President

Presidents Article for Jan. 2025

First and foremost, I would like to thank John Crader for the work he put into updating the website and making it much easier to navigate. As President, I will try to post every month.

One of the things that we need to get better at in SC is finding and training new advocates. Last year, the NBA’s office was having to send in union reps from Georgia to help offices that didn’t have stewards. I can say that it looks like we have been doing well in that area. We now have some young stewards that have been trained and are stepping up and going to other offices to represent carriers that need top notch representation.

While we are getting stronger as a state, we still have a lot of work to do. Our NBA (Eddie Davidson) has two upcoming weeklong training classes for both beginners and for experienced stewards that want to learn how to do Formal A’s. If anyone is interested in the training, please contact me. I know that my Branch will be sending stewards to both training classes.

By now, everyone should have received a ballot to vote on the tentative agreement. If you have not, you need to call the ballot committee at (202) 393-0614. The cutoff date for returning ballots has been extended to January 27th. No matter which way you plan to vote, just make sure you vote.

We also have the SC state convention coming up April 18-19 with stewards training on Thurs April 17th. We are hoping for a good turnout and look forward to seeing everyone there.

Wayne Harlow

864-363-3559

Wayne Harlow

April 4, 2025

Last week I was called to Washington DC, as with all the other state Presidents, and wanted to pass on the info to you.

The major concerns are the attack on the Federal unions. Two bills that made it out of committee last week were regarding unions no longer being able to collect dues straight out of members paychecks (they don’t expect it to make it to the floor) and a bill to force federal unions to pay for union time (unlike now when it is done on the clock). These two bills are serious threats to the NALC as a whole and especially to the Branches regarding the union time.

Then last Thursday night, Trump signed an executive order that eliminated 65% of Federal unions with just the stroke of a pen. While we do know that the unions have and will continue to challenge the rulings through the court systems, the attacks are a clear sign of the next 4 years to come. We cannot afford to sit back and wait to see what happens. We need to be proactive in contacting our Congressmen and making the public aware of what is at stake for them.

Regarding privatization, while there seems to be no appetite to privatize the USPS, there are still other ways to drastically alter our jobs and security. Such as selling off the parcels to UPS and only delivering mail and allowing Amazon to use our mailboxes. Both of those things could drastically reduce routes and certainly affect the junior carriers.

I want to urge every Branch to be proactive and get the word out to your members and get them signed up for the Letter Carrier Political fund. We already know that UPS and Amazon have a much bigger war chest than we do. We need to try to level the playing field now because if we wait a year or two, it could be too late. With the new pay raises going into effect shortly, giving $5 a PP won’t be missed. For those that already give, please consider upping it at the state convention. While I already give over $20,I will still be upping mine.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the convention in two weeks.

Wayne Harlowyour text here...