E.T. Gallagher
Director Eastern Region
National Postal Mail Handler Union
215-638-3188 (W)
215-806-8409 (C)

WHERE TO BUY YOUR USA-GAS, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT TO KNOW. READ ON-- Gas rationing in the 80's worked even though we grumbled about it. It might even be good for us!

The Saudis are boycotting American goods.

We should return the favor.

An interesting thought is to boycott their GAS. Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.

Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends.

I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from and which major companies import Middle Eastern oil.

These companies import Middle Eastern oil:

Shell.......................... 205,742,000 barrels Chevron/Texaco.........144,332,000 barrels Exxon /Mobil..............130,082,000 barrels Marathon/Speedway...117,740,000 barrels Amoco..........................62,231,000 barrels

Citgo Gas comes from South America, from a Dictator who hates Americans. Do the math at $30/barrel, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION! (Oil is now $90-$95 a barrel)

Here are some large companies that DO NOT import Middle Eastern oil:

Sunoco................ 0 barrels Conoco................ 0 barrels Sinclair................ 0 barrels BP/Phillips.......... 0 barrels Hess.................... 0 barrels ARC0...... 0 barrels

All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and each is required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It's really simple to do.

Now, don't wimp out at this point.... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I'm sending this note to about thirty people.

If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to a t least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers!!!!!!!

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. How long would all that take?

If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day, all 300 MILLION People could conceivably be contacted within the next eight days.

Before reading the below article “What's a Military Family Worth”, by Rush Limbaugh March 11, 2002, Let me make this perfectly clear, I do not indorse Limbaugh as a person or for that matter his musings, nonetheless, I thought this might be worth your reading. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.

I think the vast differences in compensation between the victims of the September 11th casualty, and those who die serving the country in uniform, are profound. No one is really talking about it either because you just don't criticize anything having to do with September 11th. Well, I just can't let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the entitlement mentality of this country. If you lost a family member in the September 11th attack, you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7 million. If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable. Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people that are getting an average of $1.185million up to $4.7 million are complaining that it's not enough. We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11th families are getting. In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensation as well. You see where this is going, don't you? Folks, this is part and parcel of over fifty years of entitlement politics in this country. It's just really sad. "Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." --Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.

Every time when a pay raise comes up for the military they usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on food stamps and live in low rent housing. However our own U.S. Congress just voted themselves a raise, and many of you don't know that they only have to be in Congress one-time to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month and most are now equal to be millionaires plus. They also do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn't have to pay into the system.

If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7 you may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed you in harms way receive a pension of $15,000 per month. I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both." -DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

Register to Vote

It is extremely important that all mail handlers become register voters and vote in their Local, State and National Elections. If you are not a register voter the national office has made it very easy for you to become one. Just go to their web site @ www.npmhu.org and click on the appropriate links and in only a few minutes you will become a register voter. After completing the registration you will receive periodic E-Mails of just how your Senators and Congressmen voted on important issues. There is also uncomplicated links that allow you to send E-Mails to your Senators and Congressmen expressing your thanks or displeasure on how they voted.  Regardless of what you may believe or have been told YOUR VOTE DOES COUNT! With the proposed changes of the Presidential Commission concerning the Postal Service we should be running not walking to the election booths. With one single purpose in mind, voting for candidates that look like us, talk like us and work like us.

This holiday season, as you gather your family around, give them a little extra hug and pray that they never have to go to war. Pray also for all of our armed service personnel and their families, especially those put in Harm’s Way. Let us also pray that President Bush comes to his senses and brings our young men and women home soon very, very soon.

          I’ll leave you with this old Mark Twain Saying

                      “If we were supposed to talk more than we listen,

                         we would have two mouths and one ear."

Think about it

Happy Happy

Ed Gal

Brothers and Sisters,

I just completed one of the most educational and revealing conferences, union or otherwise, that I ever have been a part of. It was dubbed and rightly so "The National Postal Mail Handlers Union 2003 Legislative Conference" and was held appropriately in our Nations Capitol at the historic Mayflower Hotel. John Hegarty, NPMHU National President chaired the conference. The agenda was chock full of issues that were and are still of great concern to all of us mail handlers. We were also privileged to have guest speakers that read like a whose-who in the labor industry.

Union Presidents/Leaders, John Sweeney, President of the 1.1million member AFL-CIO, Mark Gardner, NPMHU National Secretary-Treasure, Terence O’Sullivan, LIUNA General President which boasts a diversified membership of close to 700,000 and Armand Sabitoni, LIUNA General Secretary-Treasure all spoke on electing government officials that "look like us, talk like us, and work like us". Ken Parmalee, National Rural Carriers Association, Vice President of Government affairs and George Gould, National Association of Letter Carriers, Assistant to President Young spoke passionately on the Presidential Commission and Postal Reform.

Professors/Lobbyist, Roger Blacklow, Assistant Legislative & Political Director, LIUNA and Dr. David Mallino, President, of Mallino Government Relations, a policy and lobbying firm, who was on the staff of the Secretary of Labor in the Carter administration and the House of Representatives’ Committee of Education and Labor put together a truly revealing and on point package on how the Congressional Process works. Dr Gregory Giebel, Professor, National Labor College, Silver Springs MD. Don Kaniewski, LIUNA Legislative and Political Director and Gerron Levi, AFL-CIO Assistant Director for the Department of Legislation explained to us the Future of Labor Issues in a Republican Capitol Hill Environment.

Senators/Congressmen, Senator Carper (D-DE), one of the key players on the Government Affairs Committee. Congressman Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA), serves on the committee on Government Reform and Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-IL), is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Civil Service and Agency Organization and serves on the Government Reform and Oversight Committees. All spoke on the need to get the vote out.

Professional Staff member/ Legislative Assistant, Denise Wilson a professional staff member works currently on the Democratic Staff of the House Government Reform Committee that handles postal matters for the committee and staffs the Special Panel on Postal Reform and Oversights for Rep. Davis, the Ranking Minority Member. Legislatives Assistant, John Kilvington covers Senator Carpers’ work on the Government Affairs Committee. Both John and Denise explained to us what we needed to do when we go to the Hill and lobby for our cause.

Postmaster General Jack E. Potter addressed the need for some postal reform, mainly as it pertains to our Collective Bargaining Agreement. He did mention at least 8 times during his prepared speech that some changes are coming and that we should all be prepared for them?

 

The seminar dealt with a number of topics, however, the core ones that brought us to Washington was the Presidential Commission and Postal Reform. So, we needed to be educated or for some re-educated, on just how the process works. Once that was accomplished we were off to the Hill for our scheduled meeting with Senator Specter (R-PA) and or his Legislative Assistant, Mike Oscar.

I was the "team-leader" the head spokesperson for a panel that consisted of some of the most influential unionists in the country a "Murders-Row" so to speak.

Local 308 President, Frank Phillips

Phila BMC Branch President John Gibson

Eastern Regional Director Almos Rucker

Local 300 President, Paul Hogrogian

Larry Hill, a member of Local 300’s Executive Board.

Not knowing just what the Presidential Commission findings would be (the report comes out July 31^st), we wanted to convey to the Senator these key points:

1. Keep his options open; Self -Explanatory

2. Oppose any change in the Collective Bargaining Agreement; The CBA works, of the past 13 contracts going back over 30 some odd years only 5 times have we gone to binding arbitration. In fact, the last 2 were overwhelmingly ratified. We also have ballots in the mail right now to ratify a 2year extension to the present contract that would take us to November 2006. "If it ain’t broke don’t fix it".

3. Pricing Flexibility: The USPS needs the power to raise the price of stamps with out all the rig-a-ma-roll that goes along with it. By the time we ask for a raise in the price of stamps and it gets approved, some 18-months later, the emergency may no longer exist. Resulting in a deficit that will take us a lifetime to over come. During the 9-11 crisis UPS and Fed Ex were able to raise their prices immediately; we need that same flexibility.

4. Keep Universal Service; Keep the 6-day delivery cycle as is. Most believe that Saturday is the day that would be eliminated. That is far from the case. If a day were to be eliminated it would be a midweek day, either a Tuesday or Wednesday. No need to explain what that would do to businesses and our economy; what’s left of it as well.

 

The one constant in all of this is money. Money talks my brothers and sisters. In the hallways on the Hill while we were lobbying for the NPMHU there was Fed Ex and UPS doing the same for their cause. Remember that UPS has the Teamsters Union backing as well as their money.

Regrettably, we live in a money-driven society. However and fortunately for us our National Leaders, Hegarty and Gardner had the foresight to realize we needed to take a more pro-active role in championing our cause; thus this Legislative Conference. Four years ago the National Executive Board of the NPMHU established the NPMHU Political Action Committee or PAC for short. The object or purpose of the PAC is to cooperate with, assist and support those candidates who "Look Like Us, Talk Like Us and Think Like Us". The PAC is non-partisan in its operations, and is financed completely through voluntary contributions from members and groups who subscribe to the objectives of the Mail Handlers PAC. Believe it or not, your monetary contribution no matter how big or small can make an immeasurable difference on CAPTIOL HILL.

Support the Mail Handlers Political Action Committee call the PostalEase Phone System to start your Bi-Weekly Contribution!

In closing our National has a truly informative web cite www.NPMHU.org, I promise one visit and you will be hooked. Give it a shot.

I’ll leave u with this old Irish saying:

"Live today like U are going to die tomorrow,

but learn today like U will live forever".

Yours in Solidarty,

Ed Gal

E.T. Gallagher

NPMHU, Representative,Eastern Region

1950 Street Rd., Suite 315

Bensalem Pa. 19020

215-638-3188 (W)-215-638-3573 (F)

Brothers and Sisters,

With the idea of terrorist and biological warfare being shoved down our throat on a daily basis the local safety and health committee becomes a priceless tool for us to utilize to assure the safety and health of our membership. Hence, the provisions of Article 14 of the National Agreement provide Local Safety Committees with a broad range of authority to investigate review and promote the safety and health of our Brothers and Sisters. It is imperative that union representatives on the local committees, as well as stewards on the work floor, understand those rights.

The Local committees are empowered by the National Agreement to:

Discuss significant safety and health problems or items;

Review progress in accident prevention at the installation;

Review general health matters at the installation;

Review updated list of hazardous materials used in the installation;

Review reports of unsafe conditions or practices;

Review training records;

Determine program areas which should receive added emphasis;

Investigate major accidents which result in disabling injuries;

Review safety and health suggestions:

Review local safety and health rules;

Identify unsafe work practices;

Make reports and recommendations to the installation head on safety and health;

Assist in enforcing safety rules;

In addition any member of the Committee may also submit a written report to the Headquarters Safety and Health Committee in the event the Local Committee’s recommendations are not implemented.

Keeping in mind that a maximum effort should be made within the authority of the Committee to resolve Local safety matters in house.

Yours in Solidarity

E.T. Gallagher Local 308

Pa. State Executive Board Member

Ed Gal 

E.T. Gallagher
Pa. Ex. Member
Local 308
NPMHU