March 2, 2025 • 51 mins
In this episode of Fight Like Hell!, we take a look at the arbitration process and discuss the upcoming rallies being organized by branches across the country on Sunday, March 23.
Our jobs, our service and the entire Postal Service are on the line. We need everyone’s help as we fight like hell against these attacks. Together, we will send a loud, clear message: HELL NO to dismantling the Postal Service.
Reach out to your National Business Agent by Thursday, March 6 to organize a rally in your area. More information at nalc.org/March23.
Have questions you'd like answered on the podcast? Email social@nalc.org.
Keep up with NALC on Facebook, Twitter/X, Bluesky and Instagram!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Yo, brothers, sisters, and friends.
Welcome to the Fight Like Hell podcast.
This is the official podcast of theNational Association of Letter Carriers,
the union that represents 290,000 activeand retired city letter carriers employed
by the United States Postal Service.
I'm Ed Morgan, and I'm here with ourNational President, Brian Renfro.
(00:30):
Hey, Brian, how are you?
Hey, Eddie.Doing great, man.
Doing great.Glad to be back on.
Yeah.Well, we have a lot to talk about.
Let's get right into it.
First, let's start with thefight like hell moniker.
Why did we get this rebranding?
And what does fight like hellmean and where does it come from?
This campaign that we kicked off a coupleof weeks ago, we branded it, as you said,
(00:52):
fight like hell, including this podcast,and really comes from a mantra from a
great labor leader in history,Heather Jones, that was an activist,
really a legend in the labor movement forthe mine workers in the early 1900s, has a
very famous quote that has been repeated amillion times, but I think
it's still applicable today.
Her quote was, Mourn the dead and pray forthe dead and fight like
(01:15):
hell for the living.
So we, as we go into 2025, there's avery changed landscape in front of us.
And the challenges that we face aredifferent than the challenges that we
faced in a number of years,which we'll get into.
And fight like hell is just a campaignthat involves a lot of
different moving parts.
But it's really designed just to give allof our members something to rally behind
(01:38):
whatever battle we fight, whether that'scollective bargaining, that's things to do
with our safety, that's legislation ofachievements that we prioritize, like the
Federal Retirement Fairness Act that wouldallow former non-career employees to get
that time credited, or a tax on us,whether that comes from Capitol Hill
or the administration or anywhere else.
It's a campaign that's well underway, andwe're excited about what we can do within
(02:02):
the campaign to really give our membersthe opportunity to do what they do best,
and that is stand up together insolidarity as a union to achieve the
things that we want to achieve and tofight off those attacks that are surely
going to come as we've seenin the last week or so.
All right, let's talk about collectivebargaining, the tentative agreement
and everything that's gone down.
The tentative agreement went to membershipfor a vote, and it was voted down.
(02:25):
What do you want to say about that?Yeah.
Maybe I'll explain what the Process is,and this is all rooted in the
NALC Constitution and Article 16.
But the first thing is that the result ofa ratification vote, whether it's this
year or in years past, whether that's toreject an agreement or accept an
agreement, is I think a shining example ofone of the strengths of our union that we
(02:50):
are the most democratic, LittleD democratic union in America.
And what happened here is after a long,long period of collective bargaining,
where we stretched the Postal Service asfar as they would go and
got the most economically that we couldpotentially get an attentive agreement.
We then utilize thatprocess in our Constitution.
(03:12):
We send it out for ratificationon January 31st, the ballot committee that
I appointed certified the results of that.
The results were to reject the agreement.
Basically, what it comes down to isthe most the Postal Service was willing
to put on the table is not enough.
Off, and that letter carrierssimply deserve more pay.
(03:35):
Following the certification of that vote,the Constitution and Article 16
provides for reopening negotiations, whichwe immediately requested the The Postal
Service did that, andwe have moved forward through that
process, which I know we're going to getinto a little deeper detail on.
But the tentative agreement that was themost they would put on the table was sent
(03:57):
out to our members to make that decision,and our members Our active members
that voted made that decision.
We continued to engage in theprocess that our Constitution provides.
Okay.
After the vote count wentdown, what was our next move?
Immediately, once we got that information,the certified resolve
from the ballot committee.
The first thing I did wascontact our attorneys and professionals
(04:22):
here that have been preparing for interestarbitration, going really all the way back
to 2022, and just let them know this wasthe outcome It's, at this point, at least
a reasonably strong possibility we may endup in interest arbitration to get them
working immediately on, to some degreedusting off the prep that hadn't
been done and that type thing.
(04:42):
Then talk to the Postal Service to informthem of the result and request to
immediately reopen negotiations per ourConstitution, which they agreed to do.
We then met with the executive counsel andinformed the NLC executive council of the
result and talked a little bit about theprocess going forward, what
the Constitution provides for.
(05:05):
Then we posted on the website just reallyvery shortly after it was certified
that afternoon, what the outcome was.
Started a couple of other things in motionon that same day, too, just knowing that
we would have a very abbreviated period ofnegotiations due to the time
limit in the Constitution.
(05:26):
In front of us, we did somesurveys and some polling.
I know a number of you listeningprobably participated in that.
I don't know that it told us anything wedidn't know, but it certainly confirmed
that what is most importantto our members is pay.
That was just another useful piece ofinformation that was discussed
(05:47):
with the council throughoutthis process to help guide us.
All that happened on Friday, January 31st,and then the following Monday, we
immediately reopened negotiationsfor the Postal Service.
Our NALC Constitution callsfor 15 days of negotiations.
What does that look like?Yeah.
It limits that period ifit's reopened to 15 days.
(06:09):
We did that.
We bargained essentially every day overthat 15-day period, focused primarily on
the economic issues and attempting toreach a modified tentative agreement that
per the Constitution to send out to themembers for a second ratification vote.
Over Over the course of that 15 days,there was some progress made in terms
(06:33):
of the overall economic benefit.
Some of the details, of course, on aday-to-day basis, we go back
and forth on the details.
The idea was just to see,once again, how far the Postal Service
would be willing to go andwhat they were willing to pay.
That period concluded on whatI believe was Tuesday, February the 18th.
(06:55):
Then we had, at that point in time,schedule an executive council meeting
Tuesday, February 19th to discuss where wewere at the conclusion
of that 15-day period.
What did that executive council meetingsound and look like?
The meeting was just to tellthem, Here's where we are.
We did not have an agreement withthe post service at the time.
(07:16):
It was mostly about explaining to thecouncil what after that 15 days, I was
pretty sure that the post servicewould be willing to agree to.
Ultimately, the discussion among thecouncil is with where we and what they are
willing to do at this point, is thatenough for us to wrap this into a modified
tentative agreement and send out to themembers for a second ratification vote,
(07:38):
which the Constitution provides for.
That at the conclusion of that 15 days,if there's an agreement, we would
send it out for a second vote.
The consensus of the council in aunanimous vote was that at that point in
time on that Wednesday, that even thoughthere was some progress made in terms of
them being willing to spend a little moremoney and
(07:59):
increase increased economic package for usthat it was not in our interest to wrap
that up into a tentative agreement and todeclare impasse and move to the interest
arbitration process, which we did.
Then the timeline of that, we started tohear or see some talk
about executive orders.
Can you just walk us through the timelineof when you had that first meeting after
(08:21):
the 15 days and what happenedover the end of the weekend area?
Yeah, this was a crazy week.
The last day, that 15 dayswas on Tuesday, the 18th.
On Tuesday the 18th, on Wednesday the19th, we met with the
council, as I just described.
Then, of course,decided to declare impasse, notified the
members of that on the website,obviously notified the Postal Service.
(08:43):
That next day, immediately begandeveloping what the interest arbitration
process would look like and reaching outto the arbitrator for dates and
talking with the Postal Service about howmany dates we would need and what we
needed to solicit and allthose types of things.
Then late Every Thursday afternoon, webecame aware of what
really was a bombshell.
(09:04):
That was that this administration intendedto issue an executive order to eliminate
the Board of Governors,to abolish the Postal Regulatory
Commission, to to move the leadership atthe Postal Service
and to transfer the Postal Service fromits status as an independent federal
agency that it's been since 1970 underthe control of the Commerce Department.
(09:28):
This is concerning fora whole lot of reasons.
Primarily, number one, it's illegal thatthe 1970 Postal Reorganization Act that
was one of the results of the strike thatwas led by, began with letter carriers in
Branch 36 in New York City, was led byVincent Brado, NALC's greatest President.
(09:49):
This law created thePostal Service in its form.
It exists today.
It also gave us fullcollective bargaining rights.
We had to move very quicklystarting Thursday.
Once we became aware of this, there was anews report later that night that was
consistent with what we had heardwithin the postal community here.
(10:11):
That is a fight that's ongoing right now.
Of course, something like that wouldpotentially change in a lot of ways, not
just the landscape of bargaining,but the challenges that we may face.
We have to immediately, at that point,start looking towards all
the the possibilities.
(10:31):
If this executive order is filed, thenthere's legal action, which we would
surely participate into stop it immediately.
But even if it stopped immediately,then what do things look like?
It's perfectly reasonable to assume thatdepending on the timing of such a change
and who's in leadership at the PostalService at any point in time that we would
(10:52):
anticipate things like a taxon our collective bargaining.
We have to be preparedfor all of that stuff.
What you want to do is immediately assessthat and just ensure that we, as a union,
are in the strongest possible position todefend our members' rights, whether that's
our fundamental right to collectivebargaining or something more detailed.
(11:13):
That is been what has happenedover the last roughly week plus.
But it, of course, had animpact on collective bargaining.
So the executive councilthen got together after...
As soon as we heard this news, wescheduled a council meeting later that
night We actually started the meetingpretty shortly after the
news broke in the Washington Post and justdiscussed all those things that
(11:37):
I just talked about in detail.
The council made the decision by anoverwhelming vote at that point to do
everything we could to make this interestarbitration process happen as
quickly as possible.
I know we'll probably get a little deeperinto what that process will look like.
But in a nutshell,even if that means using partial days and
(11:59):
weekends plans and things that we had notpreviously planned to do that
we should go that direction.
That was a decision the council made.
Then I immediately reached out to thePostal Service, and we started working
on what that process would look like.
Before we get into the political side andwhat's at stake and what we're going to
need to do, let's turn itback towards the arbitration.
(12:22):
For our members out there that have neverbeen through an interest arbitration or
really even a rights arbitration,can you explain the difference between
rights arbitration andinterest arbitration?
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
I think this is veryimportant to understand.
What's referred to generally as rightsarbitration is the type of arbitration
(12:42):
that we utilize to resolvegrievances at the final step.
At the local level, when a local grievanceis filed in a particular work
location, we have a series of steps.
Formal step A, formal step A, step B.
If step B is not able to resolvegrievance, it is impassed and sent to our
(13:02):
national business agent whocan appeal it to arbitration.
That rights arbitrationwith local grievances that most of
our listeners would be familiar with.
There are two types ofarbitration that we utilize.
One is just standard rights arbitration,where you have an arbitrator, both sides
come in and put on their case,call witnesses, et cetera.
(13:22):
Then you have what we call expeditedarbitration, which is
just a faster process.
It does not involveboth parties or one party or the other can
request to write a brief, which is awritten conclusion or closing of
a case that they would send in.
It's just designed to be faster.
There's an MOU in our contract that hascertain topics that utilize that
(13:44):
expedited arbitration process.
One thing to note there is there arecertain topics that are covered by that
expedited arbitration process, but eitherparty retains the right to move it up to
the regular rights arbitration process.
Also at the headquartersat an orders level.
We have national level grievancessometimes about matters of interpretation
(14:05):
of our contract thatutilize rights arbitration.
The difference in rights arbitration andinterest arbitration
is that rights arbitration are aboutsomething that took place or each party
having a particular position over aninterpretation of,
enforcement of, or compliance withexisting contractual language.
(14:29):
Interest arbitration in our worldis a process where we utilize an
arbitration process to determine orset the actual terms of an agreement.
We utilize that at the local level everyfew years when we negotiate local
memorandums of understanding between thePostal Service at the local
(14:51):
level and our local branches.
We utilize that at the national level whenwe are unable to come to an agreement on
the terms of a collectivebargaining agreement.
This is something that'sprovided for in the law.
I think a really important piece to talkabout here as well with interest
arbitration is the 1970 PostalReorganization Act
(15:14):
that gives us the collective bargainingrights and process that we have.
In a nutshell, basically says that if theparties are unable to come to an agreement
on a collective borrowing agreement,that they develop a process
to resolve that dispute.
Interest arbitrationin its traditional form in the law is
(15:35):
essentially a default if they are unableto agree on what that
process would look like.
If you look through our history ofinterest arbitration, you will see
multiple variations of the process.
That is because of what that law provides,that each time we have utilized the
interest arbitration process,we have to some degree negotiated with the
(15:59):
Postal Service what thatprocess would look like.
There have been times where, 1978, we usesomething that's a hybrid of
mediation and arbitration.
I know firsthand in the 2011 round ofbargaining, which the arbitration
process took place in 2012.
All the testimony wassubmitted in written format.
(16:19):
So there's a lot of...
The law basically envisioned theparties developing a process.
So everything that anyone may know aboutrights arbitration, regular panels,
versus expedited, put that out of...
We got to eliminate that from the thoughtbecause these are two
totally different things.
Interest arbitration is about setting theterms of an agreement, and the law
(16:41):
provides for us to develop the process,which at this point we have done.
With interest arbitration, iseverything in our contract on the table?
Hypothetically, it could be.
But if you look at whether it's the tenetof agreement that was sent out for
ratification orany our collective borrowing agreement,
it's really going all the way backto the modern era, beginning in 1970.
(17:04):
The changes that are part of any agreementare a relatively very small
percentage of the contract.
So not small in terms of importance,because obviously, things like our pay and
benefits, the economic stuff, and thensome work rule type issues that affect
us every single day are important.
(17:25):
But in terms of the number of contractualprovisions we change is a super
super low percentage of the overall.
The document is several hundred pages.
So part of the process that we are goingto utilize here, and
really what has driven the differentprocesses that we've utilized over the
years, is to balance getting this done asquickly as we can while still giving each
(17:49):
side the opportunity to present whatevercase that they want to present to the
arbitrator to support their issues.
But also it incorporates a mediationpiece, and that mediation piece just
allows more quickly for the neutralarbitrator to get a clear understanding of
the issues that bothsides are putting forward.
(18:10):
Typically, over our history, it has beenthe economic issues that go before the
arbitrator, and that willbe no different this time.
Those will be the priority because thosevery clearly are the
most important issues.
Can you explain this processof the expedited arbitration?
Yeah.
I think maybe we should usea word other than expedite.
(18:32):
Almost accelerated is a better word, justto avoid that confusion of rights
versus interest arbitration.
But essentially, what this is going toinvolve is very similar
to what was done in 1978.
There will be a mediation component to itwhere each side has the opportunity to
ensure that the arbitrator completelyunderstands their positions.
(18:53):
The arbitrator will thenget both sides together.
That tends to narrow the issues and makeclear what the issues are that
are in front of the arbitrator.
Then both sides will have the opportunityto put on whatever additional
evidence that we want to put on.
Ultimately, in this process,arbitrator Nolan will serve as the
(19:15):
arbitrator and will issue an award.
The mediation component allows in thisprocess for the arbitrator to more quickly
gain a clear understanding of the primaryissues, which, once again, the
primary issues for us are pay.
I certainly don't want to speak for them,but I suspect that that'll be
(19:36):
the same with the Postal Service.
I know you spoke about this in a few ofyour answers here, but I know
it's been a point of contention.
Can you fully explain why we're focusingon the economics and not the work rules?
It's not that we don'tfocus on the work rules.
I mean, those are very important.
We spend a ton of time throughout thecollective bargaining process on them.
(19:58):
It's just that what you want to put infront of the arbitrator what you don't
want to put in front of the arbitrator.
The economic stuff is the most important.
That is very clear.
Anyone listening to this, I suppose theremight be someone out there that would say,
I would rather have this changed toArticle 25 than more pay, but I think
(20:18):
that would be by far the exception.
But the way this has worked in every roundof interest arbitration we've done in
years past, the way it'll work this timeis the economic issues where we or do not
have agreement or the issues that we putin front of the arbitrator, the work rules
stuff, we will use the process that wehave not done yet because the focus
(20:39):
has been on developing this process.
But we'll go through the stuff from thetenetive agreement, and there may be
things that either side wants to modify,either side wants to remove,
either side wants to change.
Then in the end, we will seewhere we are and likely submit whatever it
is we can agree on to the arbitratorto include in the arbitrator's award.
(20:59):
That's what's happened in every roundof interest arbitration in years past.
The one thing that is a possibility, andthis has happened in years past, is there
are work rule issues that couldpotentially be placed in front of the
arbitrator to make a decision, But whatnational level arbitrators do when work
rule issues are placed in front of them isthey have almost without exception ruled,
(21:23):
the parties need to go negotiate this, notbeen willing to dive into
setting specific work rule terms.
There's also arbitrators by nature,particularly those at the national level,
are creatures that seekto find common ground.
They seek to reach a decision thatsatisfies to the extent possible as much
(21:50):
as they can that bothparties are requesting.
You have to be very careful in terms ofstrategy of what your priorities are and
what you actually put in frontof an arbitrator to decide.
For example, if we laid out a whole bunchof work rule issues and the arbitrator
(22:10):
just decided, Okay, Union, I'll give youthose, but I'm not going to give you this
economic piece over here, that obviouslywould be inconsistent with
what our priorities are.
So there is a strategy element to it.
I know our members want to hearabout the route inspection language.
There's a feeling out there that we'regiven up a reduction
reduction in office time.
(22:31):
Can you go into that for us?
Yeah.
Well, first off, there iszero reduction in office time.
The MOU that was included in the tentativeagreement does not change anyone's
office time in Story, period.
It is an agreement that recognizes that injoint route adjustment processes in the
(22:51):
future, we would seek to use a differentway to evaluate office time,
and that certain components of office timewould be recorded differently and it
establishes minimum timefor those line items.
I want to be as clear as Ican possibly be about this.
That agreement does not modifyanyone's evaluated office time.
(23:13):
It does not modify projections thatmanagement uses to beat us over the
head with and we file grievances on.
It does not modify anything that the postservice could do in a route
adjustment on their own.
That is simply not true.
It is really about just modernizing thatif If we get into a joint process in the
future, we have an office, a commitmenthere, and bare minimums,
(23:38):
the office evaluation method.
If you're a carrier out there andit's a joint process and you got a union
rep and a management rep, they'reevaluating your route, then we
figure out what that office time is.
The vast majority of time, that'sgoing to be your average time.
This is about constructing the standardthat's used solely for
evaluation purposes.
(23:59):
Just to sum it up, that MOU that was inthe TA, and I say this without any...
I mean, it may or may not be inthe Interest Arbitration Award.
I don't know.
That's part of the processwe have to go through.
But it does not change one's officetime, period.
End of story.Any claim otherwise is simply false.
(24:20):
Another work rule language, like the 1260language that was in the TA,
where did that come from?
Primarily from NALC's official bargainingpositions at national conventions.
Look, what we did here isstruck a bargain that would address
(24:42):
what has become an increasingproblem for us out in the field.
That is the Postal Service mandating ourpeople to work beyond
12 hours in a day, 60 hours in aweek, the maximum work hour limits.
The history of this is,national arbitration Director Mittenthal
said a long time ago, decades ago,that work hour limitations are absolute.
(25:06):
Then for better or worse, there's been along line of arbitration decisions since
that said, no, they'renot absolute, basically.
What this language does is that there arethree primary
changes, and I want to stressthese are the only changes to Article
8 as it relates to maximum work hours.
Number one, when someone reaches theirmaximum work hours as a full-time
(25:29):
employee, regardless of what list theyare on, what list they are not on.
If they reach maximum work hours,they can clock out and they can leave,
and the contract willprotect them from discipline.
That does not alter in any waywhat non-Postal Services obligation to
(25:51):
provide auxiliar assistance before forcingsomeone not on the list to work overtime,
someone on the work assignmentlist to work off their assignment.
It does not alter the provisionsof Article 8, Section 5F.
It in no way altars anything else otherthan if, regardless of the reason why,
they reach maximum work hours asa full-time employee, they
(26:13):
clock out, they go home.
Peace number 2 is those that are on theovertime desired list,
if they wish to volunteer to work morethan 12 in a day or 60 in a week,
they can voluntarily do so.
If they do not volunteer, they do not wantto do it, then they clock out and go home,
and they have contractual protectionagainst discipline.
(26:37):
The third piece is that if someone worksbeyond 12 hours in a day
or 60 hours in a week, it doesn't matterwhy a new pay rate is established that
will pay them two and a half times pay.
Those are, as it relates to maximum workhours, the only changes that were
included in the tentive agreement.
(26:58):
As I said, it comes from a commentcombination of convention resolutions and
the fact that out in the field where we'vehad these maximum work hour violations
over and over and over,we file grievances.
Ultimately, what stops it and where we'vebeen successful in some locations
is requesting and being granted a remedythat someone can go home when they
(27:19):
reach some maximum work hours.
That's exactly whatthis bargain was designed to do.
To be clear, I don't just like the officetime thing, Ed, that you ask about.
I say that to describe it andbe sure people understand it.
At this point, I cannot say definitivelywhether that piece will or will not be
(27:41):
included ultimately in the collectiveborrowing agreement that comes from
this interest arbitration process.
Speaking about this arbitration process,the excelled, as we're calling it, what
will be the steps in thisaccelerated arbitration?
The step that we are in right now, as werecord this on Thursday, February 27th, is
getting as quickly as we can blocksof time from arbitrator, Nolan.
(28:05):
One of the things we're asking him for isnot just, typically we would ask for
multiple days in a row, full daysto have hearings.
We have asked for even partial days orreally any time
to get the process started.
The next step would be once we get thosedates, then we will inform the
membership of this is when it will start.
(28:27):
Typically, he's fairly responsive, so Iwould expect that we get
a response from him fairly soon.
Then we'll move forward with the processthat I described earlier, starting with
that mediation step, which is designed toinform him, have him gain a good
understanding of the issues just through amediation process rather than
(28:50):
official presentations and that stuff.
And then it would move toafter his mediation discussions with both
sides, then we all get together and moveforward with where either side wants to go
in terms of further evidenceand presentation of him.
Then ultimately, he would make a decision.
I know this is a loaded question,and I know this is where the sound bite is
(29:13):
going to come from, but realistically,how long will it take to get a decision?
It's hard to tell.
I can tell you that the way we designedthis process, the discussions we've had
with the Postal Service,what the executive council discussed, and
there was a motion made, andas I said, overwhelmingly approved,
(29:34):
is to get it done as quickly as possible.
As we go through the process, that will,of course, be communicated
to arbitrator Nolan.
But it is literally impossiblefor me to put a timeline on it.
I mean, look, when someone...
We want this to happen quickly forreasons we've already talked about.
But rushing the individual is going todecide an outcome that
(29:56):
affects hundreds of thousands of lettercarriers might not the
best course of action.
We will get a better sense of that as weget the dates established, which we'll
report, and as weget into the process, which hopefully
begins here in the very near future.
Now that we talked to Tell the listenersabout the arbitration process, can you
(30:17):
explain, and you did a little bit, butlet's get a little bit more deeper into
it, why do we need toget this done so quickly?
Yeah, I just think it's...
I mean, generally, it's in our interest toget it done as quickly as
as we can, because hopefully that outcomewould involve
retro payment and things like that.
And lettercares have not had apay increase in a long time now.
(30:39):
But specifically, as I think alluded toearlier, this threat we should call it,
from the administration issue andexecutive order creates all sorts of
possibilities that we have to consider andbe prepared for, and we are prepared for.
One of those is if such a move is made, ofcourse, there would be, as I
(31:00):
mentioned, immediate legal action.
But it is perfectly reasonable to expectthat should such a move be made and the
Postal Service end up underneath theexecutive branch of the government, which
the Department of Commerce is, that'sunder the President,
that we would then see exactly what we'veseen from this administration on our
(31:25):
brothers and sisters that are federalemployees represented by several other And
that is an attack on their collectivebargaining rights, either just absolute
refusal to recognize them, to attempts tocancel a collective bargaining agreement.
So as we, of course, in thisshort period of time here over the last
week, have anticipated everypossible scenario that could come from
(31:48):
that just to prepare legally, there arethings that we have to do to ensure we are
in the strongest possible legal position.
Typically, an attack like that would befirst step It would be to go to the
National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB.
Unfortunately, thereis no functional NLRB.
The administration fired a sitting boardmember who had been nominated and
(32:11):
confirmed and had time left on her term,that there is legal action about that.
It's illegal to do that.
That legal action remains unresolved, andthere's not enough
board members to constitute a quorum.
So that avenue was off the table.
When it comes to these collectivebargaining fights, and in the event which
(32:31):
should these battlesmaterialize, and we're doing everything in
our power andfighting like hell to be sure they don't,
we've got to be in the strongest position.
You are in a stronger position if you havea collective borrowing agreement in effect
within its duration dates.
(32:52):
That's a piece of this, too.
The conversation that we had with thecouncil and the approach we've taken is to
get this done as quickly as we canfor that reason, but also do it through a
process that does not in any way sacrificeour ability to put on our best case
to achieve the best outcome we couldachieve through interest arbitration.
(33:16):
I think we feel good about where weare in that process here going forward.
Is there an underlying force, like talkingto the administration, trying to push
these executive orders ordoing these things to us?
Yeah, there absolutely is.
Private business that wants to make money,that wants to take what we do
(33:37):
that is profitable to themto make themselves richer.
I mean, look, thePresident was asked about this on Friday,
and he talked about a mergerwith the private sector.
Let me just tell you what that means.
What that means is the UPSs and the FedExand the Amazons of the world, any other
delivery service that may pop up,what they want to do is take the
(33:58):
portions of our work that are profitable.
They're not going to be interested intaking the delivery to rural areas and
the universal service that we provide.
That's really what's behind this.
I mean, it's 100 % it is abouttaking what the Postal Service does well,
what the Postal Service does isprofitable, and letting them
(34:20):
make more money off of it.
Look, a lot of the things that we fight onCapitol Hill and throughout the government
with the Postal Service iscomes from the private shippers.
The private companies that do parcelshipping and delivery have an interest
in the Postal Service failing.
(34:41):
They don't care about allthe people we deliver to.
What they care about is gettingthe packages and making money.
But it's also true that the postalservice, we deliver
376 million pieces a day.
We deliver 10 billions of billions ofpackages every year,
(35:04):
70 to 80 billion packages.
We deliver to 169 milliondelivery points every day.
These companies do not havean interest in doing that.
They have an interest in making aprofit, as any private business should.
That's the whole reasonwhy private business exists.
(35:24):
I think that's the important distinctionbetween us as a public service
and a private business.
I've gotten a lot of questionsfrom our members about what
if this was done, maybethey could make the post service more
efficient, or maybe they couldget rid of some of the management that's
(35:48):
not needed, and maybe we would be okay.
I just want to be ascrystal clear as I can.
If a significant amount of the packagebusiness that we do
is given away, sold offto the private sector,
the universal service that weprovide is going to go away.
(36:10):
That is what would bethe obvious next step.
This is not about making thepostal service more efficient.
It is 100% about private shippersgetting what they want in terms of our
business and not being willing to do thethings that we do, such as deliver to
50 million people in this country thatdon't live in dense urban areas,
(36:35):
but we deliver to them just the sameevery single day.
This is not about efficiencyat the Postal Service.
This is moving it under the Department ofCommerce is 100% designed to do exactly
what I've talked about hereand make more money for the private
companies and eventuallystart at what would likely be a fairly
(36:58):
rapid death spiral for us thatwould cost the jobs of letter carriers and
other postal employees andhave a significant impact on the people
that we serve and count on us every day.
What have we, as the NALC, done so far?
Yeah, a lot of things.This is an extensive campaign.
(37:19):
We, of course, when we heard about this onThursday, immediately began reaching out
to a lot of those that couldinfluence the administration.
That includes some Republican members ofCongress that includes some other folks.
On Friday of last week, a lot of ourmembers placed calls to
the office of the speaker of the House.
(37:39):
That was designed so that the speaker,his folks, would very clearly understand
that this is a bad idea, and maybe mostimportantly, that the people
of America don't support this.
Because no matter who somebody voted for,no matter what their political persuasion
is, whether we're talking about themembers of the NALC or the general public,
(37:59):
what they did not vote foris to destroy the Postal Service.
On Monday, here in DC, we hada large rally that was great.
We had hundreds of NALC members andour brothers and sisters from other
postal unions and other unions.
Our brothers and sisters throughout thelabor movement, really, and veterans
groups, and a lot of differentcommunities represented there.
(38:22):
A Hell No Rally, we called it, becausethat's our answer to this proposal, is all
that type stuff is designed toeducate the public, to awareness.
When we get media coverage of things likethat, it's really designed to just
let the people know what is going on.
As we go forward, bythe time you listen to this, you have
(38:42):
likely seen that we are going to have aNational Day of Action on March the 23rd,
where a number of our branches all aroundthe country are going to
hold similar events andget our local media and those outlets out.
I'm sure doing this all around the countrywill have some national media coverage as
(39:02):
well, which is, again, designed just toget the word out and let people know,
because, again, it doesn'tmatter where they are.
It really doesn't matter who they are.
The vast, vast majorityof Americans support us.
There's a lot of things that we are doingfrom a digital and ad
campaign perspective.
Many of those are targeted.
They're targeted at certain locations andpeople that live in certain congressional
(39:26):
districts were designed toinfluence specific members of Congress In
a lot of cases, our state associations orbranches in those locations are
involved in that.
You're not going to see a lot ofRepublicans on Capitol Hill and elsewhere
talk about this publicly because, frankly,they are afraid of this administration.
(39:47):
But that doesn't mean that behind thescenes, they're not communicating.
There's a piece of this that'sdesigned to influence them.
I would say that as we go look forward,just pay attention to our social
platforms and the website.
We did just this week aday of action where we send messages
(40:08):
directly to the White Housebecause that's where this battle is.
This is not something that'sbeing contemplated in Congress.
This is not something thatCongress is ultimately,
it's highly unlikely that we'll haveany desire or realistic attempt
to make such a change in Congress.
Our Congressional outreach is really aboutco-sponsoring legislation that we've
(40:31):
mentioned here, but there's amulti-pronged approach going forward.
Just more generally, I want to make apoint that I think is really important.
This is not the type offight that's going to be over with
next week or the week after thator the week after that.
(40:53):
This is going to continue.
Whether it's a different approachto the administration potentially
trying to get to the same end through apiecemeal effort or some other way,
this is going to continue,which means that we
(41:15):
have to be in a positionto sustain everything that
we've done the last week plus.
Look, we as a union havethe most active membership.
We have a tremendous amount influence onCapitol Hill here in Washington, DC, our
union is stronger than it hasever been on Capitol Hill.
(41:38):
It's frankly not even close.
But in order for us to maximize ourstrengths of what we do in DC what we do
out in the field, we have to have all ofour members together pushing
toward the same objective.
I promise you all, I assure you,there is a strategy behind everything
(41:59):
that we ask our members to do.
This is a fight where we do not have theluxury of veering off course, of
thinking about anyone's individualall Ideas are welcome to be shared, but
someone going in a different directionwith members of Congress
(42:21):
and things like that.This is us together.
As we move forward, there's going to beplenty, plenty of opportunities,
beginning with that day of action.
On that day of action,reach out to your National Business
Agent's office if you haven't done thatalready, and we'll get you set up with
everything you need in terms ofmaterials and the kit for the press.
(42:45):
We'll assist you with the media.
We'll assist you with how to talk to themedia and how to have a successful
event and get the word out.
But I cannot say this strongly enough.
This is going to sustainThis is something that we have to...
This fight will sustain,so we have to sustain.
(43:07):
It's going to take all of us together.
This is not a time.
If you have differences with somebody atthe local level in your station or in your
branch, this is the time to put thosedifferences to the side
and understand thatour strength as a union is our members.
(43:27):
It's our solidarity.
On this fight, we have to be together andwe have to all be pushing in
the same direction.
That's well said.
We really have to sticktogether on this one.
Can you just talk about our grassrootssystem for people that might not know that
it's their first time here in the podcastbecause someone on the work room floor
(43:48):
said, Hey, you should listen to this.
Can you just talk about what our system ishere at the NALC and how we deal
with our members of Congress?
Yeah.No, Ed, really good question.
People that learn about all these thingsthat we do, both our members and
otherwise, are typically pretty amazed.
It's a combination ofactivity that happens here in DC,
(44:12):
and then, of course, ourstructure which provides for this
and the activism of our members.
Let me just startwith what we do here in DC.
We employa number of lobbyists professionals that
are very well respected, experienced onCapitol Hill, work on both sides of the
(44:34):
aisle with Republicans and Democrats.
Structurally, we as a union, our stateassociations, their
real reason for existence is to advanceour legislative agenda
here on Capitol Hill in those states.
Many of them we see here throughout,particularly throughout the spring.
When there's a particular member ofCongress that we need to
(44:58):
move on an issue, such as what I talkedabout when we first heard about this,
that's going to involve gettingour people at the state level.
We have letter carrier Congressionalliaisons in every single
Congressional district.
We've got a member there that's beentrained and designated to deal with them.
Then, of course, our branchesthat develop relationships with their
(45:20):
members of Congress onboth sides of the aisle.
It ranges really fromthe things that we do here at
the headquarters level,dealing directly with the Congress, with
the White House, with other parts of thefederal government,
and with our state associations andLittles, our letter carriers Congressional
liaisons, and then, of course,the branches do locally.
(45:42):
All that is fueled by theletter carriers Political Fund.
This is our Political Action Committee.It's our PAC.
Compared to a lot of PACs that exist inthe cesspool that is campaign finance
in this country, our PAC is righteous.
It's not corporate billionaires dumpingmoney into trying to buy elections.
(46:06):
It's really emblematic of what solidarityis, and frankly, one of the
principles that unions are founded on.
And that is that our pack is a little bitfrom a lot of our members that help
us grow our collective influence.
You hear us talking aboutthese threats today.
If someonewere to ask me, what's the simplest thing
(46:30):
that you could do to do your part or whatyou could do to protect your own
given these battles?
The answer to that question would beto contribute $5 or $10 every paycheck to
the letter carriers Political Fund.
It's bipartisan.
We give money to Republicans, we givemoney to Democrats, we give
money to people that support us.
(46:52):
As we go through these battles,it is more important than ever that
everybody participates in that so wetogether can grow our
collective influence.
If I could just take a sec just talk toour members that might not
like to get political here.
This is our livelihood.
(47:12):
When the messaging comes down,it's going to be, Hell, no.
You might not like who you'regoing to have to reach out to.
You might not like that representativethat we're asking to reach out to.
But we have to be just likewe're out on our route.
We might not love all our customers,but it's going to have to be
a Hell, no and not go to hell.
We got to be respectful when wereach out to our members of Congress.
I know we're upset and we're angry, butwe're going to need everybody
(47:35):
on our side on this.
Yeah, Ed, if I could just...
I think that's an excellent point.
As you were speaking, I was just thinkingto myself,
Years and years ago, when I was a reallyyoung letter carriers,
I got involved in the union becauseI like representing letter carriers,
and I hated bullies.
(47:57):
Then as I did more and more, I love routeadjustments, and I loved Article
12, and all these nerdy things.
I didn't get involved in this stuffbecause I like politics
and I like legislation.
To be very honest about it, I still don't,outside of, obviously, the things
that affect letter carriers.
But the point isthat regardless of political affiliation,
(48:19):
these type of attackshave to be fought with money.
That's the way it works in this country.
So, Ed, I just wanted to reemphasize whatyou said that even if someone holds
the opinion that we shouldn't evenhave to be involved in politics.
The fact of the matter is we have to.
Because if we're not and we don't do thebest that we can do, that is going to
(48:42):
result in losing in us,our jobs being hurt.
That's not what we as a union do.
We win, and it takes all of us to win.
Great.
Do you just want to leave us with anyother messages to the membership
about this fight like how campaign?
Yeah.
We will, of course, keep you updated onthe bargaining and anything
(49:03):
else that's happening here.
I guess just reemphasize the importance ofunderstanding that this is
going to be an ongoing fight.
It's going to continue throughoutthis year, probably into 2026.
We can win.
But for us to win, once again,we have to all be together.
(49:23):
We have to all be withgetting the right message
to the right peopleat the right time as part of a cohesive
strategy that we've talked about here.
We have an extensive structure of peoplefrom our headquarters staff and
our legislative politicalorganizers that are out there.
(49:45):
If you have a question or you want to getinvolved, you should reach out to
your branch, reach out to your state.
You can, of course, call yourNational Business Agent's office.
But it's important that we all understandthis so that we can all take whatever
collective action is needed on the day,because the more voices
that say the same thing and direct thatin the right direction, the louder we are.
(50:10):
And the louder we are,the more that we're heard.
I appreciate everybody that'sreally stepped up over the last week plus,
the response has been fabulousto some of the calls to action.
But it's very important that wecontinue to do that and talk to your
coworkers and talk to your other lettercarriers and members about, they really
(50:33):
should keep up with what's going on here.
My commitment is thatwe here from headquarters are going to
continue to keep you informedand give you those opportunities to all
jump in together to ensure that we achievethe things we need to achieve, and
we say, Hell no to the attacks.
Well, Brian, thank you for coming on.I appreciate you.
(50:53):
I appreciate all our members out therelistening and flighting every day.
I just want to thank you all for listeningto this episode the
Flight Like Hell podcast.
Please subscribe to this podcastso you don't miss an episode.
We need you to share this podcast withall of our NALC brothers and sisters.
You got to follow theNALC on all social media.
Now's the time, either on Facebook, X,Twitter, Instagram,
(51:16):
and you can find the links to ouraccounts in the episode description.
May your steward be by your sideand may your union have your back.
Thanks for listening,and let's fight like hell..
Yo, brothers, sisters, and friends.
Welcome to the Fight Like Hell podcast.
This is the official podcast of theNational Association of Letter Carriers,
the union that represents 290,000 activeand retired city letter carriers employed
by the United States Postal Service.
I'm Ed Morgan, and I'm here with ourNational President, Brian Renfro.
(00:30):
Hey, Brian, how are you?
Hey, Eddie.Doing great, man.
Doing great.Glad to be back on.
Yeah.Well, we have a lot to talk about.
Let's get right into it.
First, let's start with thefight like hell moniker.
Why did we get this rebranding?
And what does fight like hellmean and where does it come from?
This campaign that we kicked off a coupleof weeks ago, we branded it, as you said,
(00:52):
fight like hell, including this podcast,and really comes from a mantra from a
great labor leader in history,Heather Jones, that was an activist,
really a legend in the labor movement forthe mine workers in the early 1900s, has a
very famous quote that has been repeated amillion times, but I think
it's still applicable today.
Her quote was, Mourn the dead and pray forthe dead and fight like
(01:15):
hell for the living.
So we, as we go into 2025, there's avery changed landscape in front of us.
And the challenges that we face aredifferent than the challenges that we
faced in a number of years,which we'll get into.
And fight like hell is just a campaignthat involves a lot of
different moving parts.
But it's really designed just to give allof our members something to rally behind
(01:38):
whatever battle we fight, whether that'scollective bargaining, that's things to do
with our safety, that's legislation ofachievements that we prioritize, like the
Federal Retirement Fairness Act that wouldallow former non-career employees to get
that time credited, or a tax on us,whether that comes from Capitol Hill
or the administration or anywhere else.
It's a campaign that's well underway, andwe're excited about what we can do within
(02:02):
the campaign to really give our membersthe opportunity to do what they do best,
and that is stand up together insolidarity as a union to achieve the
things that we want to achieve and tofight off those attacks that are surely
going to come as we've seenin the last week or so.
All right, let's talk about collectivebargaining, the tentative agreement
and everything that's gone down.
The tentative agreement went to membershipfor a vote, and it was voted down.
(02:25):
What do you want to say about that?Yeah.
Maybe I'll explain what the Process is,and this is all rooted in the
NALC Constitution and Article 16.
But the first thing is that the result ofa ratification vote, whether it's this
year or in years past, whether that's toreject an agreement or accept an
agreement, is I think a shining example ofone of the strengths of our union that we
(02:50):
are the most democratic, LittleD democratic union in America.
And what happened here is after a long,long period of collective bargaining,
where we stretched the Postal Service asfar as they would go and
got the most economically that we couldpotentially get an attentive agreement.
We then utilize thatprocess in our Constitution.
(03:12):
We send it out for ratificationon January 31st, the ballot committee that
I appointed certified the results of that.
The results were to reject the agreement.
Basically, what it comes down to isthe most the Postal Service was willing
to put on the table is not enough.
Off, and that letter carrierssimply deserve more pay.
(03:35):
Following the certification of that vote,the Constitution and Article 16
provides for reopening negotiations, whichwe immediately requested the The Postal
Service did that, andwe have moved forward through that
process, which I know we're going to getinto a little deeper detail on.
But the tentative agreement that was themost they would put on the table was sent
(03:57):
out to our members to make that decision,and our members Our active members
that voted made that decision.
We continued to engage in theprocess that our Constitution provides.
Okay.
After the vote count wentdown, what was our next move?
Immediately, once we got that information,the certified resolve
from the ballot committee.
The first thing I did wascontact our attorneys and professionals
(04:22):
here that have been preparing for interestarbitration, going really all the way back
to 2022, and just let them know this wasthe outcome It's, at this point, at least
a reasonably strong possibility we may endup in interest arbitration to get them
working immediately on, to some degreedusting off the prep that hadn't
been done and that type thing.
(04:42):
Then talk to the Postal Service to informthem of the result and request to
immediately reopen negotiations per ourConstitution, which they agreed to do.
We then met with the executive counsel andinformed the NLC executive council of the
result and talked a little bit about theprocess going forward, what
the Constitution provides for.
(05:05):
Then we posted on the website just reallyvery shortly after it was certified
that afternoon, what the outcome was.
Started a couple of other things in motionon that same day, too, just knowing that
we would have a very abbreviated period ofnegotiations due to the time
limit in the Constitution.
(05:26):
In front of us, we did somesurveys and some polling.
I know a number of you listeningprobably participated in that.
I don't know that it told us anything wedidn't know, but it certainly confirmed
that what is most importantto our members is pay.
That was just another useful piece ofinformation that was discussed
(05:47):
with the council throughoutthis process to help guide us.
All that happened on Friday, January 31st,and then the following Monday, we
immediately reopened negotiationsfor the Postal Service.
Our NALC Constitution callsfor 15 days of negotiations.
What does that look like?Yeah.
It limits that period ifit's reopened to 15 days.
(06:09):
We did that.
We bargained essentially every day overthat 15-day period, focused primarily on
the economic issues and attempting toreach a modified tentative agreement that
per the Constitution to send out to themembers for a second ratification vote.
Over Over the course of that 15 days,there was some progress made in terms
(06:33):
of the overall economic benefit.
Some of the details, of course, on aday-to-day basis, we go back
and forth on the details.
The idea was just to see,once again, how far the Postal Service
would be willing to go andwhat they were willing to pay.
That period concluded on whatI believe was Tuesday, February the 18th.
(06:55):
Then we had, at that point in time,schedule an executive council meeting
Tuesday, February 19th to discuss where wewere at the conclusion
of that 15-day period.
What did that executive council meetingsound and look like?
The meeting was just to tellthem, Here's where we are.
We did not have an agreement withthe post service at the time.
(07:16):
It was mostly about explaining to thecouncil what after that 15 days, I was
pretty sure that the post servicewould be willing to agree to.
Ultimately, the discussion among thecouncil is with where we and what they are
willing to do at this point, is thatenough for us to wrap this into a modified
tentative agreement and send out to themembers for a second ratification vote,
(07:38):
which the Constitution provides for.
That at the conclusion of that 15 days,if there's an agreement, we would
send it out for a second vote.
The consensus of the council in aunanimous vote was that at that point in
time on that Wednesday, that even thoughthere was some progress made in terms of
them being willing to spend a little moremoney and
(07:59):
increase increased economic package for usthat it was not in our interest to wrap
that up into a tentative agreement and todeclare impasse and move to the interest
arbitration process, which we did.
Then the timeline of that, we started tohear or see some talk
about executive orders.
Can you just walk us through the timelineof when you had that first meeting after
(08:21):
the 15 days and what happenedover the end of the weekend area?
Yeah, this was a crazy week.
The last day, that 15 dayswas on Tuesday, the 18th.
On Tuesday the 18th, on Wednesday the19th, we met with the
council, as I just described.
Then, of course,decided to declare impasse, notified the
members of that on the website,obviously notified the Postal Service.
(08:43):
That next day, immediately begandeveloping what the interest arbitration
process would look like and reaching outto the arbitrator for dates and
talking with the Postal Service about howmany dates we would need and what we
needed to solicit and allthose types of things.
Then late Every Thursday afternoon, webecame aware of what
really was a bombshell.
(09:04):
That was that this administration intendedto issue an executive order to eliminate
the Board of Governors,to abolish the Postal Regulatory
Commission, to to move the leadership atthe Postal Service
and to transfer the Postal Service fromits status as an independent federal
agency that it's been since 1970 underthe control of the Commerce Department.
(09:28):
This is concerning fora whole lot of reasons.
Primarily, number one, it's illegal thatthe 1970 Postal Reorganization Act that
was one of the results of the strike thatwas led by, began with letter carriers in
Branch 36 in New York City, was led byVincent Brado, NALC's greatest President.
(09:49):
This law created thePostal Service in its form.
It exists today.
It also gave us fullcollective bargaining rights.
We had to move very quicklystarting Thursday.
Once we became aware of this, there was anews report later that night that was
consistent with what we had heardwithin the postal community here.
(10:11):
That is a fight that's ongoing right now.
Of course, something like that wouldpotentially change in a lot of ways, not
just the landscape of bargaining,but the challenges that we may face.
We have to immediately, at that point,start looking towards all
the the possibilities.
(10:31):
If this executive order is filed, thenthere's legal action, which we would
surely participate into stop it immediately.
But even if it stopped immediately,then what do things look like?
It's perfectly reasonable to assume thatdepending on the timing of such a change
and who's in leadership at the PostalService at any point in time that we would
(10:52):
anticipate things like a taxon our collective bargaining.
We have to be preparedfor all of that stuff.
What you want to do is immediately assessthat and just ensure that we, as a union,
are in the strongest possible position todefend our members' rights, whether that's
our fundamental right to collectivebargaining or something more detailed.
(11:13):
That is been what has happenedover the last roughly week plus.
But it, of course, had animpact on collective bargaining.
So the executive councilthen got together after...
As soon as we heard this news, wescheduled a council meeting later that
night We actually started the meetingpretty shortly after the
news broke in the Washington Post and justdiscussed all those things that
(11:37):
I just talked about in detail.
The council made the decision by anoverwhelming vote at that point to do
everything we could to make this interestarbitration process happen as
quickly as possible.
I know we'll probably get a little deeperinto what that process will look like.
But in a nutshell,even if that means using partial days and
(11:59):
weekends plans and things that we had notpreviously planned to do that
we should go that direction.
That was a decision the council made.
Then I immediately reached out to thePostal Service, and we started working
on what that process would look like.
Before we get into the political side andwhat's at stake and what we're going to
need to do, let's turn itback towards the arbitration.
(12:22):
For our members out there that have neverbeen through an interest arbitration or
really even a rights arbitration,can you explain the difference between
rights arbitration andinterest arbitration?
Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up.
I think this is veryimportant to understand.
What's referred to generally as rightsarbitration is the type of arbitration
(12:42):
that we utilize to resolvegrievances at the final step.
At the local level, when a local grievanceis filed in a particular work
location, we have a series of steps.
Formal step A, formal step A, step B.
If step B is not able to resolvegrievance, it is impassed and sent to our
(13:02):
national business agent whocan appeal it to arbitration.
That rights arbitrationwith local grievances that most of
our listeners would be familiar with.
There are two types ofarbitration that we utilize.
One is just standard rights arbitration,where you have an arbitrator, both sides
come in and put on their case,call witnesses, et cetera.
(13:22):
Then you have what we call expeditedarbitration, which is
just a faster process.
It does not involveboth parties or one party or the other can
request to write a brief, which is awritten conclusion or closing of
a case that they would send in.
It's just designed to be faster.
There's an MOU in our contract that hascertain topics that utilize that
(13:44):
expedited arbitration process.
One thing to note there is there arecertain topics that are covered by that
expedited arbitration process, but eitherparty retains the right to move it up to
the regular rights arbitration process.
Also at the headquartersat an orders level.
We have national level grievancessometimes about matters of interpretation
(14:05):
of our contract thatutilize rights arbitration.
The difference in rights arbitration andinterest arbitration
is that rights arbitration are aboutsomething that took place or each party
having a particular position over aninterpretation of,
enforcement of, or compliance withexisting contractual language.
(14:29):
Interest arbitration in our worldis a process where we utilize an
arbitration process to determine orset the actual terms of an agreement.
We utilize that at the local level everyfew years when we negotiate local
memorandums of understanding between thePostal Service at the local
(14:51):
level and our local branches.
We utilize that at the national level whenwe are unable to come to an agreement on
the terms of a collectivebargaining agreement.
This is something that'sprovided for in the law.
I think a really important piece to talkabout here as well with interest
arbitration is the 1970 PostalReorganization Act
(15:14):
that gives us the collective bargainingrights and process that we have.
In a nutshell, basically says that if theparties are unable to come to an agreement
on a collective borrowing agreement,that they develop a process
to resolve that dispute.
Interest arbitrationin its traditional form in the law is
(15:35):
essentially a default if they are unableto agree on what that
process would look like.
If you look through our history ofinterest arbitration, you will see
multiple variations of the process.
That is because of what that law provides,that each time we have utilized the
interest arbitration process,we have to some degree negotiated with the
(15:59):
Postal Service what thatprocess would look like.
There have been times where, 1978, we usesomething that's a hybrid of
mediation and arbitration.
I know firsthand in the 2011 round ofbargaining, which the arbitration
process took place in 2012.
All the testimony wassubmitted in written format.
(16:19):
So there's a lot of...
The law basically envisioned theparties developing a process.
So everything that anyone may know aboutrights arbitration, regular panels,
versus expedited, put that out of...
We got to eliminate that from the thoughtbecause these are two
totally different things.
Interest arbitration is about setting theterms of an agreement, and the law
(16:41):
provides for us to develop the process,which at this point we have done.
With interest arbitration, iseverything in our contract on the table?
Hypothetically, it could be.
But if you look at whether it's the tenetof agreement that was sent out for
ratification orany our collective borrowing agreement,
it's really going all the way backto the modern era, beginning in 1970.
(17:04):
The changes that are part of any agreementare a relatively very small
percentage of the contract.
So not small in terms of importance,because obviously, things like our pay and
benefits, the economic stuff, and thensome work rule type issues that affect
us every single day are important.
(17:25):
But in terms of the number of contractualprovisions we change is a super
super low percentage of the overall.
The document is several hundred pages.
So part of the process that we are goingto utilize here, and
really what has driven the differentprocesses that we've utilized over the
years, is to balance getting this done asquickly as we can while still giving each
(17:49):
side the opportunity to present whatevercase that they want to present to the
arbitrator to support their issues.
But also it incorporates a mediationpiece, and that mediation piece just
allows more quickly for the neutralarbitrator to get a clear understanding of
the issues that bothsides are putting forward.
(18:10):
Typically, over our history, it has beenthe economic issues that go before the
arbitrator, and that willbe no different this time.
Those will be the priority because thosevery clearly are the
most important issues.
Can you explain this processof the expedited arbitration?
Yeah.
I think maybe we should usea word other than expedite.
(18:32):
Almost accelerated is a better word, justto avoid that confusion of rights
versus interest arbitration.
But essentially, what this is going toinvolve is very similar
to what was done in 1978.
There will be a mediation component to itwhere each side has the opportunity to
ensure that the arbitrator completelyunderstands their positions.
(18:53):
The arbitrator will thenget both sides together.
That tends to narrow the issues and makeclear what the issues are that
are in front of the arbitrator.
Then both sides will have the opportunityto put on whatever additional
evidence that we want to put on.
Ultimately, in this process,arbitrator Nolan will serve as the
(19:15):
arbitrator and will issue an award.
The mediation component allows in thisprocess for the arbitrator to more quickly
gain a clear understanding of the primaryissues, which, once again, the
primary issues for us are pay.
I certainly don't want to speak for them,but I suspect that that'll be
(19:36):
the same with the Postal Service.
I know you spoke about this in a few ofyour answers here, but I know
it's been a point of contention.
Can you fully explain why we're focusingon the economics and not the work rules?
It's not that we don'tfocus on the work rules.
I mean, those are very important.
We spend a ton of time throughout thecollective bargaining process on them.
(19:58):
It's just that what you want to put infront of the arbitrator what you don't
want to put in front of the arbitrator.
The economic stuff is the most important.
That is very clear.
Anyone listening to this, I suppose theremight be someone out there that would say,
I would rather have this changed toArticle 25 than more pay, but I think
(20:18):
that would be by far the exception.
But the way this has worked in every roundof interest arbitration we've done in
years past, the way it'll work this timeis the economic issues where we or do not
have agreement or the issues that we putin front of the arbitrator, the work rules
stuff, we will use the process that wehave not done yet because the focus
(20:39):
has been on developing this process.
But we'll go through the stuff from thetenetive agreement, and there may be
things that either side wants to modify,either side wants to remove,
either side wants to change.
Then in the end, we will seewhere we are and likely submit whatever it
is we can agree on to the arbitratorto include in the arbitrator's award.
(20:59):
That's what's happened in every roundof interest arbitration in years past.
The one thing that is a possibility, andthis has happened in years past, is there
are work rule issues that couldpotentially be placed in front of the
arbitrator to make a decision, But whatnational level arbitrators do when work
rule issues are placed in front of them isthey have almost without exception ruled,
(21:23):
the parties need to go negotiate this, notbeen willing to dive into
setting specific work rule terms.
There's also arbitrators by nature,particularly those at the national level,
are creatures that seekto find common ground.
They seek to reach a decision thatsatisfies to the extent possible as much
(21:50):
as they can that bothparties are requesting.
You have to be very careful in terms ofstrategy of what your priorities are and
what you actually put in frontof an arbitrator to decide.
For example, if we laid out a whole bunchof work rule issues and the arbitrator
(22:10):
just decided, Okay, Union, I'll give youthose, but I'm not going to give you this
economic piece over here, that obviouslywould be inconsistent with
what our priorities are.
So there is a strategy element to it.
I know our members want to hearabout the route inspection language.
There's a feeling out there that we'regiven up a reduction
reduction in office time.
(22:31):
Can you go into that for us?
Yeah.
Well, first off, there iszero reduction in office time.
The MOU that was included in the tentativeagreement does not change anyone's
office time in Story, period.
It is an agreement that recognizes that injoint route adjustment processes in the
(22:51):
future, we would seek to use a differentway to evaluate office time,
and that certain components of office timewould be recorded differently and it
establishes minimum timefor those line items.
I want to be as clear as Ican possibly be about this.
That agreement does not modifyanyone's evaluated office time.
(23:13):
It does not modify projections thatmanagement uses to beat us over the
head with and we file grievances on.
It does not modify anything that the postservice could do in a route
adjustment on their own.
That is simply not true.
It is really about just modernizing thatif If we get into a joint process in the
future, we have an office, a commitmenthere, and bare minimums,
(23:38):
the office evaluation method.
If you're a carrier out there andit's a joint process and you got a union
rep and a management rep, they'reevaluating your route, then we
figure out what that office time is.
The vast majority of time, that'sgoing to be your average time.
This is about constructing the standardthat's used solely for
evaluation purposes.
(23:59):
Just to sum it up, that MOU that was inthe TA, and I say this without any...
I mean, it may or may not be inthe Interest Arbitration Award.
I don't know.
That's part of the processwe have to go through.
But it does not change one's officetime, period.
End of story.Any claim otherwise is simply false.
(24:20):
Another work rule language, like the 1260language that was in the TA,
where did that come from?
Primarily from NALC's official bargainingpositions at national conventions.
Look, what we did here isstruck a bargain that would address
(24:42):
what has become an increasingproblem for us out in the field.
That is the Postal Service mandating ourpeople to work beyond
12 hours in a day, 60 hours in aweek, the maximum work hour limits.
The history of this is,national arbitration Director Mittenthal
said a long time ago, decades ago,that work hour limitations are absolute.
(25:06):
Then for better or worse, there's been along line of arbitration decisions since
that said, no, they'renot absolute, basically.
What this language does is that there arethree primary
changes, and I want to stressthese are the only changes to Article
8 as it relates to maximum work hours.
Number one, when someone reaches theirmaximum work hours as a full-time
(25:29):
employee, regardless of what list theyare on, what list they are not on.
If they reach maximum work hours,they can clock out and they can leave,
and the contract willprotect them from discipline.
That does not alter in any waywhat non-Postal Services obligation to
(25:51):
provide auxiliar assistance before forcingsomeone not on the list to work overtime,
someone on the work assignmentlist to work off their assignment.
It does not alter the provisionsof Article 8, Section 5F.
It in no way altars anything else otherthan if, regardless of the reason why,
they reach maximum work hours asa full-time employee, they
(26:13):
clock out, they go home.
Peace number 2 is those that are on theovertime desired list,
if they wish to volunteer to work morethan 12 in a day or 60 in a week,
they can voluntarily do so.
If they do not volunteer, they do not wantto do it, then they clock out and go home,
and they have contractual protectionagainst discipline.
(26:37):
The third piece is that if someone worksbeyond 12 hours in a day
or 60 hours in a week, it doesn't matterwhy a new pay rate is established that
will pay them two and a half times pay.
Those are, as it relates to maximum workhours, the only changes that were
included in the tentive agreement.
(26:58):
As I said, it comes from a commentcombination of convention resolutions and
the fact that out in the field where we'vehad these maximum work hour violations
over and over and over,we file grievances.
Ultimately, what stops it and where we'vebeen successful in some locations
is requesting and being granted a remedythat someone can go home when they
(27:19):
reach some maximum work hours.
That's exactly whatthis bargain was designed to do.
To be clear, I don't just like the officetime thing, Ed, that you ask about.
I say that to describe it andbe sure people understand it.
At this point, I cannot say definitivelywhether that piece will or will not be
(27:41):
included ultimately in the collectiveborrowing agreement that comes from
this interest arbitration process.
Speaking about this arbitration process,the excelled, as we're calling it, what
will be the steps in thisaccelerated arbitration?
The step that we are in right now, as werecord this on Thursday, February 27th, is
getting as quickly as we can blocksof time from arbitrator, Nolan.
(28:05):
One of the things we're asking him for isnot just, typically we would ask for
multiple days in a row, full daysto have hearings.
We have asked for even partial days orreally any time
to get the process started.
The next step would be once we get thosedates, then we will inform the
membership of this is when it will start.
(28:27):
Typically, he's fairly responsive, so Iwould expect that we get
a response from him fairly soon.
Then we'll move forward with the processthat I described earlier, starting with
that mediation step, which is designed toinform him, have him gain a good
understanding of the issues just through amediation process rather than
(28:50):
official presentations and that stuff.
And then it would move toafter his mediation discussions with both
sides, then we all get together and moveforward with where either side wants to go
in terms of further evidenceand presentation of him.
Then ultimately, he would make a decision.
I know this is a loaded question,and I know this is where the sound bite is
(29:13):
going to come from, but realistically,how long will it take to get a decision?
It's hard to tell.
I can tell you that the way we designedthis process, the discussions we've had
with the Postal Service,what the executive council discussed, and
there was a motion made, andas I said, overwhelmingly approved,
(29:34):
is to get it done as quickly as possible.
As we go through the process, that will,of course, be communicated
to arbitrator Nolan.
But it is literally impossiblefor me to put a timeline on it.
I mean, look, when someone...
We want this to happen quickly forreasons we've already talked about.
But rushing the individual is going todecide an outcome that
(29:56):
affects hundreds of thousands of lettercarriers might not the
best course of action.
We will get a better sense of that as weget the dates established, which we'll
report, and as weget into the process, which hopefully
begins here in the very near future.
Now that we talked to Tell the listenersabout the arbitration process, can you
(30:17):
explain, and you did a little bit, butlet's get a little bit more deeper into
it, why do we need toget this done so quickly?
Yeah, I just think it's...
I mean, generally, it's in our interest toget it done as quickly as
as we can, because hopefully that outcomewould involve
retro payment and things like that.
And lettercares have not had apay increase in a long time now.
(30:39):
But specifically, as I think alluded toearlier, this threat we should call it,
from the administration issue andexecutive order creates all sorts of
possibilities that we have to consider andbe prepared for, and we are prepared for.
One of those is if such a move is made, ofcourse, there would be, as I
(31:00):
mentioned, immediate legal action.
But it is perfectly reasonable to expectthat should such a move be made and the
Postal Service end up underneath theexecutive branch of the government, which
the Department of Commerce is, that'sunder the President,
that we would then see exactly what we'veseen from this administration on our
(31:25):
brothers and sisters that are federalemployees represented by several other And
that is an attack on their collectivebargaining rights, either just absolute
refusal to recognize them, to attempts tocancel a collective bargaining agreement.
So as we, of course, in thisshort period of time here over the last
week, have anticipated everypossible scenario that could come from
(31:48):
that just to prepare legally, there arethings that we have to do to ensure we are
in the strongest possible legal position.
Typically, an attack like that would befirst step It would be to go to the
National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB.
Unfortunately, thereis no functional NLRB.
The administration fired a sitting boardmember who had been nominated and
(32:11):
confirmed and had time left on her term,that there is legal action about that.
It's illegal to do that.
That legal action remains unresolved, andthere's not enough
board members to constitute a quorum.
So that avenue was off the table.
When it comes to these collectivebargaining fights, and in the event which
(32:31):
should these battlesmaterialize, and we're doing everything in
our power andfighting like hell to be sure they don't,
we've got to be in the strongest position.
You are in a stronger position if you havea collective borrowing agreement in effect
within its duration dates.
(32:52):
That's a piece of this, too.
The conversation that we had with thecouncil and the approach we've taken is to
get this done as quickly as we canfor that reason, but also do it through a
process that does not in any way sacrificeour ability to put on our best case
to achieve the best outcome we couldachieve through interest arbitration.
(33:16):
I think we feel good about where weare in that process here going forward.
Is there an underlying force, like talkingto the administration, trying to push
these executive orders ordoing these things to us?
Yeah, there absolutely is.
Private business that wants to make money,that wants to take what we do
(33:37):
that is profitable to themto make themselves richer.
I mean, look, thePresident was asked about this on Friday,
and he talked about a mergerwith the private sector.
Let me just tell you what that means.
What that means is the UPSs and the FedExand the Amazons of the world, any other
delivery service that may pop up,what they want to do is take the
(33:58):
portions of our work that are profitable.
They're not going to be interested intaking the delivery to rural areas and
the universal service that we provide.
That's really what's behind this.
I mean, it's 100 % it is abouttaking what the Postal Service does well,
what the Postal Service does isprofitable, and letting them
(34:20):
make more money off of it.
Look, a lot of the things that we fight onCapitol Hill and throughout the government
with the Postal Service iscomes from the private shippers.
The private companies that do parcelshipping and delivery have an interest
in the Postal Service failing.
(34:41):
They don't care about allthe people we deliver to.
What they care about is gettingthe packages and making money.
But it's also true that the postalservice, we deliver
376 million pieces a day.
We deliver 10 billions of billions ofpackages every year,
(35:04):
70 to 80 billion packages.
We deliver to 169 milliondelivery points every day.
These companies do not havean interest in doing that.
They have an interest in making aprofit, as any private business should.
That's the whole reasonwhy private business exists.
(35:24):
I think that's the important distinctionbetween us as a public service
and a private business.
I've gotten a lot of questionsfrom our members about what
if this was done, maybethey could make the post service more
efficient, or maybe they couldget rid of some of the management that's
(35:48):
not needed, and maybe we would be okay.
I just want to be ascrystal clear as I can.
If a significant amount of the packagebusiness that we do
is given away, sold offto the private sector,
the universal service that weprovide is going to go away.
(36:10):
That is what would bethe obvious next step.
This is not about making thepostal service more efficient.
It is 100% about private shippersgetting what they want in terms of our
business and not being willing to do thethings that we do, such as deliver to
50 million people in this country thatdon't live in dense urban areas,
(36:35):
but we deliver to them just the sameevery single day.
This is not about efficiencyat the Postal Service.
This is moving it under the Department ofCommerce is 100% designed to do exactly
what I've talked about hereand make more money for the private
companies and eventuallystart at what would likely be a fairly
(36:58):
rapid death spiral for us thatwould cost the jobs of letter carriers and
other postal employees andhave a significant impact on the people
that we serve and count on us every day.
What have we, as the NALC, done so far?
Yeah, a lot of things.This is an extensive campaign.
(37:19):
We, of course, when we heard about this onThursday, immediately began reaching out
to a lot of those that couldinfluence the administration.
That includes some Republican members ofCongress that includes some other folks.
On Friday of last week, a lot of ourmembers placed calls to
the office of the speaker of the House.
(37:39):
That was designed so that the speaker,his folks, would very clearly understand
that this is a bad idea, and maybe mostimportantly, that the people
of America don't support this.
Because no matter who somebody voted for,no matter what their political persuasion
is, whether we're talking about themembers of the NALC or the general public,
(37:59):
what they did not vote foris to destroy the Postal Service.
On Monday, here in DC, we hada large rally that was great.
We had hundreds of NALC members andour brothers and sisters from other
postal unions and other unions.
Our brothers and sisters throughout thelabor movement, really, and veterans
groups, and a lot of differentcommunities represented there.
(38:22):
A Hell No Rally, we called it, becausethat's our answer to this proposal, is all
that type stuff is designed toeducate the public, to awareness.
When we get media coverage of things likethat, it's really designed to just
let the people know what is going on.
As we go forward, bythe time you listen to this, you have
(38:42):
likely seen that we are going to have aNational Day of Action on March the 23rd,
where a number of our branches all aroundthe country are going to
hold similar events andget our local media and those outlets out.
I'm sure doing this all around the countrywill have some national media coverage as
(39:02):
well, which is, again, designed just toget the word out and let people know,
because, again, it doesn'tmatter where they are.
It really doesn't matter who they are.
The vast, vast majorityof Americans support us.
There's a lot of things that we are doingfrom a digital and ad
campaign perspective.
Many of those are targeted.
They're targeted at certain locations andpeople that live in certain congressional
(39:26):
districts were designed toinfluence specific members of Congress In
a lot of cases, our state associations orbranches in those locations are
involved in that.
You're not going to see a lot ofRepublicans on Capitol Hill and elsewhere
talk about this publicly because, frankly,they are afraid of this administration.
(39:47):
But that doesn't mean that behind thescenes, they're not communicating.
There's a piece of this that'sdesigned to influence them.
I would say that as we go look forward,just pay attention to our social
platforms and the website.
We did just this week aday of action where we send messages
(40:08):
directly to the White Housebecause that's where this battle is.
This is not something that'sbeing contemplated in Congress.
This is not something thatCongress is ultimately,
it's highly unlikely that we'll haveany desire or realistic attempt
to make such a change in Congress.
Our Congressional outreach is really aboutco-sponsoring legislation that we've
(40:31):
mentioned here, but there's amulti-pronged approach going forward.
Just more generally, I want to make apoint that I think is really important.
This is not the type offight that's going to be over with
next week or the week after thator the week after that.
(40:53):
This is going to continue.
Whether it's a different approachto the administration potentially
trying to get to the same end through apiecemeal effort or some other way,
this is going to continue,which means that we
(41:15):
have to be in a positionto sustain everything that
we've done the last week plus.
Look, we as a union havethe most active membership.
We have a tremendous amount influence onCapitol Hill here in Washington, DC, our
union is stronger than it hasever been on Capitol Hill.
(41:38):
It's frankly not even close.
But in order for us to maximize ourstrengths of what we do in DC what we do
out in the field, we have to have all ofour members together pushing
toward the same objective.
I promise you all, I assure you,there is a strategy behind everything
(41:59):
that we ask our members to do.
This is a fight where we do not have theluxury of veering off course, of
thinking about anyone's individualall Ideas are welcome to be shared, but
someone going in a different directionwith members of Congress
(42:21):
and things like that.This is us together.
As we move forward, there's going to beplenty, plenty of opportunities,
beginning with that day of action.
On that day of action,reach out to your National Business
Agent's office if you haven't done thatalready, and we'll get you set up with
everything you need in terms ofmaterials and the kit for the press.
(42:45):
We'll assist you with the media.
We'll assist you with how to talk to themedia and how to have a successful
event and get the word out.
But I cannot say this strongly enough.
This is going to sustainThis is something that we have to...
This fight will sustain,so we have to sustain.
(43:07):
It's going to take all of us together.
This is not a time.
If you have differences with somebody atthe local level in your station or in your
branch, this is the time to put thosedifferences to the side
and understand thatour strength as a union is our members.
(43:27):
It's our solidarity.
On this fight, we have to be together andwe have to all be pushing in
the same direction.
That's well said.
We really have to sticktogether on this one.
Can you just talk about our grassrootssystem for people that might not know that
it's their first time here in the podcastbecause someone on the work room floor
(43:48):
said, Hey, you should listen to this.
Can you just talk about what our system ishere at the NALC and how we deal
with our members of Congress?
Yeah.No, Ed, really good question.
People that learn about all these thingsthat we do, both our members and
otherwise, are typically pretty amazed.
It's a combination ofactivity that happens here in DC,
(44:12):
and then, of course, ourstructure which provides for this
and the activism of our members.
Let me just startwith what we do here in DC.
We employa number of lobbyists professionals that
are very well respected, experienced onCapitol Hill, work on both sides of the
(44:34):
aisle with Republicans and Democrats.
Structurally, we as a union, our stateassociations, their
real reason for existence is to advanceour legislative agenda
here on Capitol Hill in those states.
Many of them we see here throughout,particularly throughout the spring.
When there's a particular member ofCongress that we need to
(44:58):
move on an issue, such as what I talkedabout when we first heard about this,
that's going to involve gettingour people at the state level.
We have letter carrier Congressionalliaisons in every single
Congressional district.
We've got a member there that's beentrained and designated to deal with them.
Then, of course, our branchesthat develop relationships with their
(45:20):
members of Congress onboth sides of the aisle.
It ranges really fromthe things that we do here at
the headquarters level,dealing directly with the Congress, with
the White House, with other parts of thefederal government,
and with our state associations andLittles, our letter carriers Congressional
liaisons, and then, of course,the branches do locally.
(45:42):
All that is fueled by theletter carriers Political Fund.
This is our Political Action Committee.It's our PAC.
Compared to a lot of PACs that exist inthe cesspool that is campaign finance
in this country, our PAC is righteous.
It's not corporate billionaires dumpingmoney into trying to buy elections.
(46:06):
It's really emblematic of what solidarityis, and frankly, one of the
principles that unions are founded on.
And that is that our pack is a little bitfrom a lot of our members that help
us grow our collective influence.
You hear us talking aboutthese threats today.
If someonewere to ask me, what's the simplest thing
(46:30):
that you could do to do your part or whatyou could do to protect your own
given these battles?
The answer to that question would beto contribute $5 or $10 every paycheck to
the letter carriers Political Fund.
It's bipartisan.
We give money to Republicans, we givemoney to Democrats, we give
money to people that support us.
(46:52):
As we go through these battles,it is more important than ever that
everybody participates in that so wetogether can grow our
collective influence.
If I could just take a sec just talk toour members that might not
like to get political here.
This is our livelihood.
(47:12):
When the messaging comes down,it's going to be, Hell, no.
You might not like who you'regoing to have to reach out to.
You might not like that representativethat we're asking to reach out to.
But we have to be just likewe're out on our route.
We might not love all our customers,but it's going to have to be
a Hell, no and not go to hell.
We got to be respectful when wereach out to our members of Congress.
I know we're upset and we're angry, butwe're going to need everybody
(47:35):
on our side on this.
Yeah, Ed, if I could just...
I think that's an excellent point.
As you were speaking, I was just thinkingto myself,
Years and years ago, when I was a reallyyoung letter carriers,
I got involved in the union becauseI like representing letter carriers,
and I hated bullies.
(47:57):
Then as I did more and more, I love routeadjustments, and I loved Article
12, and all these nerdy things.
I didn't get involved in this stuffbecause I like politics
and I like legislation.
To be very honest about it, I still don't,outside of, obviously, the things
that affect letter carriers.
But the point isthat regardless of political affiliation,
(48:19):
these type of attackshave to be fought with money.
That's the way it works in this country.
So, Ed, I just wanted to reemphasize whatyou said that even if someone holds
the opinion that we shouldn't evenhave to be involved in politics.
The fact of the matter is we have to.
Because if we're not and we don't do thebest that we can do, that is going to
(48:42):
result in losing in us,our jobs being hurt.
That's not what we as a union do.
We win, and it takes all of us to win.
Great.
Do you just want to leave us with anyother messages to the membership
about this fight like how campaign?
Yeah.
We will, of course, keep you updated onthe bargaining and anything
(49:03):
else that's happening here.
I guess just reemphasize the importance ofunderstanding that this is
going to be an ongoing fight.
It's going to continue throughoutthis year, probably into 2026.
We can win.
But for us to win, once again,we have to all be together.
(49:23):
We have to all be withgetting the right message
to the right peopleat the right time as part of a cohesive
strategy that we've talked about here.
We have an extensive structure of peoplefrom our headquarters staff and
our legislative politicalorganizers that are out there.
(49:45):
If you have a question or you want to getinvolved, you should reach out to
your branch, reach out to your state.
You can, of course, call yourNational Business Agent's office.
But it's important that we all understandthis so that we can all take whatever
collective action is needed on the day,because the more voices
that say the same thing and direct thatin the right direction, the louder we are.
(50:10):
And the louder we are,the more that we're heard.
I appreciate everybody that'sreally stepped up over the last week plus,
the response has been fabulousto some of the calls to action.
But it's very important that wecontinue to do that and talk to your
coworkers and talk to your other lettercarriers and members about, they really
(50:33):
should keep up with what's going on here.
My commitment is thatwe here from headquarters are going to
continue to keep you informedand give you those opportunities to all
jump in together to ensure that we achievethe things we need to achieve, and
we say, Hell no to the attacks.
Well, Brian, thank you for coming on.I appreciate you.
(50:53):
I appreciate all our members out therelistening and flighting every day.
I just want to thank you all for listeningto this episode the
Flight Like Hell podcast.
Please subscribe to this podcastso you don't miss an episode.
We need you to share this podcast withall of our NALC brothers and sisters.
You got to follow theNALC on all social media.
Now's the time, either on Facebook, X,Twitter, Instagram,
(51:16):
and you can find the links to ouraccounts in the episode description.
May your steward be by your sideand may your union have your back.
Thanks for listening,and let's fight like hell..
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.