The Year In Review

Since becoming president of Local 308 is March 2008, I concentrated on repairing the damage that had been done by the previous administration while focusing on making our union more democratic.  Here is a report on what’s been done during the past nine months:

Cancelled the ATM card
Our local was literally hemorrhaging money.  Before I took office our bank statements showed a steady stream of ATM withdrawals and there are no vouchers to show how any of that money was spent.  We now have a clear record of all transactions and complete accountability of all union funds.

Fired the chauffer/technician
The former administration employed a mail handler to perform a number of duties that I felt did not benefit the union.  That person earned almost $60,000 from the union in 2007.  When you add in his reimbursed expenses, he received more than $80,000 that year.  The mileage he racked up in two years cost the union more than $25,000.

Repaired our relationship with our payroll vendor
The company that handles our paycheck processing, The Payroll Factory, wanted to end its relationship with Local 308.  That’s because the former administration did not pay payroll taxes since August 2007 and that left the Payroll Factory holding the bag.  We convinced the Payroll Factory that wouldn’t happen with the new administration.

Tried to break the auto leases
The former administration had entered into an iron-clad lease with Ford Motor Company for a Lincoln Navigator and a Mercury Milan.  We tried to break those leases but would have to pay the remaining balance of the leases to do so.  For the Navigator alone that would have cost the union $33,000.  Therefore, it makes economic sense to let the leases run their courses.

Tried to break the lease on our union office
The union is in year two of a seven-year lease at the Frankford Arsenal, the location of our local’s headquarters.  We quickly saw that the Arsenal was not the right place to house our union.  First, it’s far from any of our member sites.  Second, we lease more than 3,000 square feet at a cost of $4,370 a month.  Yet our local has just two full-time employees, myself and our office manager.  So far, we have not been able to get out of the lease, but we keep trying.

Held four executive board meetings and a council meeting
We held our first meeting the second week I took office.  The second meeting was held in June, the third in October and the four in December.  The good thing about our executive board meetings is that they are an open forum where everyone is free to speak their minds and get their opinions across.  We may not always agree on every issue, but for the first time in 16 years the process is a democratic one.  We also held a union council meeting (consisting of all branch presidents and executive board members) and spent $6,000 less than what the previous administration spent on that meeting last year.

Pre-arb’ed a lot of cases
Our arbitration docket was clogged with a lot of frivolous cases.  We rolled up our sleeves and took a hard look at each case.  The ones we were able to settle, we settled.  That way we didn’t have to spend the union’s funds on expensive arbitration.

Participated in the union meetings of every single facility in our local
Tony Branco, the local’s treasurer, and I have attended every single membership meeting since we took office.  We both went to 90 percent of them.  Occasionally, either I or Tony couldn’t make a meeting.  But one of us has always attended.

Paid all past due bills
When we first took office, there were a lot of old past-due bills.  As a result, our credit rating was destroyed.  We were able to pay off all of those collectors during the first full month of being in office.

Conducted steward training and advocacy training
One of my campaign promises was to train all the stewards who needed training.  Our stewards are very important. They are the union to many members because they’re the people that work side-by-side with them every day.  A well-trained steward is going to do a better job representing our members and writing winning grievances.  Even though it was expensive to train all those stewards, we think it was money well-invested.

Participated in training for the Mail Handlers Benefits Plan
The insurance company that administers the Mail Handlers Benefit Plan held its national training session in Philadelphia in 2008.  That made it easier for us to train several mail handlers to market this plan to associate members.  We have almost 6,000 associate members who pay us almost $200,000 in dues.

Launched a new Web site
One of the things we did in our first 60 days of being in office was to launch a new Internet Web site. Bill Smith, branch president in Wilkes-Barre, is our Web master.  One of the most valuable things about this site is that we focused on making sure it’s well organized.

Appointed a Veterans specialist
The Postal Service employs many veterans.  We owe a great debt to our veterans, which is why I appointed a veterans coordinator to work with our vets who need specific information or who have special problems.  That coordinator is Joe Taylor, a former marine who works at the SJ P&DC.

Appointed an OWCP specialist
I appointed a person to help our mail handlers who have questions about workers’ compensation.  It’s sad that employees who are injured on the job often receive misinformation from management or they’re treated with delay tactics about their claim.  Talk about adding insult to injury!  Our OWCP expert is Rob Singleton, a mail handler at the BMC, who has helped many people work their way through the workers’ comp system.

Cancelled the AOL accounts
Upon taking office, we quickly learned that there was no record of who had Internet access.  We have 15 branches, but there were 35 AOL accounts.  Worse, AOL would not tell us anything about the accounts since we didn’t have any usernames and passwords.  I cancelled all of the accounts and replaced them with Sprint’s portable high-speed access.

Cancelled the former secretary’s health plan
The union had been paying more than $12,000 a year to Blue Cross for health benefits for a woman who used to be the office manager.  That was from the 1990’s and the union had been paying $12,000 every year since then.

Hired a new accounting firm
We decided to hire the accounting firm that the national organization uses: Bond Beebe.  One of the things we liked about Bond Beebe was that some of its accountants are forensic experts.  We hope they’ll learn what has happened to the union’s money during the previous administration.

Hired a new lawyer
I terminated the services of the lawyer that the former administration used.  Our new law firm is Cleary & Josem, a labor specialist located in Philadelphia.  You can find contact information for the firm on our Web site.  You’re free to contact them if you have a question or need some direction about a legal issue, but you’ll have to pay for any consultation services yourself.

Filed a claim with our bond insurer
One of the most disturbing issues we faced since taking office is that we cannot account for missing union funds and missing inventory.  We filed a claim with our bond insurer to recover what we believe was lost.

Developed a revenue-raising plan
You saw the first part of that plan – the selling of t-shirts.  We’re about to launch the second part, a membership drive.  We’re also looking at having an all-members function, such as a dinner-dance.

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