Welcome to the Minneapolis Area Local’s “Political Action Page”! This page and the links provided are devoted to Political Actions, Legislation, and any other venue that has the power to affect the lives of Postal Workers, their Families, and the American public who we are honored to serve!

As of March 2009 perhaps the most important legislation for Postal Workers, their families and their friends to get passed is the Employee Free Choice Act.  Please click on the link above to see sample letters and then write a short letter using the samples, your own words, or a mixture of both to our Senators, Amy Klobuchar, and Al Franken, and to who ever your Congressman or Woman is. 

Help me find my Representatives!

If you are unsure what Congressional District you live in and thus who your Representative is you can click on this link http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ and toward the top of the page on the right side it will say “Find Your Officials” and ask for your Zip Code and then follow the instructions! If you do not have internet access simply call us at 612-623-0677 and we will find out for you! 

Our Resource Center for Employee Free Choice Act Facts!

On our home page we have links where you can go to find out more about the Employee Free Choice Act (click the one million strong for the EFCA icon) why it is so desperately needed and why big Business is so desperate to defeat it they will spend upwards of $200 Million dollars to do so!  In another link you can also sign the Million Member petition to let those who will be debating the issue know there is a strong grass roots effort to support this legislation!

But Postal Workers Already Have Union Representation why is this important to us?

The passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is essential to the APWU membership

The Employee Free Choice Act is important to workers who already are in unions. Corporations increase their profit margins by cutting workers’ pay and benefits. A large pool of non-union workers allows these corporations to put downward pressure on workers’ attempts to negotiate for decent pay.

A survey of non-union workers revealed that 60 million of these workers want to have a union in their workplace. Among the many “unorganized” workers are truck drivers, custodians, mail processors, parcel sorters, and retail clerks who work for contractors that perform the same work as APWU bargaining unit employees. The passage of the ‘Act’ will impact postal workers in two ways. Pay Comparability and Contracting Our Postal Work!

Postal workers negotiate wages using pay comparability to justify wage increases. If wages of comparable workers are low, postal workers will have a difficult time arguing for wage increases. Other workers, doing similar work, are making far less because they don’t have a union to bargain for better wages and benefits.

With this bad economy, along with a weak labor movement and millions of unorganized workers, the USPS is expected to ask for wage and benefit concessions. We expect the COLA, healthcare premiums, and job security to be issues. It’s called the ‘Walmart’effect. Because Walmart pays low wages and offers meager benefits, it’s argued that all workers should receive low wages and benefits.

This page will evolve with each Legislative Priority of your Union! Come back often!

If you find information through this page that is relevant to you and your family, tell them! Tell your friends, and communicate, communicate, communicate! Our goal is to provide you with factual information that has been provided by sources that are verifiable, truthful, and honest! If you are willing to look deeper than the surface of proposed legislative actions you will be able to negate the ability of spin doctors who can convince you that harmful actions that are really only good for a chosen few are good for you too! We will provide you with the places to look and let you make your own conclusions!

We believe that if this is done, we will expose the truth! We feel if the truth is exposed that the majority of working class people will agree, we need to stick together, and we need to be heard loud and clear! Legislators are elected to serve us, not us to serve them; if they fail to get that message we will not let them fool us again!

Sincerely,
The Minneapolis Area Local legislative Committee.

Copyright (c) 2010 MPLS Area Local MN. All Rights Reserved.