From APWU Website: “Contract negotiations took a dramatic turn today as postal management presented its economic proposal, which would establish employees’ wages and benefits for the next Collective Bargaining Agreement. Notwithstanding my expectation that management would seek to restrain costs, I was surprised to receive a USPS proposal that would destroy 20 years of progress. Postmaster General Potter has said he intends to protect current employees by “grandfathering” their wages, and imposing lower pay and benefits on future employees. Management’s wage proposal reflects that objective: It would severely reduce the pay and benefits of employees hired after the signing of a new agreement,…” read more at APWU
by Glenn Littrell:
From the traffic and comments on several websites it is apparent that there is a wide range of attitudes towards the news of this proposal from management. For the many that are trying to rationalize that this proposal is a ‘good thing’ let us equate it to our present situation:
- Currently we complain about, and see as a threat, the existence of ‘casuals’ within our facilities. What management is proposing is not the establishment of a two tier wage structure, we already have that with the casuals. Management is reaching for a third tier. Acceptance of this proposal will be that our work will be threatened by two groups instead of one [the casuals and lower wage career employees]
- What will be the percentage of casuals and lower wage career employees be to the ‘grandfathered’ employees. If you think it will be a permanent percentage like the current one for casuals you would be mistaken. The nature of a lower wage employees and a grandfathered workers is a fluid one due to attrition. With retirements and deaths the number of grandfathered employees would always be decreasing and the lower wage employees increasing. Since this is the nature of a two tier system what would be there to stop management, at all levels, from trying to artificially accelerate the attrition through dismissals [firings] and excessing.
If our negotiating team was to consider this proposal seriously then what would the ramifications for the remainder of the contract negotiations be?
- So far this proposal is talking about ‘grandfathering’ our wages, which fails to address anything else. In other words is this a pay “freeze”? What about our other benefits? Before we accept this notion we should check to see what happens when the ‘other shoe drops’. What are the concessions that will follow the gracious offer to ‘protect’ current workers?
- How dynamically will this effect non-monetary contract items such as bidding, seniority, vacation, and work assignments. As it is now I swear there are casuals in our unit that have a better ‘bid’ assignment than me.
Management will try to sell this ideal as a way of prolonging our benefit packages by lowering labor cost, but acceptance of this proposal will be followed, if not in mid-contract then in the next one, by a request to remove the ‘grandfathered’ protection to lower our wages. By accepting this proposal we will weaken our future position.
Don’t belief another employee wage group would hurt us? Then consider this:.
- Republican Congressman have already been posturing for the removal of the ‘grandfathered’ no lay-off protections, as well as other givebacks.
- The casual compliment always seems to be exceeded. Within many pay locations casual are already receiving preferential treatment.
- Who gets most of the overtime now? The lower waged Mail Handlers.
- When new machines are purchased and installed who is the work assigned to? The lower waged Mail Handlers.
We are losing so much work to the Mail Handlers that our junior employees are being excessed to the Mail Handler Craft!
A two tier pay system is a Trojan Horse. We complain about TEs and casual taking our work, our job, and then we welcome another type of TE/casual? They'll be used to undercut our bidding, seniority, staffing, etc. They'll be used to divide us on the floor and at the union hall.
Additionally any change in our contract to accommodate a second tier employee is not going to occur in a vacuum, there will be a cascading effect on provisions for bidding, ODL, work assignment etc. If your planned retirement date extends beyond the expiration date of any new contract then you can expect pressures to take unfavorable early-outs or forced terminations before that date.
One side effect of two-tier systems is that it can lead to the driving down of wages over time. Not just in the sense of averaging the higher and lower wage groups together but in the sense that as resentment in the lower wage group grows and festers management will tend to placate the younger, healthier, and probably growing lower wage group by bringing them closer to the wages of the higher wage group. This is most often accomplished by freezing wages or decreasing raises for the higher wage group to allow the lower wage group to catch up. The end effect is that wages for the higher group stagnate or decrease on an inflationary scale.
Equal Work For Less Pay: other resources
“…Of course, resentments don't just flow one way. In 2007, union members at what was then a Delphi plant in Rochester, N.Y. voted to accept contract concessions. The catch was that the 700 workers on the second tier got a raise of roughly $1 per hour, while the 300 older workers with traditional wages saw their pay cut from $28 per hour to $16.50 per hour. "It caused a lot of tension," says Lynn Giglio, who was hired in on the second tier while her husband was working under the traditional wage scale…” read more
“…Employers only gain a big savings in costs if there is a big turnover in employees, thus exchanging higher paid workers with new employees that earn less. But turnover really doesn't help them. This leads many employers to demand wage cuts for all employees…” read more
“…In a new contract negotiated with its pilots' union last February, American agreed to reduce the wage gap by increasing the starting pay of new pilots by up to 29 percent. The contract also provided that newer employees covered by the lower pay scale would reach parity with the other workers in 10 years or when they reached captain. Under the old contract, the two pay scales merged in 17 years…” read more
