Author: tommyroma

Where Do We Go From Here

With the 2020 Presidential election over and President-elect Joe Biden ready to become our 46th President of the United States the question still remains, (Where do we go from here). I would tell you that President Joe Biden a moderate senator all his life is the perfect choice to bring Senators from both parties together for the good of the nation. I certainly hope he is given the chance.

As for the Postal Service, we did it again. Our employees are seen as hero’s here in New York and around the nation. I also would like to give credit to PMG. Louis Dejoy and the leadership team, along with our employees, for raising the bar to make sure we delivered the Ballots in a timely manner. Remember my motto, When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

The future of the Postal service would be bright if we got a little help from Congress. We know we can’t continue to operate under present conditions. If they would relieve us of the 5.3 billion dollar albatross for future retirees’ benefits, that would be a great help. PMG Dejoy has stated that we are now players in the Parcel business and need to upgrade our truck fleet, let’s not talk about it, let’s do it. What we really need is to be left alone to do our job, not be micromanaged, and have the respect of the U.S.P.S. I remember the words of Naps greatest President Vince Palladino when he said to me, we must show the USPS that we are not the enemy and only want what is best for Naps and the USPS. A lawsuit and an appeal of the decision of the lawsuit, certainly does not bode well with the USPS. History will show that NAPS should be going to Congress to modify Title 39, which in my opinion favors the USPS over all management associations. We have gone down this road before and never have been successful. In the eyes of the Postal service and Title 39, we are a supervisors association and represent EAS supervisors and managers, and are not entitled to represent Postmasters, yet when faced with the same problem years ago, Vince Palladino told the USPS, anybody can represent anybody is how he got around that problem. We represent about 3500 Postmasters today in Naps and the only way we can represent them officially is to change the verbiage of Title 39. This is why we should have gone to Congress rather than suing the USPS.

In closing let me say, in my opinion, now that the election is history, we should all rally around our new PMG, give him the full cooperation he needs to furnish us with a new working model that will last for years, and give us a bigger and better USPS, ready to take on all challenges. I am putting my trust in the PMG, how can I not back a guy born and raised in Brooklyn N.Y. not to do the right thing.

Changing Times

The Postal Service is in a state of flux as we speak. COVID-19 has drained the already financially strapped Postal Service of any reserve funds we might have had, and the man occupying the White House is hell-bent on destroying us. He refuses to include us in any stimulus bills he has offered, saying to his minions, fix it up and sell it to the highest bidder. His disdain for Jeff Bezos, Amazon C.E.O. goes back long before he settled into the White House. Jeff Bezos the C.E.O. of Amazon is also the owner of the Washington Post, a tabloid which has been unkind to Trump over the years. So, in the interim we the Postal Service become the pawns in their private war. Let’s face it; the Republicans want no part of vote by mail. They will do anything to destroy it. Could this be the reason why the man in the White House wants to kill the Postal Service? He would not have to worry about vote by mail if the Postal Service were not around. President Obama said just that recently at Congressman John Lewis’s Funeral. Everybody knows it, but it took President Obama to say it. MY KIND OF GUY. So now Congress wants to call P.M.G. Louis DeJoy to testify about the disappearance of mail boxes from routes, and the removal of all kinds of machinery from the plants, he will give the corporate answer, that in order to make the Postal Service viable again, these matters had to addressed. It is funny that his plan, even if viable, was enacted just before the Presidential elections in November, and the vote by mail controversy has raised its ugly head. Everyone knows that Trump and the Republicans fear vote by mail and will do anything to stop it. Our delivery standards really went down the drain when Mr. DeJoy stated in a letter to the field that if the Plant can’t get the mail to the carriers on time, the carriers would tie out and go to the street with whatever mail they had, and the rest of mail, which arrives late from the plant, would be delivered  the next day. We were never taught to leave mail behind, our motto always was, EVERY PIECE EVERY DAY. I don’t believe that the rest of the letter which stated, no overtime or T time, no calls ins for a full 8 hours, and no extra transportation, could be attributed to the P.M.G. That came from one of his minions in delivery on the new leadership team. The COVID-19 virus dictates our daily rosters on who comes to work. Our employees have gone above and beyond to deliver the mail every day to our customers, they don’t deserve what is happening today. If the Postal Service wants to really help us, they can relieve us of the 5.1 billion dollar retirees prefunding bill that the Republicans slipped in on us in 2006. No other federal agency has ever been asked to do this, why did we get stuck with this? We are in dire need of new Postal vehicles to deliver the enormous amount of parcels we deliver every day, our present fleet is antiquated. We should instruct all Federal agencies including Congress on the use of the U.S.P.S. when mailing articles from their offices. It really hurt me when visiting the hill to lobby Congress on our Postal bills, to see FedEx, and UPS trucks getting the bulk of the pickup business. I personally have spoken to Postal officials on this matter and they stated, they would have to wait until the contracts they signed with these companies expired in order to come back to the U.S.P.S. If you want me to believe that, I still have that bridge in Brooklyn that is for sale. We definitely need the 25 billion dollars in the current stimulus package. Yet the President stated that he would not sign the package if the Postal service was included, he is hell-bent on destroying us and vote by mail. I could go on and on but will conclude with this, please make sure you exercise your right to vote this November and make sure your vote counts, Medicare and Social Security are next on his agenda? As for the appeal of our failed Lawsuit, we were told by the President to be on a telecom to discuss what we would like to do if anything, on an appeal. I immediately addressed the entire Executive Board with the following statement, now that we have received a response from the courts advising us that we should be going through Congress first, which I urged us to do from the beginning, I would like a full accounting of the amount of money we have spent on this lawsuit to date, including our attorney Bruce Moyer and all consulting attorneys and pay experts, before we convene any board telecom to discuss this issue. Further, I want to go on record that I will oppose any recommendations or motions that will continue the use of outside attorneys for future appeals should they be necessary. Title 39 has provisions for us to appeal problems we have with pay and benefits through the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. We already had all the data needed, and I would consider appealing this with our own lawyer Bruce Moyer and getting rid of the other lawyers to cut our losses. The President called for a telecom and immediately made a motion to appeal the decision through the courts once again with all the lawyers on board. It should be noted that we have already lost $750,000 on the lawsuit up to now, and the President puts a motion up to the Board to continue with the appeal, and the board voted to continue the lawsuit 20 yes, 2 no, 1 abstain. Keep in mind they stated that the appeal would cost 6,000.00 dollars, what we don’t know is the cost of the lawyers who will now be on retainer until the spring of 2021. Now we await the U.S.P.S. response to our continuing the lawsuit. We were having good dialogue with the U.S.P.S. I will venture to say we have taken a step backwards.

On the issue of the new P.M.G. I believe NAPS should have gotten out in front of it. The President will tell you that he invited Mr. DeJoy to NAPS Headquarters to meet with the Resident officers without success. I know if I were President of this great association and the P.M.G. did not meet with me, the Palladino in me would have rose to the top. I would have been at Postal Headquarters demanding a meeting and possibly getting arrested to get the exposure I need for our membership, to show we were not backing down. The APWU President does not back down to the Postal service, why do we. As I have always told you my Northeast membership I am here to represent your wishes, 19 Branches in N.Y. voted not appeal, about 19 branches in N.E. voted the same way, N.J. said they were voting not to appeal, the rest was easy.

Stay Strong.

Tommy