We have all watched over the last few years as management has systematically allowed postal operations to become grossly understaffed.

Leesa Rhoden, President, Mid Florida Local 7138, APWU

Every one of us has carried the burden of these shortages for way too long. On occasion the Union has been successful in negotiations and through the grievance procedure in forcing management to hire new employees to make up for the ongoing shortages. Still, today postal workers are working more hours and facing more challenges in their work lives than ever before. In spite of its impact on its workforce, management’s rallying cry of ‘more with less’ remains the same.

This is not unique to postal workers. This is the challenge facing all of America’s workforce today. Corporate America’s treatment and attitude toward its workers is effectively eliminating our middle class.

Without a middle class, any democracy is doomed. And without labor unions, the middle class is doomed.

Without labor having power in relative balance to management, through control of labor availability, no middle class can emerge.

The American labor movement is a story of America’s workers and their courageous fight for social justice and economic opportunity.

So where do we go from here? Workers are asking themselves, what do we do next?

Today’s workers cannot confine themselves to theoretical arguments. Work must be done. The effectiveness of workers to protect their interests depends upon the extent to which they are needed, the strength of their union membership, and the attitude of the courts and the state and federal governments.

If we want a decent society – and by which I do not mean a society glutted with commodities or one maintained in precarious equilibrium by overbuying and forced premature obsolescence – we are going to have to come face to face with the problem of work.

America cannot operate in this capitalist economy on the totalitarian assumption that we can funnel the underprivileged, under-educated into the workforce, and then proceed to forget all about them once we have posted the minimum fair labor standards on the plant wall.

If this is not what we want as America’s labor force, let’s stand up and say so.

If we conclude that there actually is nothing noble about repetitive work, but that it is nevertheless good enough only for the lower orders, let’s say that, too, so we will at least know where we stand.

But if we cling to the union belief that other men are our brothers . . . all men, including millions of Americans who grind their lives away under a militaristic antiquated management system, then we will have to start thinking about how our work lives can be made meaningful. Since no one has (as far as I know) forbid management to fraternize with us as workers, wouldn’t it be wise for us to admit, first, that our problems exist, then to state them, and then to see if we can resolve them?

Why management, do some of the workers over whom you lord feel like trapped animals?

Depending upon their age and personal circumstances, they are either resigned to their fate, angry at themselves for what they are doing, or desperately hunting other work that would pay as well and also offer some variety or some prospect of change and betterment.

They are sick of being pushed around by insensitive supervisors/bullies. Some members, in their frustration, bite the hand that feeds them, so to speak, by misdirecting their anger and frustration to the only voice speaking in their behalf – their union steward. An angry worker told me recently, "I curse the day I ever started working here; now I’m stuck. Any man with any brains that stays here ought to have his head examined. This is no place for a thinking human being."

Such is the attitude toward the work. And toward the product, our mail? On the one hand it is admired and desired as a symbol of what binds our nation together. Everyone agrees that the mail is an invaluable public service. Almost a symbol of freedom, not because the worker participated in delivering it, but because our whole culture is dedicated to its sanctity and the proposition that the mail is a necessary public service to our citizens and our country.

How can we appreciate the service without appreciating the people who serve? How do we as workers make management understand that they are not only charged with a task, but also charged with the person who performs the task? Why does management continue to see the workers in their charge as unrelated to their own success? How do you make a supervisor care about the human being in his charge?

Perhaps we need to look within for change.

Can we expect management to care about us when we don’t care about ourselves?

How can non-members fail to support the union, their only hope for their future?

Maybe we can’t expect management to respect our needs when we don’t respect ourselves. As long as workers don’t help themselves by supporting the only organization that exists solely to advance their interests, maybe it unrealistic to expect management to do so.

Simply put, if you don’t pay dues, you are contributing to your own misery.

As long as we as workers don’t act in our own best interest, we cannot expect management to.

Talk to a non-member today and ask them to respect themselves and their fellow workers.

Not only is it in your best interest, but your future depends on it.