Oral History Program Donald Fouser Interviewed by Tom Andros 28 July 1976 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Donald Fouser Interviewed by Tom Andros 28 July 1976 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Fouser, Donald, an oral history by Tom Andros, 28 July 1976, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Donald Fouser. The interview was conducted on July 28, 1976, by Tom Andros, in Fouser’s home. Fouser discusses the impact of Unionism on the Postal Service. TA: I would like to introduce Donald Fouser. This is an interview of him at his home for oral history, Doctor Sadler's class. His residence is 1345 Laurel Lane, apartment 4. I would like to comment that it's really beautiful, furnished lovely and I couldn't be more comfortable. Now at this time, if you would give me a little background about your family; where you came from and where you were raised and so on. DF: I came from Wisconsin. O’Clair, Wisconsin. I moved out here 7 years ago; been 8 years in the service, 5 years in the Navy in the second war and 3 years in the army in Korea. And after I got out, my wife and I got married. We have 3 children. We moved to Dwight, Wisconsin where I worked as a machinist. I was working part time and went to school at University of Mechanics and then I got tired of it down there and then I moved back to Wisconsin. In fact, in Wisconsin I did various jobs. I was a roofer; topped roofer, and I was a carpenter and I worked in a cement plant making cinder blocks. Then I decided I wanted something for the future and I didn't want to throw my 8 years away in the service so I went in the post office. I went there in 1959 and I've been there ever since. TA: So how about giving us something similar to that of your experiences in the postal service? DF: Well, I've been union all the time I've been in the postal service. I started out back there as a substitute clerk. We didn't have any mail handlers there so you started out doing 1 the mail handling work right on the dock and then as they hired people you would move in and did the clerk work. And I never had the misfortune of working midnight. I could always work it out. I had a good tour. I subbed for a year and a half in the days and I made regular. Then I went on at 2 or 3 with Fridays and Saturdays off. And it varied 3:30 to midnight and 1:30 to 10:00 and different times that I stayed on that tour. I've always liked it and I'm still on it now. But the time in the service, when I first went in, there was no union back there. I organized the union back there. When I took it over I made president of it, I hadn't been there a year and a half yet. I organized it and we got there was $47.50 in the treasury. Well, there weren't many in the post office. There were approximately 76 clerks at that time and I think we had them all enlisted within a year into the union except approximately 6. And we organized and we got - we had our meetings. Our meetings were held in the basement of a home that we all fixed up for it. We paid $5.00 to have a meeting there. It was on Sunday when no one worked in the post office. And we had fairly good turnouts. We were running around 21 or 22 members, which isn't a lot but better than a lot of them do. I made quite a few trips. I made two trips to Washington on salary, trying to get an increase in salary. We had quite a problem with hiring people off the street to take care of work that was stacked up because we wouldn't pay overtime. And at that time we didn't get overtime. If you worked days, you got comp time; you got a different day off. But that has changed now. It took a long fight to change it. I helped with many seminars and quite a few national conventions. I was still president of the union until, well I was there 10 years back there and the year before I left I got it by a write in. I got a tie vote on a write in. And when 2 they re-voted, I voted for the other man to break the tie. So that's the way I got out of it. And we didn't have--and things then until I got out here. TA: What year did you come out here? DF: In 69; came out here August 5, 1969. I started here in Ogden August 23. I wouldn't do it any other way. My eight years in the service hasn't been wasted. I never took advantage of the G.I. Bill, although I did take some advantage of it. I went 6 months to engineering school, Emco Engineering down in Milwaukee and then it was too hard for me. I couldn't get the trigonometry and geometry and I hadn't followed that course enough in high school to go into it. So I dropped out. That's when I started as a machinist. I like it out here. We've been here 7 years and I imagine I'll retire out here and possibly stay here. But I really like the post office. It's been a good, secure job. It's been secure in the past and I think it will be in the future. A lot of them don't think so, but I do. I enjoy working with the people down there. There's a kind of people you want to meet. We all seem to hang together pretty well and work together and I think we got a good thing going in the post office. There's an awfully lot of changes and you've got to keep up with them. I think the post office is a good place to put in your time; especially when you put in 30 years. Then you know it's a good place. It beats Social Security. TA: When you moved from Wisconsin to here, not necessarily the actual move but how have you found the unions at Wisconsin? Is there any difference from Wisconsin and Utah? DF: Well, I think it is much stronger back there. I think it's much stronger. The union here is fairly good now. When I first came out here, there wasn't any union here. When I first 3 came here, at the meetings, there would be maybe 5 people and they were held in the W Hall on Madison. And they were held on Thursday nights and of course the 2 or 3 that were working; they couldn't go. Or the crew getting ready to go to work; they wouldn't go. So all you had present was on the day shift. There were about 5 members that showed up. When I came out here, I asked about the union and I found that they had never filed a grievance. They didn't know what a grievance was or how to file one. So I think I filed the first grievance that was ever filed out here. Of course I lost it but I did file it. And I filed it because, Well while I was here and they hired two people after me. One was going to school and the other one; I can't remember what his status was. I believe he was going to school too. And they took me and put me on 2 to 1, the midnight tour over those other two that was juniors. But I found out that flexibles at that time had no seniority. So they could do what they wanted but they never did make me believe it was right. But I still stayed on midnight tour for a year. That's the only time I worked and that's the only time I will work at midnight tour again. The union has gone a long way lout, here even in the past 7 years. They've got more active. And management will never agree with you a 100 per cent and you'll never agree with management 100 per cent. But you have to have a union. You have to have it or be run over. It's the same way if you don't have a union at all and you allow them to do anything they want to, then you would be working for peanuts and you wouldn't have a lot of the benefits. A lot of our union members think people couldn't understand or support a union on a national level. A lot of people think that your money here in the union that you pay in dues, they think it all goes right here to the local but a very small portion goes to the local. A good share of it goes to the national. And that's where they do the fighting to get these raises 4 to get the contracts signed. Everybody knows that we got the last two contracts have been good ones. Sure there are things we don't agree. We've had our own ____ but we must remember that not only does the union sign that contract, but so does the management. So they’ve got a lot of bargaining to do there, give and take. You take a little off of this and take a little off of that. But I think in our, the union has got, well, I know it has gotten a lot stronger out here. In 7 years that I've been here it's so many times over what it was 7 years ago, it's not even funny. Of course they still have all of their fights and disagreements and arguments that I think that's what makes the world go around. If everybody agreed on the same thing, there wouldn't be anything to strive for. If everybody had all the money they wanted, there would be no use of working. If they don't, you got to earn it. You got to work at it. You have to fight for what you get. When you lose a little bit, take it in stride because you've gained a little bit somewhere else. That's how I look at it. TA: Right. How do you feel that the union has helped or hurt the service, the postal service itself? Not just between management and the worker? DF: As far as the service to the public? That's a hard one to answer because the union gets advantage of most of it because your increase of wages. I think the big thing in that is the fact that the postal service is supposed to be just what it says; it's supposed to be a service. I think what really hurts the post office is when they took it out of control of Congress. TA: In the Reorganization? 5 DF: In the reorganization. And they haven't adhered to their plan either because they are supposed to be a good service or better, and they aren't giving as good a service-well, they are giving better somewhere. You can get a letter from a short distance to a long distance a lot faster than you used to be able to. You can do it a lot faster, even faster than when the trains did it all because they fly it all. But the expense is up. Of course this means raising your price of your product again and ours is stamps. And this is what the public doesn't like. The public thinks that we should still do that for the nickel stamp and still should be flying all over the country giving service. But if they're going to get that service, they're going to have to pay for it. You can't expect to get a letter from here to New York in-well, you can get it there in 2 days. In fact I was in the post office the other day and a woman came in and she said I can't understand it. We can get a letter out here from Alabama in 2 days. But she says I can't get one back there in less than 4, 5, and 6 days. I was right there. And I told them we have the same trouble right here. Right here in my own home. My wife writes a lot of letters back to Wisconsin. And the letters back to Wisconsin takes 4, 5, 6 days. But we get letters from Wisconsin out here in 2 days. Now there's got to be someplace along the way that is not either processing the local mail, the local area mail properly, or there is somebody that isn't processing the incoming out-of-town mail properly. But it don't seem like anybody follows through on that and finds out. This is what they should do. And as far as the union goes, as far as hurting or profiting the service, when I started at the post office 17 years ago, I started at $2.09 an hour. I didn't get any holidays because I was A-Plex and at that time it was 7 cents more than the regular job. Now I'm getting, I don't know what it is, $6.50, something like that. So you see at that time when I started in I think a stamp was a 6 nickel and now it's up to 13 cents. But you got to figure if my wages have tripled, they're still behind, really. They've gone from a nickel to 13 instead of going to 50. But people, and I think on the wages throughout the country have gone the same. I know a person that works where I worked in Paradise and I'm sure this person is making pert near $9.00 an hour right now. And I was making $2.45. So it's the same all over. When the postage increased, they don't want to do that because it started out as a service to all your little rural communities and everybody. It was a service to keep them in communication. But now the time moves on when you have communications through your television, through your radio, and everything else and your papers. Before they still wanted the letters to go as service. Now, that's what they are worrying about because as you move on right now, we can't give that and make any money on it. It's like United Parcel taking over our parcels. I think you'll find out that-now the United Parcel took over the parcel post at Wisconsin before I ever left there 7 years ago. They took over about 9 or 10 years ago back there. We are finding now that they're not delivering to every little town even while I was there. They're not a service either. And they would take and cone in and got a bunch of mail and one would go to an outlying town that was maybe 20 miles and if they had only one package for that, they wouldn't gas that truck and drive that 20 miles. They would come in and put a meter on it and sure they delivered everything around the town but they came in and stuck a postage meter on it and mailed it to us out there because they knew it would get it the next day. This is what is going on and as far as the service goes, I think they put a lot of emphasis on long range service and I think they hurt our local service. I've seen it where they get that mail out. You got to get these other places to go. Possibly Salt Lake has to go. But 7 you can't get it out so you can make production. That's the thing; I think they're missing a lot of the connections with their mail. But it's the big operations that take a long time. I think our service today isn't really as bad as people make it out to be because, say you get ten bad letters and it's taken 5, 6 days to get where they are going. There is probably 10's of thousands that have gotten there in record time. But you don't worry about those that got there the next day or the day after because those people are satisfied. The only ones you hear about are from those that aren't satisfied. They're the ones that put forth their grievances prolifically. I don't think our postal service is really that bad when you take the number of letters that you process throughout the country and then take the number that are satisfied with the service. I don't think the rumors have hurt us. I think sure, wage wise, when you raise wages, you got to raise your product. You don't go down and buy a tire down here anymore for 10 or 12 dollars. You used to. I bought a set of 4 for 50 dollars when I was back in Wisconsin; when I first started working in the post office. I just bought a set the other day for 250 dollars. That's quite a difference. But it's the same way back there. There's a rubber plant back there and they've been on strike now since May. I don't believe in the striking part of it. I don't go along with the striking part of it because I don't think you ever catch up. I have always believed that two people, a group of people should be able to sit down and talk sensibly and bargain. Give a little, break a little and come up with an answer. I think your hard headedness and stiff necks and all this; there is no place for that. There is too much of that. Some of the unions holler too much. But I think there are times when you have to hold your ground. I think the post office, as far as the union goes, I think we are way ahead than a lot of them who has the right to strike. I think they can work it out 8 without that right to strike. I know if they had it, they would use it. At different times that I think, I think by not having the right to strike is the reason that we haven't really hurt the service. I think if we had the right to strike we would hurt the service. And if there were issues we didn't agree on, I'm sure that our president would call a strike. Cause he has the right. And then goes your wages, you don't work so if you're out even for a month, how many people that work in the post office that have been here for say maybe a year can afford to go on a strike for a month? And if they did go on strike for a month, how long would it take them to catch up to what they had to handle for that month? It would take them forever. I just don't think the union so far has hurt the post office. I know they've got brains. But we know ourselves from working in the post office, to know how top heavy that management is. And then management is really top heavy because most of the people know their job and you don't need that many people. But this is just one office here. All the offices throughout the United States are in the same vote. I think another thing that has hurt them somewhat is automation. Because these machines that they have gotten are obsolete before they get here. That's the same way in the post office. I think 90 per cent of the post offices that have been built, by the time they are up, are too small. That's poor planning. And the post office, this building in Milwaukie, Wisconsin that was 9 stories high. It took them 3 or 4 years to build. It was part of their plan; they were going to do away with all the annexes. They were going to save all this money with all the extra buildings that they were going to do away with and so on. But by the time they got it up, they found out they couldn't do it. They needed them to process the mail. They couldn't do it. They didn't save all the money they planned. And it's about this way throughout the post office. I don't think the union has hurt them at all. 9 I think a lot of it is from their own planning. I can go back 15 years when they were talking about automation. And they started their first automatic sorter back in Detroit, Michigan. They had it in there. It took them years and years to ever get the bugs out of them. And that all cost a lot of money. And they were getting machine happy. And then they are trying to make profit in the post office by laying off people. And sure, if the people weren't doing anything, that's a different story. But there's the machines, they put the machines on a level 5 clerk and put them on a machine and make you a level 6, some of them are level 7's. It costs more money to operate it. Then they make level 8, who were level 5's, they make them level 8 mechanics. And they talk about all the money they're going to save. They can say it, but they can't show me that. And that's why every year you see us go further and further in the red. Even with the raises in the post office right now, we're still further in the red. These machines are expensive. Now they've got these monitoring machines. For what it costs to buy one of these machines, you could pay a lot of people’s wages. But I know they are preaching back in Wisconsin that automation would never do away with your job. And so when automation comes in, your job will still be secure. But at the same time, automation hasn't done what they expected of it. Your bulk mail facilities that they have put in to the tune of millions arid millions of dollars. They're not doing what they should do. If that's what they call service, they won't be able to give service. You can't do it and they don't do it either. But I don't think the union has anything to do with it. I think it's from poor management. How they take people and make postmasters out of people who work for the American public who never worked in the post office. They don't know the operations. Like anything else, you can take a book and read. Down here in the manual, we have the Blue Jackets manual; 10 you are supposed to read that, that will tell you all about the Navy. But you can read and study that and still not be informed until you've done it. That's the same thing that happened in Washington. They put in a politician. He gets a good job, and he makes a decision. He doesn't always make the right one .cause he doesn't know what they are. That's the way I feel about it anyway. I think if they had a man who had come up from a big city, something, and learned all the ropes, he could make some decisions. A lot of people have been busy working all their lives making a living. They haven't had time to get into politics and spend a thousand dollars a year putting on a show. TA: One thing I'm quite curious about is, what is your feelings toward the right to work law? I don't know if they have the right to work law in Wisconsin. I do know they have it in Utah. DF: They have it in Wisconsin too. TA: Could you give us a comparison of how it works in Wisconsin and here? DF: They both have the right to work law. But I think Illinois has a closed shop when I worked in Illinois. I think it's a good thing, a closed shop if management goes along with it. The people closest that take the share that gives the union more money to work with. And they do spend a lot of money on lobbying. But I think, like the post office where the union is the one that goes and negotiates the contract, they're the ones that get you the raises. Whatever they get in your working conditions, part of the union, then I think everyone should pay their share. I think we should have a closed shop because I don't think the right to work law is fair. Where one person reaps the harvest; he gets the money same as the next one but he doesn't have to pay anything. And I think that's 11 wrong because as long as they are going to have a union at all, then I think they should have a closed shop. I'm talking about, not in small places; I'm not saying like in small businesses like ZCMI or places like that. But I am saying where you have a federal organization or if you’ve got a big stock company or like Kennecott, although Kennecott, I think that should be closed shop. But to set that up different, I couldn't say the whole state should be closed shop. But it would have to be set up so that the larger places should be closed shop. I'm for a closed shop. It's got its pros and cons; it's got its good and bad points. But I don't think they have ever gotten it down - they used to allow restaurants or night clubs and stuff like that, they were never closed. They're not considered closed shops. I don't know how they do designate between the closed shop and the one that don't have to organize. If they ever went into it, they would have to set it up so you wouldn't hurt any of your smaller organizations. Because you wouldn't have a closed shop in a grocery store. Maybe you would have to set it up where you had to employ 100 employees or something like that. Then I think a closed shop would be good. I think where you employ 15, 20 people, I don't think you should have a closed shop for something like that because normally the man who runs it has got a lot closer contact with the people and he knows their wants and desires. In fact, he can call them together and talk to them. But a big organization, you can't. The top man who is making decisions don't call people together and talk to them and bargain with them. I think you would have to set it up where you would have to have so many employees before it was considered a closed shop. I would go for it then. But I don't know that much about a closed shop. I know that when I worked for Fairbanks, Morris, that was a closed shop. When you went on there, you joined the union. It's the same way with the rubber 12 workers back in O’Clair, now that's a closed shop. I don't know how they work it, but as a rubber worker when you go in there you join the union. You go in there and join the union, that's understood. And if you don't participate in the union, they fire you. In strong unions, like I said, right now they're on strike. And the main reason for the strike is because they won't give them the cost of living which we have in our contract. They won't give it to them because it's a gamble. And the way it looks now, the cost of living is going to go, keep on a going until the bottom falls out or something. TA: One thing you mentioned was working conditions. I would be interested to know what the working conditions were like prior to you seeing the unions not as strong, compared to what it is now, now with the unions being as strong as it is. DF: Well, right now, even back in O'Clair, about 11 or 12 years ago they built a new post office. They put air conditioning in the new post office in what we call the officers’ quarters. But that was the only air conditioning unit they had there. They built the rest of the building and they had no screens on the windows so you couldn’t open them. So they had big fans up above that was supposed to change the air inside in 5 minutes but it was just changing it from fresh hot air to stale hot air. The union kept getting stronger and stronger and about 5 years they got air conditioning put in throughout. And that was the union that did it because of the working conditions. Otherwise you would never have heard of it. And that's the same way if it hadn't been for the union; you wouldn't have any air conditioned buildings out here where you're working now. Because it's an expensive thing and even though they lease the building, they wouldn't put in air conditioning in there if the union hadn't demanded it because it's such an expense. They lease this building down here, 1 forget what it is a year. I think back in Wisconsin 13 for the post office there they pay 25,000 dollars a year. But they made them; the union is the one that made them put in the air conditioning. There has been a lot of things now that-they used to have peek holes in the bathrooms for the inspectors. The inspectors could come. You would be going to the bathroom and the Inspectors could look down there and see what you were doing. Well the union was the one that made them block off these peek holes. They don't have them anymore. The new post offices are built without them. In our area at the time it was built back there, it was built with them. After that it came that the unions made them, in fact 1 was in on that, made them black them out so that they couldn't see down there when a man is where it's supposed to be private. There are several things. They've bettered the working conditions with lighting; they've put in better lighting, ventilation, floors that would be easier on your feet supposedly. There have been a lot of things that is for safety and health and comfort that they have come up with and the union has got it, no one else has. Management hasn't, that's for sure because they aren't about to spend the money as long as you can go along. These stools, these back stools, when they first came in they had a thing on them where they couldn't set them flat. They had a piece in there that the stool always sat at a slant. They claimed this was the greatest thing. Well, the union was the one that made them go and cut all those cross-bars out from under those seats so if it was more comfortable for one person to sit flat, he could sit flat. There are lots of people you never see them sit on that stool unless it's flat. There are other people you never see them sit on them unless it's tilted. But to each his own. Everybody's back to what they will take and so on. But the union is the one who made them take those out of the stools. So the union has done a lot of good as far as, when you go back a few years they've 14 progressed an awfully lot. I think it's a necessary thing. It's too bad that it is necessary, but you have to have it. The big money man will get a bigger share than what he's getting right now, which is plenty. TA: Another thing too, you did mention you helped the reorganization from what you've seen which hasn't been the best; you wish they had stayed under the Congress' wing? What difference have you seen? DF: When you go into the reorganization, they are trying to make money. When you start to make money out of something that hasn't made money for ever since it's been organized, the post office, and then they have reorganization where they come in and say we can make money, there is only one way they can make money and I don't know why Congress can't see this. The only way they can make money is by raising their product. And all we got to sell is service. Special deliveries, C.O.D.'s, you can see them going up now. Bulk mail and bulk mail is now up to 2 cents on non-profit which is quite a jump since they took it over. I don't remember what it was then, but it is quite a jump and the postage has gone up. But they are still no way close to making money. A stamp, to make money, would have to go up to at least 25 cents. I think if it went up to 25 cents, inside of a year they still wouldn't be making money because the minute they see the post office taking in more money, labor is going to go out to get their cut of it, not realizing they are operating on a losing basis all the time. But Congress has always subsidized everything. They subsidized Amtrak. They subsidized the airplanes, but when it comes to subsidizing the post office, all of a sudden now they're going to make them a paying proposition. They know they can't deliver a letter out here to Poky Hollow with a-even now with a 13 cent stamp they can't drive out there 5 or 6 miles to deliver a 15 letter and make any money. That's only common sense. Yet we are supposed to give them service. These new mobile post offices that they are supposed to set up in some areas, they go around and take up, oh they take in a post office that has been discontinued. I think Deweyville up here is one of the discontinued offices. Now how they serve them, if they expect them if they want to mail a letter, to come into Brigham City to mail it, I don't know. If they think they are giving service, they are not. I think Congress is trying to stop them from discontinuing these small offices. We just drove back to Wisconsin on a visit. My wife and I went to a couple of towns there. I think one of them, the population was 5 and they had a post office. So this on the other hand doesn't make sense either. So really, when they can operate on a paying proposition, there is going to be an awfully lot of service hurt. And they are going to have to be hurt and they know that. But yet people say that this is a service that was started by our country and they feel that they should still have service regardless of if you live out here in the country 20 miles or what. So if they are going to maintain that service, and Congress is going to try to maintain that service, then they better quit thinking about making money. You can't make money that way. Like I said, United Parcel doesn't make money that way. Sure you see them out hitting a few of these small towns, but you wait till they get organized in Utah. When they get organized here once, they haven't been here long enough yet; you find out that the only ones they want is your big business. I don't know what the answer is to it all, and I don't think that Baylor does, and I don't think the congressmen do and I don't think anybody else does. But they do know that they are operating at a loss. They ought to know the only way they are going to quit operating at a loss is if they raise their product and that's what they are doing and the 16 public is waking. But it's not the union's fault. It isn't the unions fault because if you don't get the wages comparatively the same as the guy next door to you or somebody who is working in a factory, or any place else. You can't make ends meet. You can't expect the people here to work for $2.09 an hour like I did back in '59. You can't work for that and pay your bills and not going to live according to what they have set up as poverty standards. Sure, a person can exist but that isn't the way they have things set out. When I went into the service, I got in just as you were making 50 dollars a month. Right now I think a seaman is going in at 300 and something a month. That's a big change. But who is paying that bill if it isn't the government? If it isn't our government that is paying it? They have to pay it. They're not getting by and you wonder why your taxes and stuff goes up; that's the reason. But it's going to continue to rise unless they freeze everything. There are too many votes involved there and the Congress will never do it. TA: Don, I do know that you recently ran in the election for the union president and for the record, you didn't make it. However, I do know you had some ideas that you wanted to change. What were some of the things you felt needed to be changed in the union here in Ogden? DF: I thought we had to have more communication with management. I thought that we had to go in and talk and lay our cards on the table and be honest above board, and talk man to man with the managers, especially the postmasters and straighten out things that we could straighten out. If you had to go into grievance procedure, I can see going to grievance procedure. But I don't see that every time that management makes a wrong move or somebody has got a gripe which could turn into a grievance, I don't think that stuff should be agreed, I think that stuff should be handled while it's no more than, 17 our magazine says, our postal magazine says, that grievances should be handled at the local level. And unless you have communications with your people at the local level with management on a local level, you've got to earn those communications. And I feel that I can talk to a postmaster and explain my situation before I would ever file a grievance, I would talk to him, explain it, I'd have the facts and figures. I would lay my cards on the table and listen to what he had to say and then I would make a decision then. But never just because somebody come up to me and say I've got a grievance. I want to file a grievance. Would I say I'll file it? Not without being strictly honest and above board and lying my cards out and tell them just what I want, and let them find out from there. I think I could gain a lot more that way. That was my idea. A lot of people feel that the only thing you can do, you got a book there, and the book says it's this way and that’s the way it is. But I know on department career, we had a book too. But you would rather not use it or you wouldn't be back here. But you ought to learn that stuff. A book is a terrific guide, but there are a lot of things I think could be handled here at a local level that aren't being handled at a local level. That was my idea. But I didn't campaign because people asked me to run and I ran. I didn't campaign because I really, with 4 or 5 years to go, I didn't want to get involved. I would have done it for 2 years. But as long as the majority wanted the other man, it was fine with me. I had a lot of different ideas than he got. Evidently all of them thought that was the way to do it, so that's fine. I think you have got to have closer communications with management and I think a lot of times, well I know myself that a lot of management doesn't know the contract. They don't know the national agreement. The reason they don't know it is because they think the only one that wrote it was the union. They don't realize that management had their finger in 18 that just as much as you do. That is something you got to get across to them, that it is also their contract. Get them educated on it. There are a lot of things in there that aren't really for us either that they can do. But I never could believe that two people couldn't sit down and talk out their differences and come to a solution without holding a grudge. People that think that all management is against you is wrong. Management makes a lot of mistakes. I remember when I was back in Wisconsin; this was when we were still under Congress before the union had any power that amounted to anything. We had a book of rules we went by. It was called The Contract. So when we came to work in the post office, we were civil service employees and we had to be fingerprinted, our background was checked and see if we were outstanding citizens, make sure we hadn't been arrested. Even if we were arrested for drunken driving, you had better tell them or they could fire you afterwards. They had a lot of mail back up because they didn't want to pay the overtime or give the days off to work it. So they went out on the street. We were short of employees. I felt we were short-at the time when I was president of the union–I felt that we were short at least 10 regular employees. But they wouldn't hire anyone. The freeze was on. It was frozen, there was no hiring. So my wife was a pretty good writer. They went out in the street and hired 10 women off the street that had never taken the civil service examination and went out and set them on the base to catch up on the S. C. F. mail, bulk mail that was allowed to pile up. So my wife wrote a letter to our Congressmen and our Senators. It wasn't long, we were still under their control, it wasn't long she got a letter back. They contacted the postmaster general and he in turn got on the phone and called the regional director in Minneapolis. The regional director got on the phone. He called our postmaster and of course the postmaster did 19 not hire those 10 women without his consent. But at the time they were hashing things around, there were 6 regulars made in our office and it was froze, so I asked our national vice-president. The regional director asked our national vice-president who had caused all that trouble down there. He said that was the president of the local wife. He wrote her a letter and told her how they were taking care of the organization and she wrote him back saying she didn't figure they were taking very good care of it. But we did get 6 regulars, but she wasn't satisfied. We got 6 regulars and made those women who were hired off the street, they were let go because they had no security checks, no finger-prints, no nothing, they were just off the street. Whereas the rest of the workers at the post office at that time, we had a list there on Sunday available to us and the register room had a list and here they went right on the street and hired. No way could they do that right now. Back then the union wasn't strong, so it has really, it has really moved along. It's done a lot of progressing. I know a lot of people think the union gets too strong and too greedy. They don't think, when you get right down to it, the union doesn't get any stronger or any greedier than management. So this is why you have to have an open door policy where you can express your views. I think this goes all the way from the union up to the national level. They should be able to walk into Baylor's office if there is something wrong and at least voice their opinion. And I think Baylor should be able to walk into our national president’s office if he feels that they are out of line and have a talk. But I don't think hostility is the right way to arrive at a solution to any problem. I think that was a lot of what was going on, even when I was running for office. I don't believe in a slowdown. I believe when you work 8 hours and there are times, naturally at any job, there are times when you can go slower and still get the work 20 done, but there are other times when you got to go like a son of a gun to get the work and I think people should do that. But I don't think the minute that there isn't much work and you go a little slower, I don't think management should come out and jump on you for not working as fast as you can go. This is what you have to get across to your supervisors, your postmasters. As long as the mail gets out, I don't believe you'll have any trouble. And nobody can expect that the mail in the post office is going to be the same on the 10th of the month or the 20th of the month as it is on the 1st of the month. But we got the same amount of people there to do it with. There are no more people, therefore we got to just tear into it at the first of the month. I've seen it throughout the time I've been at the post office. I've seen them come in. I've seen them man the post office to your heaviest day, the first of the month. They man it so it can be taken care of the first of the month. Then again you change the regional director, you change postmaster general, what have you, then they'll come down to your supervisors and they'll man the post office to the lowest day, the day you have the least mail, then they'll man it so you can just barely get the mail out and they still expect you to get it out at the first of the month. There's no way you can do it. And they do that for a while until they get enough complaints from the public that the mail is being delayed. Then they'll go ahead and come in and look things over and they'll hire a bunch of people. Usually then they'll hire too many. And that's the way it is. TA: Well, one thing that is a strong point for the union and again I want your opinion, and that is seniority. That is one big thing, a strong point that the union stresses and naturally considering some of the younger men, I've heard pros and cons and you as 21 the union president, I'm sure you’ve heard the pros and cons of both ways. So how do you feel about seniority? DF: I think a person can go into that and most of us at one time or another probably been in the service. I don't believe you start in the service at the top where you are telling people what to do. When I went in, everybody told me what to do. And I better do it. I think it is the same way throughout. Whether you are a union shop or whether you aren't a union shop, whatever you are, I still think the seniority is there. Where it isn't recognized as such in a non-union shop, I think the respect of seniority is still there and I think you got to have it because as you go on with your seniority, you get more money and they must give you that for some reason because you get your periodic raises. I think seniority has to be. Back in the U.S. Rubber, I'm going back to O'Clair again, now they are hiring these people out of college with their degrees and they are hooking them into supervision. They're coming in there with a lot between their ears but no experience. I can give you an example of that to go along with this. When I worked for John Deere down in Iowa, one time a young college man came up and I was running a grinder. I was grinding the inside of a goose neck of a John Deere tractor, the water hose, which was a crooked thing. It was hard to hold. He came down there and he wanted to know what the speed on the shaft was on the machine and he wanted to know how many I was running in an hour. He said, "Speed up the shaft." I said, "Speed up the shaft? I don't dare." He said, "Oh yes you do." He had a slide rule, showed me I should be running 3 more pieces an hour with these figures. I said if I do I'll scrape them. So he said right here they figure you can run the shaft that fast. So I ran them out at his speed and I scraped every one of them. But this is the book again. The book says 22 how many I could do. But I couldn't because of the heat caused by the friction of that shaft running so fast and the cutting tool cutting that fast. He looked at the goose neck and when it cooled off, instead of being round it was oblong. Not so you could see it with the naked eye but when you put it in the test; when you test it with your gauges, it was out of line. Out of that group of goose necks we had a 3,000 tolerance, it was up over 5,000. So they were scraped. They were no good, wouldn't pass inspection. But this was the same thing going back to hiring people who don't have the experience. To me it is a very, very poor thing. It's like bringing a guy in here as our postmaster. Tell the guy to come in here as a postmaster who had run a store all of his life. Well, that's the same thing as bringing a man in here as a union president who has run a filling station. He doesn't know our conditions. He don't know nothing about our work, what we do. He doesn't know the number of different jobs you have to do in a day. He doesn't know the conditions and I think you got to have experienced people and to be at the head, not only management, but union too. The union should have experience in it. One of our big problems, we are getting people in here right up in the top that don't have any experience. There are a lot of things that can be done with the post office, that's for sure. I think they're working on every one of them that they know how to work on. Eventually they'll get it straightened out. But like I said, it took them years to screw it up; it will take them a few years to straighten it out. As far as getting into money making proposition, I firmly believe if they ever get to the point they are breaking even, I really believe that at that time we will probably have the right to strike. I believe that the union will call a strike. If we ever got to the point to where they were making money because it has never done it before. It's going to be hard for them to get used to it. To think it could 23 ever make money and I don't think the congressmen believe it could ever make money when they put it into this reform. I don't believe they believed it could be done, not at the rate they were losing it. But I know one thing, we would have some bad conditions right down here if we didn't have the union. I knew that supervisors would be working instead of supervising. In fact, they used to do it. They used to work. It finally got to the point it was proved to them that the supervisor could not work beside the men and be doing a job and see what the other guy was doing. But they finally realized that the supervisor had to supervise. Naturally you are going to get where you've got a lot of supervisors that got their job and don't know the first thing about supervising. You find that any place. You find that in a factory, you find it any place you work. A lot of times the boss' son would be up there in a good position because I think that's the way people feel. If you can help your own, you help your own before you help someone else. But it doesn't make it right. It makes a lot of hard feelings for people working for those goals. But it does happen. It happens in the post office, it happens in private industry. It happens anywhere. So it isn't anything you can cure. The union does try to smooth it out a little. It's gotten to a point now where they do try to raise people on their merits and what they know. They haven't completely straightened the whole situation out yet. They still are getting better though I believe. TA: Well, I feel this concludes the interview. I want to thank you. I really appreciate your comments and I'll take the time to thank you. This interview was held at a late hour. We started it about 5 after 10 at night and the reason being working hours and one thing. I really want you to know that I appreciate it very much. 24 DF: I'm glad to do it. It's my view on it and I've always been a conscientious person. I think a lot of it is fine work and I think meet people agree. There is always a few that will take advantage of anything. I try to earn my money and do my job and I think that's what most all of them do that I know down there. I think, all in all, we've got a good place to work at the post office. I think we can keep it that way. I've talked to every man that's worked there, whether he is management or whether he's labor. So to keep the post office going, we are the ones that got to do it. That's my view on it. A lot of them don't agree. But I've been there 17 years working at it. I've got a good work record. 25 I. Summary A. Subject: Impact of Unionism on the Postal Service in Ogden, Utah. B. Analysis of the Project: 1. Subject: In selecting a subject you must be careful that it lends itself to the area. An example of this is my subject. Utah being small in postal employees, not a strong state for or against unionism, and finally not really being situated where the actions of personnel from Utah would make a difference, there was really nothing left to talk about. Much of what was said centered around the national office and what they had gotten for the union. In reality, the Utah offices just tag along with the improvements or suggestions from the national union offices. What few local problems they have were quickly touched on. Therefore, I remind you to select a subject that deals with your area. 2. Equipment: a. Availability: Equipment was available as needed with no difficulty. However the need to check the recorders in and out every four days is questionable. During the process I talked to the library personnel and they felt a longer period of time could be made available. b. Condition: Ranged from fair to good. Frequently pieces are missing such as take-up reels, microphone and the like. Suggest you also take a blank tape with you and insure all equipment functions as it is supposed to. If you accept it and it doesn't work, you might lose a day or two before you can get it replaced. 26 c. Library Hours: The library hours are not convenient' to the night student. I realize the college cannot or will not function at night like it does in the day but why should the night student be totally ignored? Hours of operation should be made more compatible with night students. d. Compatibility of Different Equipment: In the event the student is going to hire a typist, insure the recorder used for the interviews and the recorder the typist uses are compatible. I suggest this be done early enough that no interviews are lost or mixed up. 3. Class Scheduling: The flexibility of the class schedule was greatly appreciated. Dr. Sadler allowed the student to make the most use of his time and the instructor was at the disadvantage. However, it was a joyful, not apprehensive meeting that did assist in every way. 4. Class Content: I would have greatly appreciated a class review. I needed suggestions as well as constructive criticism. I needed somebody else's views to improve my future interview techniques. I could not find it by myself. At this point and time I did have a feeling of insecurity towards the interviews and what I was doing in general. 5. Additional Expenses: This point should be either advertised along with the class schedule or the first class. A novice ability will not suffice for this class. If a typist is going to be hired, the total project will cost approximately thirty to forty dollars. II. Critique of Interviews: A. Theodore (Ted) Stamos 27 A good strong interview. The interviewee was firm in his opinions and had something to say. True, much of what was said focused on the national situation but I feel this was due to the subject, not the technique used. The major local problem was touched on as it happened as Ted stated. Due to the situation and the way it was handled, that was one of the primary reasons I selected Ted for this interview. Ted is a very knowledgeable man concerning the post office. His talent for saying the wrong thing at the right time however did not show through on the tape. It must be noted that Ted is on management's side due to his position, not necessarily his thinking. B. Glen Loveland This was a disappointing affair. I feel Glen told me what he thought the audience would like to hear. All of Glen's actions speak different than his words. He resigned from the union. He speaks harshly towards it. He avidly interferes with union discussion. His son-in-law, who is a member, and he fight about it often. The interview was lost due to lack of experience by the interviewer to handle an individual who is "putting you on". I don't think this was done purposefully by Glen. However, I didn't really recognize it until well into the interview and didn't know how to change it when I did recognize it. C. Donald (Don) Fouser This interview lacked the explosiveness and forcefulness that I felt it should have had because there were no real union issues here. Don knows his union. He doesn't think there is any other way to go. However, before he really becomes involved, there 28 must be an issue worth working for. As I earlier illustrated, there is no great union impact on the Utah scene as compared to well — New York. Consequently, as you go through the interview you select these points that are made. Don is all union. Good, bad, or indifferent, he'll support it and the union has room for improvement but it will and should continue on. 29 GLOSSARY OF TERMS APWU: American Postal Workers Union Clerks: Post Office personnel who man service windows at the post office as well as personnel who separate mail to stations and routes. Cutting Lawns: Not using sidewalks or paths when delivering mail to houses. Craft Employee: An employee who belongs to a specific union and performs a specific job. Double Dipper: Primarily refers to military retirees who work for the post office. Flats: Any item too large to fit in the letter carriers letter case slots, yet not considered a parcel. Letter Case: A large square separated into small holes so a carrier can separate his mail by address for that route. NALC: National Association of Letter Carriers. Prime Time: The period of vacation time between the month of May and September. Regular: The job title of a full time employee who is guaranteed 40 hours per week. Route Check: A check of a letter carrier's day, for a period of one week, to determine if the carrier's route should be added to or lessened. Substitutes: a. Part time flexible career employee. b. A ninety day casual who is not a career employee. 30 Scheme: A listing of all addresses or blocks for a particular area. Scheme Knowledge: A distributor must know a scheme good enough to separate letters by route within a certain scheme. T-6: A semi-supervisor who carries a set of five different routes, or A carrier supervisor who relieves a set of five letter carriers when they receive the normal day off during the week. 31 Bibliography Fuller, Wayne E., the American Mail (Enlarger of the Common Life), pp. 1-11, 109-189, 281347. Mueller, Stephen J. and Myers, A. Howard, Labor, Law and Legislation, pp. 125-132, 189-190, 153-154, 282-285, 819-876. Marx, Herbert L., ed., American Labor Today, pp. complete book, 200 pages. Contract, American Postal Worker Union (1975), pp. 123. Contract National Association of Letter Carriers (1975), p. 138. Negotiating Equality for Postal Workers and Uniformity in Labor Relations, Congressional Hearings HR 1282 and 5312, p. 168. Postal Reorganization Act Amendments (1975), Congressional Hearing HR 2445, p. 368. Federal Service Labor - Management Legislation, Congressional Hearing HR 10700 and related bills, pp., 461-471, 493-501. Proposals to Amend the Postal Reorganization Act, Congressional Hearing HR 155, p. 421. National Association Letter Carrier (Local Contract), p. 50. American Postal Workers Union (Local Contract), p. 50. 32