Issues
Over the years, the union has worked to negotiate wages and working conditions. Some of the negotiated issues are: the maximum weight of an item that an employee may be required to lift, the maximum weight that an employee can be required to carry in his/her satchel, safe delivery methods, and the Letter Carrier uniform. Activists stress that the Postal Service management style is often one of the more dictatorial ones in the modern United States, and imply that this is one of the reasons that a seemingly disproportionate number of USPS employees become infamous for "going postal", although they also point out that the vast majority of such employees were not members of the union.
The future of the union, and the post office itself, is threatened by the march of technology, with the Internet, fax, electronic bill-paying, and other forms of communication that do not involve the physical transportation of pieces of paper from one location to another.
The NALC is opposed to postal privatization and to any termination of the USPS postal monopoly on first-class mail, as well as to contract delivery service (CDS), the contracting out of postal work to non-USPS independent contractor employees (see Star routes), who have lower wages (and fewer benefits or none at all) than USPS employees. The union emphasizes that these workers are subjected to minimal screening and believes that contract delivery inhibits the security, sanctity and service of the USPS. The union supported a Congressional resolution, H.Res. 282, to this effect. and S. 1457.
Read more about this topic: National Association Of Letter Carriers
Famous quotes containing the word issues:
“I can never bring you to realize the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“To make life more bearable and pleasant for everybody, choose the issues that are significant enough to fight over, and ignore or use distraction for those you can let slide that day. Picking your battles will eliminate a number of conflicts, and yet will still leave you feeling in control.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
“How to attain sufficient clarity of thought to meet the terrifying issues now facing us, before it is too late, is ... important. Of one thing I feel reasonably sure: we can’t stop to discuss whether the table has or hasn’t legs when the house is burning down over our heads. Nor do the classics per se seem to furnish the kind of education which fits people to cope with a fast-changing civilization.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)