The OPWU held it's Off-Year Educational Conference in Springfield, Ohio on April 25-27.  We were priviledged to have as guests APWU President Mark Dimondstein and Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga. 

President Burga addressed the conference and talked about the wage disparity in this country.  He stated that 1% of Americans control over 25% of the wealth and 5% of Americans control 63% of the money.  Six members of the Walton family (WalMart) have more money than 100 million Americans.  In 2013 we did see a net gain in the number of union jobs in Ohio and a net overall gain in the number of union members nationwide.  Brother Burga told the audience that state issues affect everyone, even if you are a federal worker.  They affect your family, friends and neighbors.  Finally, President Burga told the story of the Mr. Coffee Company.  They used to manufacture coffee makers in Northern Ohio paying their workers $21 an hour.  That was a wage a worker could raise a family on and pay their bills.  Mr. Coffee wanted to make more profit so they moved their assembly line to Mexico where the wage was just $2.37 an hour.  Still not happy, they moved to China where wages were only $.47 an hour.  Corporate greed indeed.

APWU President Mark Dimondstein followed Brother Burga and started his presentation with this quote from the Wall Street Journal: "The demise of the USPS will create greater opportunity for the private sector and impact the economy". This statement was made by the CEO of UPS.  Brother Dimondstein called Staples a "contract station on steroids".  We want the contract between the USPS and Staples voided or the contact stations staffed with postal workers.  He said the Postal Service should be given the right to act as a bank.  38% of the zip codes in the USA have no banks in them, while there are post offices in every one.  The new residual vacancy agreement has provided over 1000 PSEs to chance to conver to regular.  He expects this agreement to get 3000 residual vacancies posted for bid.  Postal reform is being held up by Congressman Darrell Issa who still wants to privatize the Service.  President Dimondstein said that the APWU will donate only to those candidates we know will stand up for working people.

The conference adopted a motion of support for a national convention resolution submitted by Kent Local President Dianne Whittington.  It calls for either Las Vegas, Nevada being named the permanent convention site or a site must be one that coincides with per diem rates established by the GSA.

Sherri Hocter was named the 2014 OPWU Member of the Year.

We were able to award 8 King/Valliere Scholarships.  They went to Kevin Prettyman and Grant Wohl of Toledo, Aaron Ault of Cincinnati, Kristin Latessa of Youngstown, Alvin Hall of Dayton, Brenly Stamp of Canton, Matthew Townsend of Steubenville, and Shelby Hocter of Springfield.

$3145.00 was raised during the COPA Auction.

Terry Grant, President OPWU AFL-CIO