Chapo Trap House - Bonus: The Postman Always Is Nice

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

We’re discussing the ongoing labor disputes with the United States Postal Service with Tyler Vasseur, a shop steward with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC). We discuss the BFN rank and file movement to transform the postal unions, fighting for transparency in bargaining on the long-stalled new contract for letter carriers, what an equitable contract would look like, how the letter carriers fight fits in the broader labor movement, cost of living adjustments in an era of high inflation, changes in work environments post-COVID, and ongoing efforts to privatize the Post Office. More on BFN here: https://www.fightingnalc.com/about-bfn

Hello, everybody. It's Friday, December 20th. It's me, Will, here and I've got a bonus interview for you today. It's obviously the holiday season and as such, people are more concerned than ever with their packages. Will they arrive? How will they arrive and in what condition? But rather than focus on you, the people wanting to get a package, we thought we would do an episode talking about the issues facing some of the people delivering these packages. And a contract issue that's going on right now with the United States Postal Service and postal workers. So it's my pleasure to introduce our guest for this episode, Tyler Vassar, who is a shop

steward with the National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 9. Tyler, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Good to be here. Tyler, I want to talk about the state of this deal that you've been offered and what your effort is right now to sort of perhaps get a better deal for your members. But I'd like to begin with just talking a little bit about your union, your Branch 9.

Could you just tell us where do you work, what's your job with just talking a little bit about your union, your branch nine, because you just tell us, where do you work? What's your job? And just a little bit about the National Association of Letter Carriers. Yeah, so just to add to the to the introduction, like you said, well, I'm Tyler Vassar. I'm a letter carrier, but I'm also in the shop store with NELC branch nine, but I'm also the chair of the coordinating committee for build a fighting NELC BFN, which is a growing national and developing national rank of file reform caucus in NELC. It grew out of the fight for the open bargaining resolution this past year. Now we're organizing

for a no vote on this sellout TA and we're getting organized to transform the union going forward, especially around things like fighting for the right to strike. And so any LC itself, the National Association of letter carriers is represents 280,000 city letter carriers at USPS, around 200,000 of those are active working members and there's about 80,000 give or take retiree members. And I'm sorry, you asked like what are the other unions there? Yeah, I mean, I know the NLA, sorry, the NALC is but one of four unions that represent all postal workers in the United States, which taken together represents the largest unionized workforce in this country. Yeah. So what how does your union?

How does that relate to the other three unions? And who do they represent? That's right. Yeah. So NALC is the largest with 280,000 members and then there's three others as you said the APW you the American Postal Workers Union is the second largest they represent you clerks janitors maintenance Basically anyone that works inside the building. There's also two more national postal mail handlers Handler's Union They are the people that run the forklifts, move mail on around the processing facilities. And then there's another carrier union, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, which represents just rural

carriers, believe it or not, at one point, before the 1970 strike, there were even more unions, and a lot of them merged into the APWU. But yeah, there's still four at this moment. And you mentioned the 70s, like, before we get into the current deal that's being offered and your efforts to vote down this deal, and I'm going to get into the specifics of that, but you mentioned the 70s.

And in the 70s, there was a big reorganization. And could you just talk about what that reorganization was and how it led to like the current state of the postal carrier unions in this country? Like in exchange for like collective bargaining, the post office became sort of a public private partnership. How did that affect the unions? Yeah. And so before 1970, so 1970, there was the largest wildcat strike in US history, the postal the postal strike of

1970, which was not just letter carriers, it was it was all crafts and the at the post office department at that time went on strike. But coming out of that, it was actually in the process before the strike, but coming out of it in 1971, Nixon passed the Postal Reorganization Act, which turned the post office from a department directly a part of the executive branch of the government into the USPS, the United States Postal Service, which while it's still, it's kind of a gray area while it's still a federal agency, it is, it's technically its own thing. You know, when the government shuts down, which might be happening here soon, USPS is

not affected by that. And so in terms of, yeah, we have this kind of interesting thing where I think we're still federal workers. We're still, we're still under the law that bars federal workers from being able to legally strike but at the same time- So neither rain nor sleet nor hail nor labor action will prevent a postal worker from his duly appointed routes. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

And so while at the same time, while we're technically federal, we are still we're quasi public private and we are still, you know, management and the postal service basically acts like we're a private company and acts like we need to, you know, cut corners just like any private company tries to do while at the same time that we're federal. I mean, yeah, and like, I do want to talk about like the larger idea of what a public service is and the public good. And I just like the thing, the thing I've always noted or a thing I find

fascinating about the post office is that it is the only federal agency. It is the only government service that is explicitly mandated in the Constitution. So basically everything else, leave that aside. If you're a constitutional originalist, the post office is right there in the Constitution. And I think that I think that may be why the post office is seemingly always in the crosshairs for privatization. But but like a larger point is that like since the 70s, the the postal workers

unions have not voted down a an agreement, a collective agreement since about 1978. That's right. Could you talk about like, okay, so in October of last year, after was it two years of negotiation after your last contract expired, a deal was turned in? Because you talk about what took this, like, why did it take two years to get this deal? What and what is in the deal? And why do you find it so wanting for the members of your union? Yes, and negotiations started in February of 2023. So we're coming up on two years since negotiations started, the contract expired in May of that year of 2023. I mean, why is it taken so long? Honestly,

I think it comes down to there's a couple factors. But the biggest thing is this is this is the NLC leadership's approach to negotiations. The business sort of service union model is why it has taken so long. NLC President Brian Renfro and his USPS counterpart. Just, you know, we're in a room negotiating. Basically, all the most important parts of the contract were between two people all the economic parts of the of the package were negotiated between the president of NLC and his counterpart USPS

And you know on top of this there was a bit of a sound like collective bargaining It sounds like horse trading between two people Yeah, yeah I mean on top of that there was a whole scandal in NLC where Renfro was AWOL for the first several months of negotiations due to alcohol, due to issues with alcoholism and he's sober now. I'm really glad about that. You know, I wouldn't wish addiction on anyone and I don't think it's the main factor, but it definitely played a role.

The main factor was the back door secret negotiation process that NLC has operated under for years, no membership involvement or engagement, no contract campaign, no, no rallies other than the ones that rank and file members, including members in branch nine, organized ourselves in contradiction to the national leadership. And BFM grew out of fight for open bargaining and the contract campaign resolution that we fought for going into the national convention last year, which I can get into in a little bit. But yeah, calling for more transparency, the need for public contract campaign for rallies for public support and

pressure, things that even the most bureaucratically run unions understand, but it seems like any else he just doesn't. But in terms of what's being offered, you know, is that what you asked? And yeah, that's one of the question. Well, what is the deal? What is the state of the deal as it was returned to you? And like, and what when what like, what is this? What is this taking point that has inspired your effort to organize your union members to vote down this deal? Which is something that, as we said, hasn't happened since like the late 70s? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, the biggest thing that we get the contract, so before we even got the TA, which for which for months and months and months, Brent was saying any day now, any day now, any day now, which in the context of the broader climate and the labor movement and unions fighting and winning, you know, UAW winning what?

25% raises, Longshoremen winning these raises, Boeing going on strike and winning these high raises. People were pretty pissed off about the lack of transparency and the lack of any sort of fight. When we get the T.A. finally in October, or was it October 18th, I believe of, you know, going on two months ago, or two months ago now, before the day before the TA was officially announced from any LC man, a memo, but for an internal management memo was leaked, highlighting the highlights of the TA. And it went around like crazy online and people couldn't believe it. They said, this has got to be a joke. This has got to be managed by trying to sow discord or

something. This cannot be the contract that we've been waiting for. And the next day the TA was announced and guess what? It was essentially what was leaked in that memo for management. 1.3% annual raises. The maintenance of our, we call it diet colas, our cost of living adjustments, which is a sort of fraction of inflation, you know, you can get get added

on, which we can talk about in a little bit. And a number of number of other things. The biggest thing was the slap in the face that letter carriers felt after working for years without this contract going through COVID of 1.3% annual raises. Could you you mentioned COLA and diet COLA, COLA stands for cost of living adjustment. Could you explain how the COLA's cost of living adjustments are so important in union negotiations? And why, given the current deal with the cost of living

adjustments as it currently stands, the 1.3% raise is actually a pay cut? Yeah, yeah. So our COLA's our cost of living adjustments as it currently stands, the 1.3% raise is actually a pay cut. Yeah, yeah. So our colas, our cost of living adjustment, were something that a lot of unions had. I think that most unions that had them in the past, they've gotten, you know, as in the fights over the last few decades in the near destruction of the labor movement, most unions have lost their colas. We've maintained our colas, which is really good. Our colas were won first out of the struggles of the 1970s workers in that period, dealing with their own inflationary times, it came out of the momentum and energy and

explosion of activity that came out of the 1970s strike and workers flooding into the union and really transforming it, they won cost of living adjustments in that era. But our colas are not one to one with inflation, you think cost of living adjustment, which is which is there to deal with inflation. To me, it should be one to one with inflation, inflation is 5%, there should be a 5% increase that you get on top of your general wage increase, which is a percentage. It's not one to one with inflation, it's based

off of a formula that's based on inflation, it comes out roughly to 50% of whatever inflation is for carriers at the top of the pay scale. And then depending on where you are at the pay scale, you get a fraction of that percentage, which we call diet cola. So not only is it not one to one, but then if you are like me, six, going on seven years in at the post office, I get a fraction of that percentage. And it's, yeah, it's just not acceptable. And then when you, the way that, you know,

they've been trying to spin this contract, this TA, by saying, look at all these raises you're gonna get by the end of it. But if your cost of living adjustment, if your COLA and the 1.3% don't add up to being more than inflation, that's a pay cut. And if these raises, if it looks like you're going to be making a lot of money by the end of this contract, I hate to break it to you, but that's because inflation has been high.

And so that's the biggest thing. I would say you could make the case that the 1.3 percent general wage increase is acceptable if our colas were one to one with inflation, but they're not. And workers will be taking a pay cut if this TA goes through. So the coalition that you were advocating on behalf of, what do you, what do you, I mean, in addition to voting no on this deal for your members, what do you like, what else are you asking for?

What would be an equitable contract by your estimation? Yes. I mean, so BFN, Billifying NELC, we're advocating for, we're fighting for things like a $30 an hour starting wage for top pay to be comparable to UPS, which is written into the Postal Reorganization Act that we need to be comparable to the private sector. So things like a $30 an hour starting wage, top pay comparable to UPS drivers, cutting the time that it gets to take the top pay from 13 years to six years, ending mandatory over time in

all career workforce because right now we have a huge chunk of our new hires are all non career. They don't get the same benefits. They don't get the same pay. They get thrown around and don't mean and the right to strike, you know, because we not only have a no strike clause in our contract, not only is it illegal federally for workers, federal workers to strike, but we have a no strike clause in our contract. We want to, you know, that's a whole nother conversation, but we want to get that no strike clause taken out of our contract. And we want to fight to get the law overturned on a national level. So those are some of the things that we're we're advocating for in in BFN.

You mentioned that you've been working for Branch 9, which is in Minneapolis. You've been working, what, six or seven years now? That's right, yep. So you came into the job, and then you were doing the job during the COVID lockdown years. Could you talk about some of, like, over the six or seven years that you've been doing this job, how have the conditions changed,

and what are some of the ways in which your job has gotten harder over that time period? Yeah, I mean, so first of all, I mean, that is part of the reason that workers I think are so upset in this moment. There was a real shift in consciousness around around work and thinking about work and your own worth as a worker during COVID because while the rest of the world should be declared essential, you'd think, you know, I'd like some I'd like some full full sugar cola to go along with that essential status. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, just to be called essential and I mean, it really laid bare for a lot of working class people like, oh, like this is this the pandemic is so important.

You know, it's such a big deal that we have to shut down society in order to contain it. But there are certain jobs that are essential without them, economy would, we'd be even even work in even worse shape. And then at the same time, say, no, but you don't deserve back pay. And also, here's even more package volume. And here's even more abuse from from a section of management, all that sort of stuff. So I mean, post COVID, I mean, that's the biggest thing is, I think, talking about COVID is just the shift in consciousness that came about because of that we're trying to, you know, sort of capitalize on in many ways. Did you see an

increase in the volume of things being shipped during COVID? Because I imagine we're a lot many more people shopping online and expecting deliveries during this time. Yeah, yeah. At first, it was at first it was like, you know, everything kind of shut down. And so it was like it was crazy. I went from working insane hours to kind of having to, you know, slow down on my route. Otherwise, I wouldn't get I'd get done way too early. But then, yes, there was a huge increase while first class mail volume has decreased and steadily, especially since the great recession of 2008, package volume has gone up a lot. And so I mean, I mean, that's the thing is like, it used to

be that you had to organize all of your mail, all of your stuff, you know, you would you would now we're in the office for an hour or two every morning and then on the route for six hours or more, depending if you're working overtime, used to be you for basically four hours in the station for us on the route. So that more you're on the route, you're walking more, it's more physical. There's less first-class mail volume has dropped, but the package volume, heavy packages, you know, there's more bending, there's more lifting. So it's just, it's a lot more physical of a job. And especially since COVID as package volume has increased pretty dramatically.

Um, it's, it's, it's just a lot. It's a lot more physical and it just it exacerbates the years long staffing crisis that existed before COVID, but it's gotten in many ways worse since especially in the few years afterwards, it's exacerbated that that sort of, you know, not to mention also COVID saw an explosion in people acquiring poorly trained dogs. So I would imagine for postmen, you know, that's, you know, you do the math on that one. But yeah, I

want to go back to something you said a little bit earlier about the, the non career part of the postal workforce. Could you explain the structure between like full time and part time? And like how the benefits pay off for that? And also, also like I would imagine that the way these are contracted, the sort of it kind of pits the part time against the full time employees. Could you explain that a little bit? No, absolutely. I mean, just one last thing that I wanted to say about

about the covid question was like we've also been dealing with. I mean, the covid really laid bare the an increasing social crisis that exists in society with an increase in, you know, antisocial behavior, in, in homelessness, in, in addiction, in mental health crisis, and letter carriers, because we're out in every community every single day, have also seen a huge increase in violence against carriers. Now this is, there, you know, there's bills that be, that NEL NELC is lobbying for to, you know, increase penalties against people who commit crimes against carriers. I ultimately don't think that that's not going to solve the problem. It's a deeper societal issue that we have a question that we have to deal with. But like that is another thing that has happened post COVID is there's been increasing violence

against carriers and including carriers being killed on the job. But sorry to start to bring you know, you jumped to the next question. But um, it makes my makes my joke about dog seem somewhat glib and poor and poor taste. But we'll move on. That's a real thing too. Thousands of carriers get bitten bitten by dogs. It's not just it's not just in cartoons, right? I had a guy in my state on the street of my station. I got my station get bit by a dog the other day. It was luckily pretty minor, but it happens. They get territorial.

No, but in terms of the structure of the job, um, you start out as either a CCA or a PTF, a city carrier assistant or a part-time flexible. The names don't actually really matter. All it means is that as a CCA, you're a non-career PTF. You tech, you get career. So you don't get career benefits. You don't get retired stuff putting your retirement, health care, there's issues with

healthcare, PTF, you it's the same thing, except for you, you get career benefits. But both of those positions, which you can do for anywhere up to two years or more, I know someone who's been a CCA for two years and you get thrown, you don't have a regular route, get thrown around from route to route. You have mandatory overtime. You can be worked up to 12 hours. You have pitiful wages. CCA started out at $19 an hour. I have a friend out in LA who is a CCA. He's been a CCA for two years. He just got converted to a PTF, but he's not full career yet. He doesn't have his own route. He started at

$19 an hour in Los Angeles. Can you imagine that? In these inflationary times, that's not going to cut it. You know, and then once you're converted, it does take it takes 13 years to reach top pay. It's, you know, backloaded. But the bigger thing is that you have this super exploited section of the workforce, generally younger people, but not always. But this, you know, you come in as a CCA, you're thrown around from route to route, you're thrown around from station to station, you're dumped, all the extra work is dumped on you. And then of course, you're bound to make more mistakes. You're

bound to maybe even get injured, you're bound to cut corners because you're stressed because you're being overloaded with work working 12 hours a day. And then yeah, you're bound to make mistakes. And then there can be a section of the workforce that then blames the CCA for the issues, issues that exist, or, you know, problems that are happening at the station. And so yeah, I mean, the CCA position and the two tier pay scale, which was introduced both in 2013. In that contract, the reason they were created was employed by management in order to create divisions amongst the workforce. You know, it's not just the post office where this happens happened in the, you know, in

the auto industry, this happened in industries across the country. And the effect is that there is division that is that is fostered through this whole process and that we actively need to fight against. To take like a like a slightly broader picture, like outside of the deal that, again, like is under question right now, Trump is coming into office. And one of the things that he said is that we're dealing now with a like a full court press to just fully privatize the United States Postal Service. And I guess I'm wondering, like, do you see, do you and your like fellow NALC members,

like, do you see the sort of buying that you're put in with this contract as part of a larger effort to privatize any notion of the public good in this country? Yeah. You know, I mean, that's a good question. I think we should take the talk about privatization seriously under a Trump presidency. There are people that have said, you know, like, oh, this conversation has been happening for 40 years or, ah, he doesn't conversation has been happening for 40 years, or I doesn't

really mean it. He's just saying this stuff. But I mean, I think with Trump 2.0, we I think we need to take these things a little more seriously is the administration is a little more emboldened. They're a little more well organized than the first time around. They have entire sections of not just, you know, you know, sections of capital that are fully in favor of working with the Trump presidency. And so I think we should take this, this threat seriously. But in terms of like, I don't know, it, there's a lot of things to this question to answer. But I think it definitely complicates our

vote no campaign, because there's a section of workers that, well, there's a section of postal workers that voted for Trump, saying like, oh, he's not serious about the postal service stuff. And, you know, yada, yada, yada, like, there's a section of postal workers that voted for Trump, saying like, oh, he's not serious about the Postal Service stuff. And, you know, yada, yada, yada, like, there's a section that there's a section that are rightfully afraid of what a Trump presidency represents. But I mean, I think, it just as I said earlier, the fact that the post office is in the Constitution and is the oldest and sort of like most I don't know how load of the

public goods. I think that's I think that's the reason that it is it is the is so often in the crosshairs of privatization because if you can sort of acclimate people to one of their old the oldest public good in this country being turned over to market forces, then really everything else is on the table. And I guess like that my question that regards is, what would it look like for businesses for individuals? What would a totally privatized postal service be like for people who want to get their mail

or send something through the mail? Well, I mean, what it would look like immediately is a dramatic increase in prices. It would look like a huge full frontal assault on the wages and working conditions and benefits that postal workers currently have because while they could be better and they've been better in the past, we have a union, we have the ability to fight for more. Privatization would be a further degradation of the service, increasing costs, slowing down the service, and it would be a huge attack. I mean, they would they would immediately go after the workforce.

I think it's interesting, important to talk here about the benefits of a public postal service, as opposed to what we currently have, and what we could have under a, you know, a revamped and a strengthened public postal service. First of all, we have a universal service obligation, which is a good thing we have to deliver to everyone in the country every day. Well, you know, if you have mail or packages, and there are huge swaths of the country that it was literally not profitable to deliver anything to exactly we have or

would not be profitable without an exorbitant increase in the cost of doing so. Exactly. We have a we we do last mile last mile deliveries for UPS, for FedEx and for Amazon without the postal service. Amazon I do not I mean maybe they could have gotten to this point but I don't think they would not have gotten to the dominant position that they have in the logistics industry this quickly without the public welfare that they use basically from the postal service having I think having a relatively affordable and reliable public postal service is a public good.

It forces other delivery companies to not be able to raise their prices, to exorbitant rates. It's a check on the on the broader industry. And I think in this modern US economy, the logistics and delivery are crucial to this economy. It's an increasingly important part of everyday, you know, Americans lives. And I think USPS and postal workers have a really crucial role in this industry. If it was privatized, yet you better believe there would be a huge increase

in, in prices for deliveries across the board. I remember during the the Bush administration, there was an effort by the postmaster general that they passed some bill that essentially said that the United States Post Office had to on the books show that it was turning a profit 75 years into the future. And there is no private business in this country that would be able to keep their doors open if that were a standard that was applied to them. And could you talk a little bit about the current postmaster General Louis DeJoy? Because he's like, why? How is it? How do

we have a circumstance in which the guy in charge of the post office is the person most dedicated to destroying the post office? Yeah, I mean, did you say DeJoy was the Trump administration right before DeJoy was put in his position, which so like, it's not directly from the president, technically, the president appoints postal board of governors, members of the postal board of governors and the postal board of governors appoints the postmaster general. And but the president, as far as I know, can

get rid of any postal board of governor member that they can at any time. And so technically, basically, the president has oversight over this process if they if they wanted it the Trump administration I think what was it 2018 they came out with they did this big study where they said what to do about the post office and The takeaway from the study. I think they worked with McKinsey or something like that The takeaway from the study was yeah The only way to save the post office is to privatize the post office. And then immediately after that, the Trump dominated postal board of governors

appointed Louis DeJoy to be postmaster general, coming from the logistics industry. Oh, that's great. Let's get a businessman in here. He knows how to cut corners and attack the workforce, right? Like that's essentially what he was put in there for. So DeJoy, I think was put in there to carry out, or at least see how he could carry out

the beginnings of privatization. There was a huge, if you remember, there was a huge backlash when DeJoy was put in and when these initial attacks started coming down. The unions didn't do anything. I remember talking to other union members and just being like, what in the world is going on? Like, NELC needs to be on the attack right now. But it was public outcry, pushed back some of the worst aspects of what would DeJoy want to do it

to begin with and forced DeJoy to, I think, and the Trump administration to sort of change course and say, okay, we're not going to go fully into privatization right now, using the scary, you know, using the word, using the P word privatization. Instead, they came out with the joy's 10 year delivering for America plan, which is basically setting the stage for privatization. They were, they're trying to close down all of the neighborhood post offices and in favor of having mega mega sorting and delivery centers is what they're called out in the suburbs, similar to what Amazon has, what FedEx has, what UPS has, because under the current model, which serves the public very well, hey, everyone's got a post office down the road or in their neighborhood or not

too far away. That is not profitable for a private company. They would need to have it be under this this new system. Well, I mean, I guess it's just be so like, like this larger mentality that I'm trying to get at where it's just like I in the last couple of weeks, I've seen a lot of glib sort of denunciations of the post office from mostly from liberals. And they say things like, Oh, well, the post office loses money, it's not

earning money. And I just like, I wonder like, what like this, this attitude is like, the postal service is a public good, it's a service, it should cost money, not make money. But I just like I wonder like what like this attitude is like, the Postal Service is a public good. It's a service, it should cost money, not make money. But what it does is deliver benefit to everyone in this country. And then like, and then I see other people say like, Oh, I'd have more sympathy for the post office. They didn't lose this package I was trying to get. It's like the UPS and FedEx lose packages all the time. And they're twice as expensive. It's just like, it's the same

problem. But you're like, I'd like It's just like it's the same problem. But you're like, I'd like to pay this more money for the same kind of service. Yeah, I mean, in terms of losing money. So first of all, the money that was called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, I believe is what it was called the Bush era law that forced USPS to fund retiree benefits 75 years into the future. The post office was making money handsomely before that happened. And then the combination of that attack combined with the Great Recession is when the post

office started losing money. That being said, I'm sure there's many ways that we could find a big outcry from postal workers saying, I don't believe you opened the books. Let's see where you're spending this money. Let's see where the money's being thrown around. I mean, in the 80s, not to get crazy, but I go too far back, but in the 80s, the Reagan administration would use the surplus

from the postal service in order to help balance the budgets because they were going crazy with tax cuts for the rich. And so there has been- So yeah, it turns out it actually is a pretty good business if you like, you know, if you do actually run it like one. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I say run it like a business. I mean, like, you know, the way you expect the business to be run, not to run it into the fucking ground, because you hate the idea of public workers.

But in terms of losing money, I mean, yeah, I think there's there's lots that could there's there's I'm sure there's many creative ways that we could increase revenue. But the biggest thing to me is the postal service is a, it's the postal service, it's a public good. As I laid out before, without the postal service, you better believe packages and deliveries would be significantly more expensive.

Not to mention how, just I think important and crucial in this ever- changing modern world, it would be to have a public service that does deliveries rather than just relying on private companies in the case of I don't know a pandemic and having to deliver tests or whatever else. That being said, if the postal service is a public good, which I think it is and we believe it should exist, which I do, why I think then we should get public funding. I mean, maybe I think then we should get public funding. I mean, maybe that's a question we have to dive into more rather than just getting

loans from the Treasury Department or however we pay all the losses that we have. Maybe we should be just funded by the by the public because people don't realize that Postal Service is currently only funded through stamps and through postage. It's not funded by tax dollars directly. But I honestly, I think it should if the post op management can't manage their own company and have a turn of profit. That being said, just one last thing is, yeah, there's always going to be little comments here and there about losing a package here there. First of all, when I first

started at the post office, I was amazed when I saw my first couple days, I was amazed that we delivered anything correctly. I thought, oh my God, I could misdeliver everything technically, you know, not that I want to, but it's just like, it's incredible, like how actually effective the post office is. The point I'm trying to get to is that being said, I think the post office still has an incredible amount of support. I think the only federal agency that has more support last time that I last poll that I saw the only federal agency has more support than the Postal Service was the the Forest

Service. I mean, who's going to I was going to I was going to say the military, but thank you for your service regardless. Tyler, just like to wrap things up here like, okay, so when what is like the timeline for a vote on accepting or rejecting this deal? And what is the coalition that you're a part of? What are your efforts going into this? Like how are you trying to sort of whip support among the rank and file for voting down this deal?

Yeah, so ballots got sent out last week, starting on the West Coast and then going to the East Coast here in Minneapolis. About half the people at my station and the number of, you know, other carriers and members of branch nine have gotten their ballots. The other half have not yet. I haven't gotten my ballot yet, but it's in the mail. It should be here, you know, if it's anyway. So, you know, members have been getting over the last week, their ballots. We have until January 13th to vote. Any of the other carriers listening to this, I would say vote as soon as you get the ballot so you don't lose it in a pile on the on the on the desk or anything. But we have until January 13th to vote. And then I don't know how long it

takes for them to count the votes. I don't know if it's a couple days, but we should know by mid to late January, the results. If it's voted down, there's a 15 day window where they can renegotiate the contract. I doubt anything is going to come out of that. And then it goes to arbitration. And that's, I mean, I don't know if we have any time to get into that, but part of the thing that came out of 1970 is Nixon and them convinced the postal unions that they shouldn't fight for the right to strike.

We'll give you binding interest arbitration where if we vote this contract down, which I think we should, it'll go to arbitration now and then we won't get a vote on it. Arbitration will decide the contract. But I'll get back to that in a second. Like you said, I'm a part of, I'm the chair of the coordinating committee for build a fighting NELC, a growing rank and file reform caucus within NELC. We're in the process of developing chapters across the country in places like Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Los Angeles,

South Florida, numbers of other places. But we're a part of a broader vote note coalition alongside different forces that are explicitly running for national leadership in 2026 against the current administration, that being the CLC, the concerned letter carriers, and Mike Carr if he's running as an individual. But we were kind of in a broad, it sort of, there's a broad reform movement building in any LC and we're sort of the rank and file wing of that you could say. And yeah, we're fighting to vote no on this contract, but we're saying we can't just vote no and send it to arbitration and hope for the best. What we're calling for is, and what we've been calling for this whole time is the need for a public contract campaign, the need for a public fight. Once it goes to arbitration, that is short of a strike. What can we, what can we, how can

we affect change? Well, we can build public pressure that you have arbitrage or human beings, you know, the public media attention, public pressure would play a role. And so a number of over 50 NLC branches from across the country, including some of the biggest ones like Boston and Los Angeles and Minneapolis, passed vote no recommendation resolutions over the last month or so. And part of those was in that 15 day window, we're gonna be organizing.

So in dozens, if not more cities across the country, there's going to be public contract rallies if we vote this thing down, basically to try to build as much momentum as we can going into arbitration to win some more. But I mean, even a even a 1% addition to the general wage increase would be a major win. But I think we can win more. And you know, for any for anyone for our listeners who are

listening to this right now, who are you know, are not post postal workers or any LC members, if they want to support your coalition, if they want to support, you know, have the public good of having a functional post office. I mean, you mentioned public pressure, but what like I mean, is there other other strike funds that can be donated to other I mean, like, what are some of the ways that the public can support your cause here? I mean, the biggest thing I think would say would be if there's a rally in your area that you happen to see, like join it. I mean, that's I don't have a whole lot more at this moment to add to that.

We were fighting for the right to strike. We're building up capacity to be able to take, you know, take more action in the future. At some point, we're not quite there yet. So we don't have a strike fund or anything. But I think the biggest thing is, is if there's a rally in your area, or if you're a part of a union, get them to support a rally that's happening, participate in it. Biggest thing is be is if there's a rally in your area, or if you're a part of a union, get them to support a rally that's happening, participate in it. Biggest thing is be ready to get mobilized if Trump and the Trump administration try to come after

and try to privatize the post office, just just be on the be on the lookout, because we're going to be trying to fight and organize against that if it happens. And just and just lastly, like, win, lose or draw, whatever, whatever the result of this deal is, whether it's voted up or down or whatever is decided in arbitration, like, you view this as like the first step in a larger, like, effort to invigorate a more activist labor union for the proposal for letter carriers.

And, like, you view that that like in in light of, like you mentioned some of the contracts that have been gained by like, for instance, Boeing or the longshoremen, you feel informed by their successes? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that's that that's the context that I think this this contract is very, very similar to the one that we had the previous contract, what was it 2019 to 2023. And at that time, there was very low

turnout, I think it was something like 20% turnout, but it overwhelmingly got voted in 60,000 to like 2000, voted for the last contract, what changed? What changed this time? I mean, like you said, it's it's it's workers seeing I mean, workers they didn't have a general increase in confidence because they're seeing, first of all, they're pissed off by inflation, which is impacting all of our lives negatively.

But then on top of that, that alone isn't enough. On top of that, you're seeing other unions like the UAW, like the Boeing workers go on strike and win major historic contracts. And I think all of that creates a sort of atmosphere, people saying like, well, if they can do it, we can do it. Doesn't mean it's automatic, but it means that there is that audience

and there is that potential to get people activated. And so build a funding and ELCPFN is getting organized going forward. It's not just about replacing the leadership at the top. It's not just about voting no on this contract, although we have to do both of those things. What we're trying to do is create a union that activates and engages

the rank and file membership. Because if we change the people at the top, we vote no on this contract, say, and we change the people at the top and nothing else changes, that will not be enough to actually transform the union. We have to get the rank and file membership engaged and involved. And to me, that means a broader program fighting for things like a $30 an hour starting wage and end to mandatory overtime. And among a number of other things and really importantly, fighting over the next couple of years and months and years for the right to strike because without, I mean, strike action is the most powerful weapon that workers have. Without that basic democratic right that we are currently denied, we will always be fighting with one hand tied behind our back.

And yeah, I think we just we it's going to be one of the most important ways that we engage and get rank and file members involved and ready to fight for more and transform this union going forward. Tyler Vassar, I want to thank you so much for your time and wish you the best of luck with your efforts to this reform caucus and efforts to reform the leadership of the NALC and also best of luck just getting through this next week of the holiday rush. I'm sure you guys are slammed right now. But yeah, best of luck making it to the new year and thank you

so much for your time. Alright, well thanks for having me. Solidarity and yeah, I'm sure I'll see. Bye.