLAs. Then enhance our solid foundation to include good annual wage increases, continuing to bridge the gaps between the divisive wage tiers established in the 2010 concessionary contract, and striving for an all-career workforce.

Building maximum power and leverage is a key to success in negotiations as we proclaim, “Good Contract Now, Union Proud, Say it Loud!” Our inspiring  kick off rally underscores we are not alone with labor and community allies standing with us.  Our building union power organizing campaign under the solid guidance of Organizing Director Anna Smith and your hard work yielded over 87,000 new members as we opened negotiations – A powerful message to management. “Union Strong All Day Long!”

Winning the best contract possible is the single most important goal for postal workers this year and I urge the delegates to ensure this  convention does not take any actions that unnecessarily put our COLA and job security at risk, or undermine the ability of your leadership to negotiate a voluntary, good and fair contract.

There is no doubt that we are being challenged by the doubled edged sword of management’s “network modernization” plan.

As union leaders, we should never replace facts with wishful thinking. As such we must recognize that the mail mix has profoundly and permanently changed due to the rapid advance of a computerized, internet-based revolution. Online bill paying, email, docusign , text messages and online advertising have resulted in a deep reduction of letter and flat volume. Last year first-class letter mail, the main revenue driver for USPS, fell to 46 billion pieces, from a peak of 103 billion in 2001.

But due to ecommerce, packages are rising, representing the main opportunity for more revenue, job protection, and growth.

So we recognize that changes in technology and the mail will result in needed changes in machinery, buildings, transportation, and jobs. We’ve seen this before – Remote Encoding Centers, LSM and now the FSS – all gone.

And there are parts of the “modernization” plan that the APWU absolutely opposes.  The moving of locally- generated mail destined for the local service area to be processed hundreds of miles away and eliminating afternoon truck runs – both result in mail delays.

Management’s incompetence in implementing the plan thus far has been outrageous, causing severe delays and breaking the bond with the people of the country. Poor service also becomes fuel for those who aim to privatize the Postal Service. The service must be fixed, the plan slowed down, and some of the management decisions reversed. PMG DeJoy may have inherited a dysfunctional and declining Postal Service, but he is now the “captain of the ship” and the problems are his to fix, rather than make worse.

APWU activists like you throughout the country have done a commendable job raising the alarm bells and demanding that no matter who we are or where we live, the people deserve “first-class” service.

We continue to meet  with management, the Office of Inspector General, the Board of Governors , and Congressional representatives, advocating for good and improved service and pushing for a moratorium on the network changes. We successfully negotiated a critical agreement that protects retail operations and jobs when carriers are moved to the S & DC larger units.  

Through it all, we will stick to the issues, support what we support and fight what we oppose. But simply maintaining the status quo and refusing to change with the times, places our jobs and future at risk.

Over many decades, postal workers have faced a hostile management culture that has proven difficult to fix. In 2023 we moved the issue of the toxic work environment front and center. We will continue to do so in negotiations and in the streets. It is long overdue that abusive managers are held accountable by upper management! Don’t you agree!!??

We connected with the public as short staffing negatively affects service and creates a more stressful workplace. We have launched our “Better Staffing, Better Service” campaign.

As much of our future depends on enhanced and expanded services   we welcome the new opportunities of the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act (PSRA) which allows the USPS to perform non-postal services for local, state, and tribal government agencies. What better ambassadors than us postal workersto  identify new opportunities such as fishing and hunting licenses, notary services, internet access, EV charging stations, metro passes, car registration and licensing, and basic financial services leading to postal banking.

In the legislative arena the APWU works both to stop bad legislation and promote positive legislation that helps postal and all workers. With the terrific leadership of Legislative and Political Director Judy Beard, we have accomplished more in Congress recently than in many previous decades including $10 billion in COVID relief funds, Emergency Federal Employee Leave, and the historic Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 which eliminated the draconian prefunding mandate of future retiree health care costs that was strangling the USPS and monies for the needed transition to an EV delivery fleet.

We have helped build strong bi-partisan support in both the House and Senate to  correct the unfair bipartisan 1984 legislation that drastically reduced Civil Service retirees earned Social Security benefits. We owe it to those who came before us to right this wrong.

In addition, we are deeply involved in the early stages of promoting legislation that would allow former PSEs, once converted to career, to “buy back” their time for retirement benefits.

While the APWU is on record recognizing the limitations of the two-party corporate-dominated political system, we remain committed to electing pro-worker candidates who support us and a strong public Postal Service. With an election this Fall, we we should weigh the ramifications of the dangerous march toward dictatorship – and what it would mean to the rights of the people, workers, our unions, the public Post Office, and the well-being of society. History has taken us down this road before, and it was called Nazi Germany.

We continue to push and, where possible, cooperate with postal management, as we did in 2020 and 2022, to ensure that election mail moves through the system and arrives on time so every vote counts. The people deserve nothing less.

I am pleased to report that since our last convention we have made significant gains in winning back  subcontracted work. Starting with a pilot program in Oklahoma, and now spread to six other cities, driving work has been brought “in house” with the potential of thousands of new APWU represented jobs.  In addition, management is ending  the subcontracting of the Surface Transfer Centers (STCs) and Terminal Handling Services (THS) work, which will now be performed by unionized postal workers.

After years of planning, we are thrilled that the APWU Leadership Institute is up and running with the first inaugural class “graduating” in May. Hats off to the 32 participants, the staff who planned and facilitated the program, and the many officers and friends who engaged in teaching.

The Leadership Institute is a concentrated union education program as we owe it to ourselves and future postal workers to make a serious investment today in tomorrow’s leaders of our great union.

We are following our Constitutional duties and Convention mandate to engage  seriously in organizing all workers in the mailing and package industry, as a vital part of building power. We have won a number of organizing campaigns with HCR drivers and welcome these proud new members into our ranks. But there is no bigger need and challenge than taking on the wealthy, anti-union behemoth called Amazon. Organizing Amazon must be a priority of the entire labor movement as a non-union Amazon brings down the standards of all workers. Later in the convention you will hear from these courageous workers.

Through the determined efforts of local and state officers and shop stewards we continue to aggressively carry out the hard and needed work of enforcing the contract. We encourage new and young workers to step up as future activists and leaders. The Young Members Committee continues to move forward. (Stand up leaders!); The retirees department continues to grow now with ____ chapters and we appreciate the good work of the APWU Auxiliary consisting of family members and friends; The Stand Up for Safe Jobs Campaign prioritizes this vital issue; Run out of the Human Relations Department, the union has advanced education surrounding injury compensation with a cadre of Regional Resource Assistants; A core of representatives has been trained by the Clerk Craft to assist locals on jurisdictional issues with the Mailhandlers; We constantly improve our communications —  our award winning website is visited 45,000 times a week,  emailing and texting reaches 100,000 members all while still publishing our informative bi-monthly magazine and News Service Bulletins; We recently introduced a Podcast and audio versions of the officer’s magazine articles. We opened an APWU History Center — for history helps inspire and guide us for the battles ahead. We continued to make the COVID Test Kit mailings a success; The national leadership is fully engaged to ensure that the transition this coming year to the Postal Service Health Benefit Plans within FEHB  proceeds as smoothly as possible and the OPM guidelines accurately reflect the law; We participated in the UNI Global Union world conference understanding that international solidarity is vital and we have much to learn from each other; Many activists joined picket lines in solidarity with striking auto workers and others.

I am privileged to serve with a strong core of national leaders. I salute all the craft directors, assistant directors, department directors, regional coordinators, and the National Business Agents for their hard work and dedication to the members and movement. Also, to our hard-working Headquarters staff who we rely on to accomplish our tasks and move the union forward. A special shout out to Secretary-Treasurer Elizabeth “Liz” Powell and her staff for the months of hard work to pull this convention together and make it a success!

We are meeting on the 60th Anniversary of the historic 1964 Civil Rights Act and the brutal KKK murder of three civil rights workers. They are reminders of how far we have come through courageous struggle but still how far we have to go to win true equality and justice. The APWU and the labor movement must be a force for good. As a social justice union, let us counter bigotry, immigrant bashing and race hatred with unity, for division is the boss’s game. We must up the fight to defend and expand voting rights and compel the federal government to stop hiding behind the anti-democratic filibuster rules and pass voting rights legislation to stop the new wave of voter suppression. We must stand with the right to protest, as our movement was founded on protest. We must stand with all workers who are organizing, standing up, rallying, and striking for a better life. And regardless of our personal political beliefs, we must unite as small “d” democratic and fair-minded folks we must reject “wanna be” dictators as part of defending our union and worker rights.

We recognize there are no magic wands. We will not win every battle. But looking back on the last few years, the APWU continues to meet the moment. Even when the seas are stormy, when winds of change bring new challenges, and in these perilous times, we link arms together with each other and in solidarity with labor and community allies.

The sturdy ship APWU built over generations of struggle, will continue to chart the course to safe harbor and a bright future for postal workers and the postal public.

Let us be inspired by the words of Tommy Douglas, the beloved Canadian leader of their labor party and their health care as a human right medical system, Courage My Friends, Tis not too late to build a better world!” Let us “Energize, Organize, Mobilize” for a better life for all postal workers. Let us “Energize, Organize, Mobilize” for better service to the people and to defend our public national treasure from the fangs of the Wall Street privatizers. Let us Energize, Organize and Mobilize to defend and expand voting rights and that cherished democratic rights will not die on our watch. Let us “Energize, Organize and Mobilize” to win ever more workers’ power for, as the words of our labor anthem Solidarity Forever proclaims:

“In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold, Greater than the might of armies magnified a thousand-fold, we can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old, for the union makes us strong.

Brothers, sisters, siblings, comrades and family – good to be with you in the trenches as the struggle for justice continues. Solidarity Forever!