History of May Day and More with APWU Pres. Mark Dimondstein

In this episode Pres. Mark Dimondstein talks about the history of May Day, 2024 Contract Negotiations, attacks on Vote-by-Mail, the recent Senate hearing about the USPS, Workers Memorial Day, and other labor news in our union and our community. 

Episode Transcript

Mark (00:10):
Well, union greetings, APWU members and friends.
this is Mark Dimondstein.
APWU President.
I hope this podcast finds everybody in good health and good spirits and a happy May Day to one and all.
May Day is the day of the international working class, and I'll have a few things to share about that.
And in this podcast, I'm just going to touch on a number of issues.

(00:32):
But before we get started, I want you all to remember that you can find this podcaston Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts on a regular basis.
Make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest episodes when they come out.
And of course, you can also.
Link to the podcast website, apwu.
org.

(00:53):
So we'd love for you to join us in the future.
Tell your, coworkers, your union members that you work with, about it, and hopefully they'll join on too.
And it's just another, effort on our part at national headquarters to use all avenues that we can find to communicatewith you, the member, because you, the member are the foundation of this union and the key to everything we do.

(01:20):
So first again, let's go back to May Day.
Happy May Day.
May Day is a holiday that's American as apple pie, but for generations, you wouldn't know it had any link to the United States.
It was born in the struggle for the eight hour day and on May 1st, 1886, demonstrators, workers took to the streets ofChicago fighting for a shorter work week with no cut in pay and issue now before us again, with so much automation and A.

(01:47):
I.
But, what happened at that demonstration was, a provocateur and maybe the police themselves through a bomb.
Some people were injured, and killed.
And the corporate elite and the powers that be falsely arrested and framed up the leaders of theworkers movement and the number of them were jailed and a number of them were executed from that day.

(02:11):
The fight for the eight hour day in Chicago, Chicago.
The World Labor Movement eventually took up May 1st as a day of the international working class, international solidarity.
Honoring what workers do all over the world.
Recognizing that in our unity lies our strength.
It's beyond our workplace, beyond our borders.

(02:32):
think about it.
We're now dealing with companies like Amazon.
Amazon's got facilities, I don't know how many countries.
It's probably a hundred countries.
Well, if we're not united with workers there, we're never gonna beat Amazon.
Even in the postal world.
What's happening to us through the change in the mail mix, the impact of automation, the impact of the Internet.

(02:52):
That's happening to, post offices throughout the world and postal unions are grappling with many of the issues we're grappling with here.
And to have those international relationships and international solidarity is vitally important.
So it should come as no surprise, though.
That the corporate powers of the United States, the Wall Street influence of the United States, did not like May Day.

(03:15):
They don't like working class unity, working class militancy, working class activism.
the new militant, terrific leader of the United Auto Workers, Sean Fain,has, purposely their new contracts with the big three expire around May Day, in 2028.
So they saw the significance in May Day, and he made a call for all unions where possible to have contracts expiring on May Day at the same time.

(03:42):
Think about how that would help build our power.
So again, we're glad to be coming.
with you on this podcast.
on May Day.
It's again a source of worker pride, worker unity, and one last personal story.
I'll tell you,
My wife and I were with the Philippine trade union movement in 2003, and we're at May Day demonstrations.

(04:03):
And lo and behold, five years later, we're visiting, Elderly relatives in Paris, France, and we didn't even know what day of the week it is.
They get up in the morning, say, come on, we're going out to the May Day demonstrations.
We joined 80, 000 workers, including postal workers, on the streets of Paris.
So, long live May Day.
Great, it's making a comeback.
It's a paid holiday in over 80 countries, around the globe, including in France and the Philippines.

(04:29):
and we look forward to the day that it's a paid holiday.
Holiday in the United States.
So let me talk a little bit about a number.
of other issues.
A couple podcasts ago, we talked about our negotiations.
we had, brother Charlie Cash, our industrial relations director myself, talk about the preparations are underway.

(04:55):
Some of the main goals, those negotiations, preparations are continuing.
We asked you to get involved, sharing through a survey.
Some of your thoughts on what you would like to see in a new contract.
Our contract, by the way, expires September 20th.
We open negotiations on June 25th.

(05:16):
but we wanted to know what you thought.
And we had over 12, 000 members give input and we very much appreciate that.
And of course, that's more informal input.
We know as we're doing this podcast, many of you are passing resolutions and at your local union meetings at your state conventions.
Around different things you would like to see about our union life, including changes you were that you would like to see in the negotiations process.

(05:42):
So we want you to also participate in that process as well, but we greatly appreciate the input.
We have closed out now.
Our slogan campaign for the upcoming contract soon will be announcing the winners.
We had well But as we're preparing for the opening day on June 25th, we very much are stillinvolved in building our power and leverage through the organizing, campaign, building union power.

(06:10):
We have a goal of 5, 000 new members between April 1st and June 25th.
Our last podcast was with myself and Anna Smith.
Our terrific organizing director, and we're well on our way.
So you're doing a great job out there.
every non member who thinks they're getting over on the rest of us and they're riding, trying to ride the free gravy train while over 80percent of us voluntarily pay our dues because we know how much the union has improved our lives and our family lives and improved our.

(06:43):
communities.
Every non member brings us all down.
and so every time you bring a non member into the ranks of membership, we get stronger.
Our contract negotiations will go better.
Your workplace will be safer.
More people will be involved.
management will have more respect for our contract for you as postal workers and So keep up the good work on the organizing campaign.

(07:08):
We're going to bring it home by June 25th.
We hope to break our goal.
We hope to get well beyond our goal of 5, 000, new members.
And we'll keep everybody appraised on how we are doing.
Speaking of June 25th, the opening day, you'll be able to watch that through live stream.
In the next magazine coming out, we'll have QR codes where you can hook in, to watch it.

(07:32):
We will also be advertising that on the website through our emails and texts and so on.
So we hope many of you will join us to be able to listen to the, opening comments from the union side.
And you'll be able to hear the opening comments from management side.
The day before, the night before, on, June 24th, At 7 p.

(07:52):
m.
Eastern time, we're gonna have a virtual zoom type of, launch rally with many of our friendsand allies showing their solidarity, as we build our strength for good new union contracts.
So we hope to see you.
all then we'll get the information on the APW dot org website and spread the word and other and other ways.

(08:17):
So we're looking forward with real optimism to the negotiations.
Yes, it's challenging.
Yes, it's never been easy.
Yes, we're never going to get everything that we deserve and want.
But our goal is to build on the great gains of the past, protect what we've won.
And then build even better and enhanced for the future.

(08:38):
And we're optimistic because we're union strong all day long that we'll come out on the other side with a darn good contract.
I want to talk to you a little bit about vote by mail.
We have a lot of concerns in general.
And so do you with what's going on with the mail?

(09:00):
whatever.
Plans are for network modernization.
Whether they make sense on paper or not, whether they're trying to address the change in mail mix and the impact of the Interneton letter mail and the reduction in letter mail that has caused, while at the same time, creating welcome, package growth.

(09:21):
It's still being rolled out in a chaotic, disruptive and outrageous fashion.
Mail is slowing down.
We have complaints from all over the country.
We are active at all levels of the Union.
Thank you.
to try to force management to fix the service.
That's our bond and our commitment to the people of the country.

(09:42):
Good service, prompt, reliable and efficient services is what the law demands.
So we're hard at work on this, but it's having a particular concern around the election coming up because the election is letter mail.
And if letter mail is going to sit stuck in facilities that are supposed to speed up mail, but they're slowing downmail, we got serious concerns and problems about how poor service is going to affect the democratic rights of the people.

(10:09):
Last time in 2020, the last presidential election, we faced a similar battle.
Mail was very poor.
the P.
M.
G.
Had put in some policies that even slowed it down more, and we were part of an of a legitimate.
Uprising in the country to demand a vote by mail, get the attention and in a sense, the extraordinaryattention that it deserves because that ballot is that person's voice and that person's vote in our elections.

(10:41):
And we came through and we're going to come through again.
Despite whatever problems are going on, Sister Judy Beard, our legislative political director, who does a greatjob, and I'm going to have her on to talk about this issue more and other legislative and political issues.
She's our representative on a national task force with Postal Management, a national election mail task force.

(11:05):
She was in 2020.
And also in 2022.
We've already gotten some general commitments from management, including the PMG that they're going to give voteby mail the attention it deserves, and they're willing to do some very similar things to what they did in 2020
2020.
We had election mail task forces at the locals that would help make sure that that mail got moved.

(11:31):
We weren't moving those ballots based on who was voting for who.
We didn't keep some ballots behind because somebody might have voted one way and moved another ballot because somebody we thought somebody voted.
No, these are secret ballots.
We moved the mail out of our civic duty and responsibility to the people of the country.
And you all came through with flying colors.

(11:52):
65 million people voted by mail in the 2020 election in the middle of a pandemic.
And you were there for them.
And guess what?
Sisters and brothers and A.
P.
W.
Family.
We are gonna do it again.
We're gonna put everything into voting by mail, and we have to be very clear withour friends, our family, our neighbors, our communities that vote by mail works.

(12:15):
It will work.
It's safe.
And we have to reject the big lies that somehow when people vote by mail, it's a fraudulent vote.
It's just the opposite.
It's safe.
It's secure, and it actually increases participation.
In the political process, and we want workers to have the most access, not the least access the most access tothe election process vote by mail is a great way for so many people to vote and a safe and secure way, as well.

(12:51):
Let me share a few thoughts and comments on the recent Senate hearing held on April 16th,where PMG DeJoy and others testified before the Homeland Security Committee of the Senate.
if you haven't seen it all or didn't get a chance to watch and what's going on, you can find the link on ourwebsite that will go right to the Senate hearing and you may find that of interest or at least part of it.

(13:16):
But I think the key is that often when we bring our concerns and complaints to management at headquarters level about theproblems with the service, they tend to say, well, that's just that we know it's a problem there, but that's an isolated problem.
And I think for those of us who watched or read the transcripts at a hearing, on April 16th, the Senatehearing, it's very clear that this is a systemic problem that's widespread throughout the country.

(13:44):
And that's an important point.
We know that.
But that Senate hearing, will help force management to address it.
on a much broader scale.
and systemic basis, then they're just treating it.
Yeah, everything's going well, but we got one problem in this city or state.
That's not the case.
It's chaotic throughout the system.
Mail is too slow.

(14:04):
And as they implement some of these changes, whether it's because the changes aren't right, whether it's through incompetence, Let'ssay if they are, or whether it's sabotage, whatever it is, the people of the country are having reduced diminished mail services.
It's an outrage.
It has to be fixed.
And we appreciate Senator Peters for from Michigan for leading that hearing and for the senators who weighed in out of concern for their constituents.

(14:31):
Now, when you listen to it, there's a few senators that weighed in.
Not out of a concern for their constituents, but the idea that Louis DeJoy and the PMG and the Board of Governors shoulddestroy the unions, put it all into the private sector, do away with our benefits, our pensions and our health care.
So not everybody there was well intentioned, but most of the senators were and we appreciate their concern.

(14:56):
We we appreciate them pressing.
Postal management.
We worked with these senators very closely.
we're going to continue to work with these senators to try to stop those parts of this modernization planthat are going to slow down service to the people of the country and by extension, jeopardize our job

(15:16):
security and our jobs and the mission that we're so proud to carry out for the people of the country.
not only is this coming out of May Day, but a few days ago we, we, recognized workers Memorial Day.
That's a day created by the AFL CIO.
That is on the anniversary of the passage of the OSHA Act.

(15:40):
So it's a day that we bring attention to the fight for health and safety in our workplaces.
And we all know as postal workers, this is a big fight in our workplaces.
So April 28th has come and gone.
The fight for safety never ends.
we encourage people to, Fill out 17 67 the report of unsafe conditions on that day.

(16:02):
But we want you to fill those out anytime there's a problem that needs to be addressed.
You have a right to do it on the clock.
Management has to have those available on an anonymous basis.
Just sitting there.
You can fill them out either way, whether it's your name or you just want to fill it out an anonymous basis.
We encourage the people to fill it out with our names on it.
But that having been said, There's still far too many deaths and injuries on the job in the United States.

(16:30):
And that's a product primarily of the profit motive coming first, not the health and safety and the well being of workers.
These bosses, for the most part, aren't going to care if somebody dies on the job or isso injured they can never return to work as long as they've got a worker to replace them.
That worker.
So it was estimated, in 2022, according to the AFL CIO that over 125, 000 workers died in the United States on the job.

(16:58):
Most of those from occupational disease, but close to 6, 000 from traumatic injuries on the jobs on the job.
That's an outrage.
an estimated 50, 000 deaths from, Occupational diseases just from chemical exposures each year.
And there's 190, 000 illnesses each year based on chemical exposures.

(17:23):
And the most shocking figure is from the employers themselves that have reported nearly 3.
5 million 3.
5 million work related injuries and illnesses in 2022.
And that's on the rise, not on the decline.
And there's definitely a connection between the weakening of the labor movement and the rise of morework related injuries and illnesses at work, because without unions, our workplaces are less safe.

(17:54):
So while we recognize Workers Memorial Day, we also recognize, that the fight for health and safety.
Is ongoing every day and every hour of every day.
We know in the postal world, not only there are a lot of injuries based on the way the machinery isconstructed without the worker in mind, but stress, toxic work environments, those are safety issues.

(18:20):
And we're constantly working together to address those.
another issue I wanted to talk about.
Ties into what I just said about the weakening labor movement.
Workers are on the march some in this country, and that's a great thing.
So we're very excited, and I'm sure many of you saw it in the news just in the last couple weeks, thatthe United Auto Workers, coming off their very successful strike against the big three auto companies, are

(18:51):
now for the first time really deeply and seriously organizing in the non union side of the auto industry.
And the non union side has mainly been the many what we call the transplant autocompanies from other parts of the world, building factories in the United States.
And up until a few weeks ago, none of them have been unionized, and most of them Are in the south of the United States.

(19:16):
So they're purposely put in where places where workers wages are lower, theirprofits can be higher, and there's less unionization, and that's no accident.
So the UAW just broke through at the big VW plant.
I think it's almost 5000 workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Within a couple weeks of this podcast, they have an election at Mercedes in Alabama.

(19:40):
They're on the march wherever you are.
In the country, and if you hear about an organizing drive going on, whether it's an autoplant or anywhere else, jump in there and see if there's anything that we can do to help.
And I do want to share with you that we're deeply involved with helping to organize Amazon workers.
That's our industry.
Amazon's a giant behemoth, over a million workers.

(20:02):
We get compared to those doing similar work in the private sector when we go into negotiations and if we end up in what's called interest arbitration.
Amazon is our industry.
And if people are stuck making 17 and 18 an hour in our industry, that brings us all down.
And we have a responsibility to bring everybody up.

(20:23):
So if you know folks who work at Amazon, many of our members once worked at Amazon.
They came over, maybe they started as PSEs, they still have friends and family back in the warehouse.
Talk to them.
See if they're interested in organizing.
See if they're interested in winning a voice at work.
Is it easy?
No.
the labor laws in this country are weak and they're tilted towards the corporations and the bosses.

(20:46):
But can people organize anyway?
You bet we can.
and we have, now we're in a great time.
This is the highest level in many years of how the population feels about labor unions.
About 70 percent have a very favorable view of labor unions among young people.
It jumps into the high 80s.
So this is a really good time to be talking about unions.

(21:08):
So if you, if you know folks at Amazon and they're interested in talking to us, Get a hold of us.
We got organizers who are dealing with this day in and day out and would love to talk to any Amazon worker in the country about thepossibilities of unionizing not just with the APWU, but we believe that this has to be a united front of the entire labor movement.

(21:31):
So we look forward to hearing from more Amazon workers around the country.
If you can get them in touch with us.
so while we have a lot of angst and a lot of concern and opposition to the way this modernization plan is being rolled out,that includes Opposition to what they're calling this transportation optimization part of it where they're not going to pick

(21:59):
up the afternoon trip and a lot of smaller cities and smaller post offices throughout rural America and the mail is going tosit another day and we have a lot of challenges here because anytime the bond is broken with the people of the country, it's a,
it's a serious problem for the well being of the public postal service and the well being of our, our jobs and our job security.

(22:24):
but within that angst, we also like to recognize some of the positive things that might be going on and one thing that isin the process of happening that I want to share with you because this has some real prospect is a management initiative.
To try to change some of the deep pre sort discounts for the package consolidators.
The pre sort discount, folks, whether it's letters, flats, and packages.

(22:48):
Is basically a scheme of privatization of our work, subcontracting of our work.
It takes the work that we would normally do, turns it over to the private sector, and then we get bypassed.
Our plants get bypassed, our plants get gutted, our trucks get bypassed.
And these outside consolidators move the mail deep, deep into the system and we're not doing the work.

(23:11):
So it affects everything, including our jobs.
And There's a recent initiative that's just starting, so it hasn't, been reported much in the press, but it's been talked about some.
That the deep discounts that the post office in the past had given to the, package consolidators to go into the DDUs are going to be eliminated.

(23:33):
If that comes to pass, that's a very good thing, and that's an area that we support.
what this administration of Postal Headquarters is doing.
Because what that will do is it will be number one.
It's more revenue because they're gonna eliminate some of the deepest discounts, not all the discounts, but some of the deepest discounts.

(23:54):
And number two, it's going to be bring work higher up into our facilitieswhere we can then be part of the processing, part of the process for sorting.
and everything else that goes into moving that package through the customer, the transportation, the, repair of machines, etcetera.
So it touches us in many, many ways.

(24:15):
So we will keep all of you folks posted, about this development.
And we hope to, to get to the point that the post office takes a completely different approach to all of the pre sort discounts.
It's corporate welfare.
It's undermining.
Again, our plants are transportation, and it's undermining the public postal service.

(24:37):
I just wanted to give you an update on that.
I want to remind everybody about our better staffing, better service campaign.
Part of tackling this chaos in the mail is to get the right staffing to move the mail.
We're always going to have chaos in the mail if we don't have enough people to do the work.

(24:58):
And so the better, better staffing, better service campaign is out there.
You can find it on our.
website.
We hope that all the locals and states are taking it up, and it's a great way to unite with the people of the country.
People in the country aren't going to care if a clerk's moving a package or mail handlers moving a package, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
But they do deeply care about getting their packages and their mail on time.

(25:23):
And they understand and will understand when we bring the issue to them that improper staffing leads to Poor service and the people want good service.
So the members of the communities will back us on this.
There's certain issues we got to take to the streets.
A.
P.
W.
Family.
And this is absolute one of them.

(25:44):
We're in the process of staffing up the campaign with some full time people at headquarters that can assist the locals.
Bring these issues to your union meetings, and work together with your leadershipat the local and state levels to, do this work and get the program going full steam.

(26:06):
So I just want to wrap up.
I appreciate you tuning in to this podcast.
I hope you find the, some of the information helpful.
again, we touched on a number of subjects this time.
In the future, we'll be addressing our legislative political issues.
We'll talk about our national convention.
We're going to continue to talk about this network modernization plan and the chaos it's causing and how to fightback and proper staffing, proper service, the fight to get new work into the postal services upon us as well.

(26:35):
And we'll talk about all of these some more.
But again, we wish you all Happy May Day, the holiday of the international working class, respect for what we do to makethe world go round, and stealing ourselves to our unity, across borders and across the world for the many battles it's had.

(26:55):
So again, a happy May Day to one and all, and we'll see you next time.
Remember, you can find this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And you can subscribe through your app and then you'd automatically get the latest episodes.
And again, as a reminder, you can always link through the APW website at apw.
org.

(27:15):
Keep up all the great fighting spirit out there.
Solidarity forever.
APWU Family.
Thank you for listening.