The OPWU held our Off-Year Conference in Boardman, Ohio with the Youngstown Area Local as our hosts. A total of 90 officers and stewards from the Buckeye State attended the conference and were educated on topics like the Electronic Grievance Procedure, Stress and Job Burnout, craft breakouts, and national negotiations.
We were given an update on our national contract negotiations by APWU Industrial Relations Director Tony McKinnon. Our contract expires on May 20 and negotiations will ramp up to full speed until then. Brother McKinnon hopes we can get a negotiated agreement but right now it is uncertain as to what the USPS negotiators are planning.
Assistant Maintenance Craft Director Idowu Balogun and Cleveland Steward Ingrid Rivera presented the class on the electronic grievance procedure. It was well received by the local unions attending the conference and I can see the value in building a national database for all types of cases.
Our national business agents, Mike Scmid and Randy Downard from the Clerk Craft; Vance Zimmerman from Maintenance and Merlie Bell from MVS took care of the craft breakouts.
On Friday, May 1st we held our Awards Banquet, King/Valliere Scholarship Drawing and COPA Auction. Ron Conrad of Youngstown was selected as the 2015 OPWU Member of the Year. Tom Benson of Lake Geauga and Bindu Sancho of Cleveland earned Awards of Appreciation and Ken Sevier was presented with the Award of Merit. The COPA Auction raised close to $3000.00.
Our 2015 King/Valliere Scholarship winners were: Logan Contos from the OPWU, Abigail Falcone from Tri-County, Madison Griesser from Tri-County, Megan Mememtowski from Cleveland, Elijah Andrews from Cincinnati and Alyssa Vitolo from Lake Geauga. Each will receive a one-time only award of $500 that will be issued directly to the school they will attend. All winners will be sent a letter fo congratulations and instructions on providing the needed school information.
Also during the meeting President Terry Grant and Secretary/Treasurer Helmer Semjonovs announced that they will not be seeking another term of office at the convention in 2016. Terry has served as OPWU president since April of 1987 and "Semi" has been the secretary/treasurer for the past eight years.
The conference was informed that the Postal Service has announced the mail processing plant consolidations for Youngstown and Dayton have been put on indefinite hold. Akron had a partial consolidation on April 18 that saw their first class letter mail go to Cleveland but their flats section remained in Akron. So, three out of four of the plant consolidations in Ohio are now on hold. We must keep fighting to save these plants from consolidation.
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