PRESIDENT'S REPORT 10/31/99 NEWSPAPER ARTICLES AND PIC From Moe Biller's Visit to NW Arkansas ___________________________________________ From Morning News of Northwest Arkansas Sunday, October 24, 1999 Page 1 UNION PRESIDENT CALLS FOR BETTER LABOR RELATIONS IN POSTAL INDUSTRY Amy Schlesing The Morning News During a two-day visit to Fayetteville, the national president of the American Postal Workers Union voiced the need for better labor relations throughout the industry, specifically at the Fayetteville Post Office. Moe Biller has been a labor leader for 63 years and served as national president of the APWU for the past 19 years. He met with members and leaders of the APWU on Friday and Saturday representing the Northwest Arkansas region and several surrounding states. During the question-and-answer session Saturday, Biller said the postal labor environment in Fayetteville leaves a lot to be desired. The heart of the problem, he said, "is the fact the postmaster in Fayetteville views herself as elitist and looks down on the postal workers." The lack of good labor relations on the workfloor leads to the filing of grievances by union members, requesting that the union look into the situation. Because of the poor labor relations between management and labor, Biller said, the national headquarters has a serious backlog of grievances to work through, which Biller estimated to be around 50,000. Biller said Saturday that his visit to Fayetteville as a guest of APWU Local 667 at the Fayetteville Post Office was not to become an active part of disagreements between management and the union members. "But," he said, "while we don't butt in, we try to help where we can." Biller was scheduled to meet with Fayetteville Postmaster Linda Patrick and plant manager Lee Thompson during a tour of the facilities Saturday morning. Patrick did not show for the meeting, Biller said. "If I could have met with the postmaster, we could have worked on this situation," he said, jokingly adding, "Have you ever tried dancing? It takes two to tango." Neither Biller nor local president Loren Adams directly addressed specific tensions between the workers and the postmaster at the Fayetteville Post Office. All four unions that represent postal workers have members at the Fayetteville Post Office. The APWU has the largest membership, consisting of 130 of the more than 280 workers in Fayetteville. The labor tensions in Fayetteville, he said, are not uncommon in the postal industry. Management does not want workers to file grievances against them with the union, Biller said. "Labor relations in the postal services have not been good," he explained. The future of the union and the postal industry, Biller forecasted, is an impending struggle over automation and privatization. "The union will never give up the right to strike or have an agency shop," he said, adding, "I'm proud we have a union that is willing to fight." Biller began his career as a postal worker in the 19930s. He became recognized as a union leader in the 1940s; and, in 1959, he was elected president of the Manhattan-Bronx Postal Clerks Union. He was elected president of the 365,000 member APWU in November 1980. He announced Saturday that he will not seek re-election when his current term is up in 2001. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Little Rock, Arkansas October 24, 1999 UNION CHIEF MULLS POST OFFICE FLAP Question-and-answer session in Fayetteville addresses strained relations by Rebecca Pilcher ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE FAYETTEVILLE -- About 20 people gathered at the Fayetteville Hilton Hotel on Saturday afternoon to seek advice and answers from American Postal Workers Union President Moe Biller. The question-and-answer session, titled "Meet Moe," covered several roots of postal workers' angst, including strained relations between Fayetteville post office workers and Fayetteville Postmaster Linda J. Patrick. Fayetteville postal workers have described Patrick as a temperamental slave driver, while Patrick contends the opposite. She claims employees of the Fayetteville post office have continually harangued and slandered her. Patrick filed a civil lawsuit Jan. 12 in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville, claiming she was being slandered and libeled, but she withdrew the suit on March 12. She again filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Oct. 13 against U.S. Postmaster General William J. Henderson, claiming the Postal Service did not investigate instances in which, she claimed, employees of the Fayetteville post office libeled, slandered, and sexually and verbally harassed her. Patrick has been Fayetteville postmaster since 1996, although she served as interim postmaster at the Rogers post office while its postmaster, Gary Blackburn, took Patrick's place in Fayetteville. Patrick worked at the Rogers post office from October 1998 through July, she said. Patrick said the exchange was a move to take pressure off of her. Her current suit seeks a jury trial, court costs and monetary damages. Biller, 84, was scheduled to meet with Patrick on Saturday morning, but Patrick did not show up, Biller said. "She evaporated from the scene," he said. Patrick said on Saturday afternoon that she arrived at the post office at 9 a.m. to meet with Biller. "I didn't want to wait because they weren't there [at 9 a.m.]," she said. Loren Adams, president of Fayetteville's Local 667 postal union, said a fax was sent to the post office stating Biller would be at the office at 10 a.m., not the originally planned time of 9 a.m. Biller said several things about Fayetteville's post office tug of war are common throughout the country. Most postmasters look on their workers with disdain, Biller said, and he feels it's a plague that is all too common. "They're blue-collar workers, and that offends them." he said. "I still say there's an elitist attitude among [management]." Bert Boutwell, president of Ponca City, Okla., Local 726, said he was at the meeting to show his support for the Fayetteville postal employees. A past president of a local postal union recently asked for several hours' leave from his day's work to drive to the airport, Boutwell said. Patrick denied the man's request, although there were enough other workers present to compensate for the employee being gone, Boutwell said. "That's not true," Patrick said Saturday afternoon. "He requested a type of leave that was inappropriate for what he wanted. Once he submitted the proper request, I approved it." Patrick was a member of a postal union when she worked as a carrier, she said. Biller is concerned about the Fayetteville postal employees' strained relations, he said. "There are no good labor relations on the floor," he said. "But we will have a union that's ready and willing to fight, rather than to play...with the Postal Service." In light of her current lawsuit, Patrick declined further comment, except to say she was not invited to Saturday night's banquet honoring Biller. _____________________________________ NOTE TO ALL: Postmaster Patrick's claim, "He [Frank Fickle - union president 12 yrs] requested the type of leave that was inappropriate for what he wanted" .... shows her disdain for the union. Frank requested Union LWOP and was denied it solely because it was UNION and a UNION function. Friday, October 29th she consented to change his approved ANNUAL to LWOP at Step 2. ___________________________________________ Northwest Arkansas Times October 24, 1999 Page 1 LABOR, MANAGEMENT RELATIONS ADDRESSED BY UNION PRESIDENT by Sara K. Sanders Staff Writer In response to local labor union grievances, Moe Biller, National President of the American Postal Workers Union said in a press conference Saturday afternoon he would have been willing to discuss labor/management relations with Fayetteville postmaster Linda Patrick had she made herself available for discussion. Biller said he would have been available to meet with the postmaster to discuss possible solutions "but she ran away." Patrick and Biller were originally scheduled to meet Saturday morning but did not after Biller left a message he would be an hour late. Biller is in Fayetteville this weekend at the request of the Fayetteville APWU. His visit follows a year-long series of grievances on both sides and a federal lawsuit filed by Patrick against six local postal workers and their unions. The lawsuit alleged that union stewards libeled, slandered and published malicious information about Patrick over a three-year period. The case was dismissed in federal court last March. Biller said the same general situation exists between postal labor and management in post offices throughout the country. "In Fayetteville, there are no good labor relations on their work floor," Biller said. "While we don't want to butt in," he said, "we (the union) want to help as much as we can." Biller advise other disgruntled postal workers to join a union willing to fight rather than tiptoe around the postal service. "Management's not going to lay down and die," Biller said, "unless we put them down." Patrick filed a second suit on Oct. 13, this time against Postmaster General William J. Henderson. In the suit, Patrick alleges Henderson discriminated against her because of her gender, retaliated against her after she filed complaints and subjected her to a hostile workplace. (Photo -- Moe Biller, president of the American Postal Workers Union, speaks during an assembly moderated by local union President Loren Adams, right, Saturday at the Fayetteville Hilton. _____________________________ Northwest Arkansas Times October 30, 1999 POSTAL WORKER FILES FOI COMPLAINT AGAINST FAYETTEVILLE POSTMASTER Another federal lawsuit was filed Friday amid ongoing disputes between postal workers and the Fayetteville postmaster. Postal worker Garth Wiebe filed suit in U.S. District Court, claiming Postmaster Linda Patrick repeatedly refused last month to fulfill his federal Freedom of Information requests. In his complaint, filed by Fayetteville attorney Charles Kester, Wiebe claims he twice attempted to obtain documents from Patrick and was denied. Kester said Friday Wiebe is involved in an ongoing investigation with the Equal Opportunity Commission, and was requesting records related to his complaints against the Post Office. Wiebe planned to use the records to demonstrate that he was being treated differently than employees with similar positions at the post office because he had been involved in earlier complaints with the EEOC and was being retaliated against. The attorney said Wiebe's first request was denied because Patrick told him he needed a release from the employees involved to get the records, and his second request was simply denied. Kester is seeking a court order forbidding the post office from withholding the records, as well as attorney's fees and costs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------