February 10 Week In Review

Week In Review

February 10 2013

by Bill Onasch

Perma-Temps In a Post-Post Office

On Wednesday, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe defied law and custom by unilaterally declaring an end to Saturday mail delivery. Unless he is called to order by Congress or the President, first class home delivery will go on a five day week in August. 22,500 more full-time letter carrier jobs will be eliminated. No regular temporary workers will be affected–Donahoe feels sorry for them because they are “mostly so young.”

The cut is projected to save two billion dollars a year. The move comes in the midst of the axing of tens of thousands of jobs at mail processing centers being shut down around the country. It is the most ruthless of the austerity measures yet taken by the Obama administration and perhaps the least justified of all.

The Post Office has a well earned reputation of reliability and efficiency going back more than two centuries. At least until the recent shut down of processing centers began, you had a reasonable expectation of mail you send being delivered the next day in your local area, within two days just about anyplace else in the USA–at a cost of 46 cents.

But as we will likely soon see with Social Security, an institution doesn’t have to be broken for the politicians to impose a “fix.” Like Social Security, the US Postal Service receives no tax payer funding and has nothing to do with the Federal deficit. But that didn’t stop Congress from imposing a requirement on the USPS to “pre-fund” retiree health insurance for seventy-five years. No other corporation or government agency has such a multi-generation set-aside.

This was not just a common case of politician stupidity. Knowing full well the requirement could not be met, it was their way of destroying a vital structural pillar of the public sector. Far from defending the service, Obama’s Postmaster constantly reminds the public they can use e-mail, and pay bills online for free. “You can’t beat free,” he says.

E-mail correspondence is not the mortal enemy of a postal service that still delivered over 73 billion pieces of mail last year–though the replacement of mailed Social Security and VA checks with electronic automatic deposits was a big blow. Nor is UPS–that package carrier teams up with the Post Office on 25 percent of their Last Mile deliveries. Hallmark Cards hasn’t benefitted much from electronic media and is one of the few major corporations opposing mail delivery cuts.

The goal of the boss class politicians is to privatize, either by deals or default, the profitable components of mail. Perhaps a sentimental fragment, like Amtrak, will fill some small niche here and there.

It’s going to take more than lobbying or petitions to save the public treasure of the Post Office. Postal workers will undoubtedly be considering what actions they can take on and off the job. But it’s our fight as well. We should be protesting at every post office and taking bus and train loads to march in Washington in defense of the USPS. And, of course, this is another reminder of the dire need of working people for a party of our own.

A Matter Of Health

The largest union of RNs has joined the two biggest transit unions in supporting the Presidents Day Weekend actions in Washington against the Keystone XL Pipeline. Deborah Burger, Co-President of National Nurses United said,

“Nurses care for patients every day who struggle with health crises aggravated by environmental pollution in its many forms, As a society we need to reduce the effects of environmental factors, including climate change, that are making people sick, and endangering the future for our children. That’s why we oppose the Keystone XL pipeline. Our leaders should be focused on finding safe, sustainable energy that would also help stem the increase in environmental pollution and climate change. The health of our world depends on it.”

Right on, Nurses. They will be along side the Amalgamated Transit Union, Transport Workers Union, the Sierra Club, and numerous other groups on Saturday. The action occurs as John Kerry takes over as Secretary of State. It’s up to Kerry to make the call on Keystone–subject to the President’s approval.

The decision on the pipeline, running from the tar sands of Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries, is considered pivotal in the climate change crisis. Expansion of the tar sands would more than offset the meager reductions in U.S. emissions recently gained through conversion of coal-fired power plants to natural gas.

Meanwhile, President Obama finally turned to his binder of women in selecting little known Sally Jewell as his new Secretary of the Interior. It’s a post that has considerable jurisdiction over land use, of particular interest to extraction, forestry, and tourist industries. Jewell has an interesting resume in the private sector, beginning as a chemist for Mobil Oil, then spending a couple of decades advising big banks on energy industry loans. More recently she has served as CEO of REI, a privately held retailer of outdoor camping and sporting gear. She has also won recognition from environmental groups such as the Audubon Society.

Some good news for the battered U.S. coal industry–bad news for the planet–was revealed in a bit of irony last week. Germany, which overall has the best record in Europe in developing renewable energy has run in to a fuel shortage as it phases out nuclear power. German utilities are now buying cheap American coal to fill the nuclear gap.

Hitting the Proverbial Bricks

The BLS released their annual report on work stoppages beginning in 2012 involving a thousand or more workers. The number of actions, nineteen, exactly equaled 2011. But there were more workers involved, 148,000, and more days idled, 1.02 million, than the previous year. More of them were strikes rather than lockouts.

Of the nineteen job actions seven were conducted by the California Nurses Association–six against Sutter. Each of these lasted 1-4 days. The CWA carried out two one-day strikes against units of AT&T.

By far the biggest strike was by the Chicago Teachers Union, involving 25,500 strikers with 185,500 days idled. Five thousand bakery union strikers shut down most of Hostess Brands for twelve days. ILWU Local 63-A is listed as involving 5500 strikers–most of whom were other locals honoring the clerical worker picket lines. But the real impact of that strike was to essentially idle the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach–America’s two biggest–for a full week.

There were also some major lockouts–3600 IAM workers at Lockheed Martin in Ft Worth and 8000 Utility Workers at New York Con Edison.

Overall, these figures confirm the union movement is still both alive–but also cautious.

Culture Dump?

She’s been called the Union Maid and describes herself as a “recovering lawyer.” Anne Feeney seems to be at every conference and solidarity event I attend--with her guitar, ready to sing for and about working people. Rarely does she make any public criticism about our side. So I was surprised to read this comment in her latest newsletter,

“Over the years, one of my favorite sources for news about the labor movement is LABOR NOTES . Their bi-annual conferences draw activists in the labor movement from all over the world. I have performed at the Labor Notes conference for many years, along with lots of my favorite labor cultural luminaries. We all tend to leave every conference energized by the work of the wonderful rank and file activists who attend, but somewhat shell-shocked by the general disdain of the Labor Notes staff for labor music, art and humor. I can't imagine the civil rights movement, the women's movement or the labor movement without music, but apparently Labor Notes can. They summarily dismissed staff member Ellis Boal from managing the music page on the Labor Notes website last month. It's a body-blow to the many wonderful labor musicians who have come at their own expense year after year and donated their talents and time to make sure that the convention reflected labor's rich cultural history.”

For This They Gave Him A Medal?

The Nobel Academy doesn’t have a doping policy but I’m glad I’m not the only one who has noticed a marked change in behavior and performance in their 2009 Peace Prize laureate. Peter Baker opens an observant piece in the Sunday New York Times,

“If President Obama tuned in to the past week’s bracing debate on Capitol Hill about terrorism, executive power, secrecy and due process, he might have recognized the arguments his critics were making: He once made some of them himself. Four years into his tenure, the onetime critic of President George W. Bush finds himself cast as a present-day Mr. Bush, justifying the muscular application of force in the defense of the nation while detractors complain that he has sacrificed the country’s core values in the name of security.”

I don’t want any misunderstanding. I’m not accusing the President of being a user of banned substances. As far as I know, his only physical addiction is one I share with him–enjoying smoking the product of peaceful American Indians that Sir Walter Raleigh introduced to the rest of the world.

But I do charge the man who moved from the Illinois legislature to the White House at warp speed of being a peddler of political narcotics–and an exceptionally good one. While their styles and talents vary, both Obama and Bush II work for the same cartel–the bipartisan class of bosses and bankers. That is why despite their apparent differences they look and act so much alike in matters that really count–such as war abroad and undermining dissent at home.

Who Will Take Out the Garbage Under Capitalism?

 The answer for quite a while in Seville in the Spanish state was nobody. But now AP reports,

“Trash collectors in Seville have voted to end a strike that lasted 11 days and left the sidewalks of the city, a popular tourist destination, reeking with piles of garbage. Street cleaners accepted a deal negotiated by their union with the cleaning company on Thursday. City authorities estimate that there are about 7,000 tons of rubbish-filled bags lying around the ancient city, best known for its flamenco music and monuments including the city cathedral, the Alcázar fortress and the Golden Tower.”

That’s all for this week.