Oral History Program Glen Loveland Interviewed by Tom Andros 15 July 1976 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Glen Loveland Interviewed by Tom Andros 15 July 1976 Copyright © 2014 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: Loveland, Glen, an oral history by Tom Andros, 15 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 Glen Loveland. The interview was conducted on July 15, 1976, by Tom Andros, in the location of the interviewee’s home. Mr. Loveland discusses unionism and its effect on the postal service in Ogden, Utah. TA: My name is Tom Andros and this is an interview for Oral History. The subject of the interview is the Impact of Unionism on the Postal Service in Ogden, Utah. This interview is being held with Mr. Glen Loveland at his home. The address is 1226 6th Street, Ogden, Utah. The time is 7:10 p.m. The date is 15 July, 1976. Glen, to get this going, to get to know you a little bit better, how about giving us a little bit about your background. Your family, where you came from, where you grew up, and how you got to Ogden and one thing and another. GL: Well, I was born in Mccammon, Idaho. I am 52 years old, and I was raised in Boise, Idaho, until after I got out of high school. Then I went in the service for three years. Came back out and worked as a salesman for three years, then I moved to California with my wife and at that time my two children. I had the intentions of going to school, and I went to school for near two years, drafting school, drafting engineering. Then I went into the insulation business and had the opportunity to take the Civil Service Exam. I took it and went to work for the Post Office in 1953. I now have five children. Three of them married. Nine grandchildren. We live here in Ogden. But I will back up a little bit. I worked in Baldwin Park, California, as a clerk for about seventeen years, after which I transferred out as a carrier. The main purpose for transferring to a carrier craft so I could get a transfer from California back up into Idaho or Utah. I made several attempts, in fact I had two transfers arranged for in Boise, Idaho, and first time the Post 1 Master passed away and that conked out the second time they offered me the job but they wanted me to go to a level two and at the time I was at a level eight, and I wasn't about to back up for that kind of a salary. The Postmaster used the excuse that he had an agreement with the local tradespeople that they wouldn't hire anybody in higher than a level two. This was a political deal and so therefore I didn't go. Later on I had the opportunity to transfer into Ogden. I transferred into Ogden in 1969 in November. I have been here since. Like I say I have been a clerk for seventeen years. I still like it but I can't see with such a short time got to go back and lose all my seniority and go back to clerking for five years. TA: Well, that is quite a bit about your family. I guess I should have mentioned that you are a letter carrier now for Ben Lomond Station. Possibly you could give us a rundown of all your experiences in the Post Office and maybe elaborate a little bit on why you selected the Post office and why you stuck with it. GL: Well, I worked in a little town of Baldwin Park and when I started there they had 15 routes, and if I remember right about 12 clerks. Of course in an office like that in a clerking job you do everything. You work wonders, you make collections, at that time we made collections we did dispatch work, occasionally we would even end up carrying a route or helping with the routes. I had the unique experience of being given lots of opportunities. When we transferred from the original check routing by the local level in the post office, I can't remember what year it was, but it was about 1959 or 60. Something like that. I was one of the first ones that was given the privilege of being the time keeper in the post office and submitting the time cards to the San Francisco region office. So I did that for about 8 years. In the meantime I was a Civil Service examiner for 2 the vehicles. I had charge of the stock room of time keepers. I was relief window clerk. I was relief dispatcher, I was relief everything. On top of this, I was relief supervisor for about 6 years. So I have had quite an overall experience. I worked as high as assistant postmaster. Why I didn't follow through with it was because openings didn't come down there and up here if you transfer you lose your seniority and there is just too much of a gamble of trying to get in without seniority. They say that seniority doesn't count, but it does. Even the supervisor jobs. I have done a lot of things in the post office, including working the old Christmas routes that we used to have that we don't have any more with a bunch of subs that didn't know what they were doing. Literally, subs that were temporary. Christmas help, we used to call them. I quit the post office in 1957 because I thought I would go back into the milk sales again but after 6 months I found out that the post office was a much better place to be where it is more secure. You have more security, you have more fringe benefits; benefits that you can't beat anywhere I don't believe. I happened to have the opportunity to come back to my old job. I didn't even have to change jobs because the guy that had it transferred to the east and I went right back to it. I replaced my replacement is what happened. First time I was a sub for 15 days. Unclassified for 15 days then I was classified for about a year and a half and then I was made a regular. The second time I went back I was a classified sub for about 6 months then I was made regular again. I transferred to Ogden, Utah, and I was a sub for about a year and a half. Then I was made a regular and I was a floating regular for about a year and a half before I could get my own route. So I have been through the mill 3 times you might say, subbing and working my way up. But I still think it is a good job. I still think it is one of the best. And that's the reason I am with it. If I didn't like my job I 3 wouldn't be here. I like carrying because I like people. I like carrying here better than in California because of the weather. It may get a little warmer here, it may get a little colder here. I know it gets colder here but you don't have the smog to contend with and that is one thing in California I didn't like was the smog. You couldn't get any fresh air no matter what you did. Unless you worked in an air conditioned building. You could step under a tree with shade and there was no air. It's all smog. Up here you can stop in the shade of a tree and cool off. You can't do that in California, no way. So that's about what I have done in the post office. I have done everything from assistant postmaster down to all but custodial work and I haven't done that. Like I said I have been to several schools on supervision and on driving training and so forth. I have had a pretty rounded experience and I pretty well understand all the faculties of the post office. TA: On the question of Unionism, I will make a comment here that I do know that you did belong to a Letter Carrier Union and you have resigned. However, what I would like to do, since you have many years with the post office, explain to us when you first came in contact with the Union, how and you know just bring us up to date with your Union activities. GL: I first came in contact with the Union about 3 weeks after I first joined the post office, I believe. I joined the Clerks Union and later on I was president of the Clerks Union in Baldwin Park then when I transferred out as a carrier, I joined the Letter Carriers Union. I also carried this card into this office and was a member of the Letter Carriers Union, I don't remember what the local number was. Anyhow but I was local here in Ogden until about 2 years ago. I got out of the union, and the main reason I did it was because I didn't feel that the Union Representatives were doing the things that should be done 4 for the employee themselves. For instance, you would ask them for, in fact, I carried the letter carrier NALC insurance for a year, because it was less expensive. But I needed a claim on it one time and it took me about 2 weeks to get a form from our Union representative to even submit. Then you have to submit it yourself and it took quite a while to get it back and then it didn't pay as much as my current insurance paid or ever has paid. So I went back to my original insurance. The main reason I got out of the letter carriers union was because of the personnel that was in it and you can't fight city hall when there is a certain group in there that rule the roost. Sometimes they are only interested in one thing, and that is attending their convention, I feel some of them. They want to go down there and have a good time and they don't bring back an awful lot for the local level. I also feel that some of the union representatives we have had here in this office in the past when they became supervisors they were very much against the union when before they were all for the union, and I think there should be a happy medium. I think the union should work with supervision, after all supervision has the responsibility of giving us better service, and if you are fighting it all the time, nobody gets any service. I feel that the union is a good thing, but if it is fighting management all the time why it isn't the best thing, I don't believe. I think you should have discussions with management when problems come up that they should work on. I don't believe that there should be a constant battle. There is constant bickering between union and management over little petty things that don't mean anything, such as dusting the letter carriers case and a few things like this you know. I can't see any reason for supporting anything like this. And I think the union has helped in a lot of ways but if they would have continued to go like they were about 10 years ago we wouldn't be working today 5 because they would have out waged us right out of the service. This is one of the problems. The wages aren't too high in some respects but they took them too fast and this is what has caused a lot of the problems, I believe as far as postage is concerned and the rates, because of trying to get too much at one time that is considering the benefits. We are well paid in my estimation, I think we're well paid if we were in the same type, I don't know how you would compare it with outside employment. Supposing now that you were a delivery man for a milk company or something like this. This is similar to what we are doing. Meeting the public. And I don't think they are making the salaries that we are making with the benefits that we have to go with it, and the security that goes with it. I think we are working our way out of a job. Waging ourselves out of a job. Too much at one time. Not that I don't like the money as well as the next guy, but I think there should be a limit as to how far they can go on this. I think this arbitration that they have brought in in the last 3 years has helped. Because it has helped to control the union a little bit. You can bargain rather than just demand and threaten to go on strike, and I hope that the union does get straightened out to where it does see that there is two sides of all the stories, management and employees. TA: I see. Do you feel, I think primarily that you get comments centered towards the Ogden area here? Do you feel that you have the same situation in California and Idaho? When did you first join the union? How was it then? Was it as strong then as it now? This type of thing. GL: The union wasn't as strong because they had no way of bargaining. It was just lobbying and congress. In the first place, years ago it's not supposed to be anymore, congressmen recommended a post master. And through these congressmen this is how 6 we went and lobbied. Now they do have representation in the postal system. Union representation can represent us in congress or wherever. Years ago you couldn't do this. Now I first joined the union and it wasn't near as strong as it is now, no because you didn't have this bargaining power. They didn't acknowledge it. But on the other hand I think that the union to me was, they accomplished more. I know when I was the president of the clerks union, if we had a problems we would meet on a labor national basis with union representatives and management representatives. We would discuss these problems and we would actually have good discussions. The post master was very cooperative. He was a carrier. He had belonged to the letter carriers union. He knew what some of the problems were, and he accepted it. But I think the union has forced management to rebel on some on their demands that the union wants because they demanded so much in certain fields, and yet they don't stop to realize that management still has to control the work the flow of work the hours. They just can't say, my route is too big, and I need over time for it, and not realize the management is held to a budget just like everybody else is. I think this is one of the problems with some of the carrier representatives. They don't want to admit that management has its bosses too that controls them. You know. If you don't do this, like I say fighting and bickering over petty things. What can you accomplish really? It is just like two little kids fighting in a lot of cases. Where this is what I have noticed here in this office. It's a larger office. Much larger office. We've got four times the letter carrier force right now. Three times anyhow. Six times the clerk work that we had in our little office. Consequently the smaller offices, the management got along with the employees on a personal basis more than they do here. I don't think the post master knows who I am. If he saw me on 7 the street, he wouldn't know me. Down there we had annual get-togethers where the post master and everybody else from the custodian up had a picnic and they knew everybody and their kids. If he saw my kids going down the street, the post master would say hi, and he knew who he was talking to. Here the post master doesn't know who we are. I think this is one of the problems with the postal department. The management is too far away from us as individuals. They should be more acquainted with us. I don't know who he is. He is the new post master. If I saw him on the street, I wouldn't know him. I think I have met him once. But I wouldn't know him because we never see him in the station. Maybe the main office does, but we never see him out here in the stations. If he comes out, he comes out when the carriers are gone. I think that this is something that the union should talk about, and invite him to come out. Get acquainted with the character on an individual basis. Maybe they aren't supposed to, but I think they should. This is the difference between two offices. And naturally the union would get along better where they know they can go in and talk to the guy as person to person rather than sir to sir, you know. TA: How was it in California? GL: Well, that's the way it was down there. We talked to them person to person. TA: Idaho also? GL: Well, I never worked in Idaho in the post office. But I think that a lot of your larger offices naturally it's harder for the postmaster to know everybody. He could get better acquainted than he is. We had one active, or what would you call him? Officer in charge. I never see him. He was here, how long was that fellow from Pocatello here? 8 TA: Oh, Palagi? GL: Palagi. How long was he here? Six months at least. I never did meet the guy. Never did see him. I didn't know the guy. I think that we should know who they are. How can we go out and represent them? After all, we are representing the post master out in the field and if we don't know who he is how can we even represent him? TA: Have you at any time had a feeling that the union is either improved, when I say improved, you as an individual and the letter carriers has improved. Hew have they improved working conditions and things of this nature and have they been detrimental in any case? GL: Yes, they have improved a lot of our working conditions. I can remember some of the old cases we used to have. Through the union working on ideas, and submitting ideas on cases, they were changed considerably. In fact, we used to have an old 5 Row case, then we got up to a 7 Row and now we are back to 6 again. I think that it takes experimentation, but it also takes the working people to tell what is wrong. This should be done through the union, our representatives to the management. They brought in the suggestion plan, the unions did more or less to where we could submit suggestions and get, if nothing more than to get something done. I have got money for suggestions, so have a lot of other people. Even if you don't, if they will just read them and think about them you know, where before when we didn't have this when I first started working there wasn't such a thing as a suggestion committee. We would just go up to the foreman and say hey, why can't we do this? Then it takes a lot of red tape and it has to go through congress before they can do anything. It isn't quite as bad anymore because I think this is one thing I think can be chalked up. I think the union has brought in the relief carrier 9 and clerk which is known as a T-6. There is good and bad parts about that too. I have been through both of them. I have been where subs are our lowest, well either a sub or the lowest regular was a relief man. He didn't get paid any extra for it, but I think that sometimes they did a better job than some of the ones we have known because now they've got it just strictly for the money and because they've got the seniority and they've got 3 or 4 years to go and they want to be a T-6 while they are here to make more retirement. They could care less about what happens on their route, the service. Even though some of them squawk at us for bad service, but I think that some of those T-6's are some of the worst. Some of them, not all of them. There are ones, and I think this is one thing that I can say has pros and cons. It's a good thing if it's right. But I think there should be a control over it. A T-6 should be just as qualified as if a clerk went and had to transfer to a job where he had to learn a scheme, he is given so long to learn the scheme, if he doesn't learn it he doesn't get the job. I think a T-6 should be in the same boat. If he can't do the job as good, or similarly as good as a regular, then he shouldn't have the job. Because he is getting paid more for it, he should be a little better qualified. But it seems like the pay is just a, well you owe it to me because I have been here for 30 years, type of deal. This is true of the field where I think they have helped conditions. I can remember when I started, I don't know how it was in Ogden but I presume it was the same all over. The lighting systems were very bad. They brought about a lot of these changes where they had individual lights on the cases where needed, where people can read. They colored the cases from an old dull green to a bright yellow that reflects the light where you can see in it. You couldn't get any reflection off of an old brown oak case with the green fillers in it. There's no light. You had to have the light 10 right there or you didn't get anything. The same with the floors. We used to have the old black floors and gray walls and there was nothing there. They have made a lot of changes, they have even been instrumental in helping to make a lot of changes. They brought about the idea of route checks. I think that's a good idea if it's operated right. It used to be if the carrier couldn't do it why someone would go out and check on him if he thought he was goofing off then he told him so and no standards necessarily. The working conditions as far as delivery are a lot better, I believe with vehicles than working out of a can off of a bicycle. I can remember when we had the bicycles. We used the bicycles to carry the mail from the office to the boxes to our different points on the route. I remember when we used our own cars to deliver out of. A left hand guy trying to deliver out of a right hand window. Very uncomfortable, very hot. Very everything but good. We didn't have any snow to fight. I can see how it would really be a detriment up here. I think they have helped out. They started out with the three wheelers. They didn't prove satisfactory because they weren't strong enough. There were too many people killed on them, just making short terms. They were getting rammed with them because there was only a piece of fiber glass between you and a car and that wasn't very much. There were curtains on the sides. Now they have come out with these small jeep type vehicles. I think they have really improved the mode of transportation for the carriers. They used to catch buses. In some places I guess they still do this. But working out of a delivery box. I don't think it is good. I don't know if the union was responsible for it or not, and that's doing away with some of the delivery boxes. They haven't oriented the people into the process of getting rid of their mail. And too many of the old carriers particularly, I think don't feel that this is part of their services to pick up mail at houses. I 11 feel it is. It's there whether you are delivering it to them or picking it up. What's the difference? I think that that's first class mail and if they don't have a box. Now, I've got a route up here that doesn't have any boxes within, well let's see, I guess on one corner the box is about 3 blocks from it. But from the other end of my route the closest delivery box is a mile away. And people cannot walk to those things like they used to on the corner so they put it out there for us to pick up and I think that it is part of our job. And if the union would think of things like this to where the state would pick the mail up instead of, we don't have to, I think we would be giving the patron more service. There are very few times that you have to go up to the house to pick up a letter. There are some carriers that will not do it. I'm against it. I think they should. I do myself, I go up and get it. Rain or shine, I will go up to the house to get the mail, even on check week. These are just some of the things that I think the union should be aware of and work on. They say, you don't have to, so why do it? This is a bad attitude. Maybe this is what I'm trying to say. Attitude is something we need to change. Maybe management could help do this if they were on a better relation with the people. TA: How do you feel about the union and right to work law where we have an open shop? You know there is quite a bit of comment going on and I was wondering what your feeling is towards this. GL: Well, my own personal opinion, I feel the open shop is good because I think we should have the freedom of working without being told that we have to submit to pressure of the union. I feel that it is good for the certain type of people that support the union. I support the union. I've even thought about re-joining the union. But I still believe that a person should have the right to work whether he belongs to the union or not. That's my 12 own personal opinion, and I know that a lot of people disagree with me and they will call me a scab and everything else, but it doesn't bother me because that's the way I feel about it. I feel that this country is based on freedom. Whether I want to work and join the union or whether I have to be forced to join it, and I belong to the teamsters union. I know the teamsters union, if you missed a meeting you could get fined for it. I believe this should be your own right, even though you are a member. You shouldn't be forced to attend a meeting if you don't feel like it. It still should be your right. If they want to charge you dues and you pay your dues, that's fine. But they shouldn't be able to force you to attend a meeting that you don't feel like you want to attend. I know that some of the unions, when I belonged to the teamsters union at that time there was a $5 fine if you didn't go to your meeting. I can't see this. I still believe that the right to work law is a good law. It doesn't really tend to raise your wages that much, but here again, I think that we as a country have waged ourselves right into a real problem. Not only just the post office, but a lot of other things, a lot of your crafts, your skilled laborers, and you have to pay $15 for a plumber to come and an electrician, I think that's outrageous myself, I don't care what they say. This doesn't help the economy. It's a false economy. It's as bad as the Vietnam War being a false economy in my book. So I'm for the right to work. TA: Well, in the Ogden Standard I guess there has been quite a bit of conversation so it's getting to be nationwide concerning the cutting lawns. How do you stand on this particular situation? GL: Cut every lawn I can. TA: What do you feel is the problem? I mean what is the over-all problem? 13 GL: The overall problem is that people want an excuse to take more time to do less work. To serve less people and then they won't do it. They will do it one week out of the year and that's the week that the checkers go with them. I don't know whether that checker is with me or not. I take my normal route year round. They tell me, they can't tell me but they might try to, that you can tell where a carrier walks. But I can take you on my route that I have been on for three years last April, and I carried it a good 11 or 12 months out of two previous years, besides that carried the same route and I defy anybody that will try to tell me where I walked, and I have cut the lawns for three years. And I have had people tell me they would rather see me walk on the lawn than walk in the street, because it's cooler in the summer time and it's easier on your feet. You don't get as tired. And in the winter time where you don't have sidewalks. Particularly on my route doesn't have sidewalks. You have to walk out in the street if you're going to walk where there isn't any snow. And you have to wade over a three foot snowbank to get out and another three foot to get back in, and it's ridiculous to jump the snowbanks when you can make a trail and walk in the same spot every day. I'll still defy anybody that can tell me where I walked on any lawn, on any lawn on my route. They can't tell me where I have walked. So I think that the big problem is, once again this is one of the union's things, that they don't want to cut the number of deliveries down by pretending that they are going to cover the sidewalks every day of the year. Some towns where there are a lot of fences and so forth, hedges in old parts of town, and they have all got sidewalks and maybe you can't cut lawns. But I think when you can, in my area particularly there are very few places that I can't cut the lawn about 4 or 5 or 6 houses. And nobody has ever told me, I've had one person tell me to stay off his fertilizer. I had one other person 14 tell me to stay off because he was having problems with his dog. So I obey his commandment and stay off his lawn. But that is 2 out of 550 places. That is a pretty good percentage. TA: Yes, I'll have to go along with that. GL: I think that you will find the same thing throughout the whole country people are this way. Very few people complain. I never had any problem in California. I think there lawns are prettier down there than they are here. Some of them are a lot fancier. Some of them are a different type of grass and some of the grass down there, when frost was on it and you stepped on it you left a footprint and it killed the grass. Do you know what they called it? TA: No. GL: If there was a dew or a frost which is very seldom but if you stepped on a lawn it would kill it right down to the root for about 2 months. It would replace itself. But there I can see not walking on it. But other than that it didn't hurt to walk on them. I think you just have to use a little bit of sense. If you see someone putting new lawn in, you don't go walking across it. Even fertilizer, I don't walk on. I know that it isn't good for the lawns. Other than that I walk on all the grass I can because it's softer TA: One thing that my experience here in Ogden that I hear a lot of pro and con, again is centered around the union. It would cause the union to do something for or against it. What are your feelings towards retired military coming in and working for the post office? 15 GL: Well, I do a lot of kidding about it. You know as well as I do, I have talked to you about it. I call them double dippers and triple dippers. If you understand the program as I understand it, you are benefiting right now but when your retirement time comes, you can only draw one retirement. A lot of people think that you are drawing a retirement now and you will be able to draw the same retirement when you retire from the post office, but you can't. I know better than that. Your retirement is combined. You may draw a little higher retirement because you have been in the service longer. Maybe if you have 20 years in the military and you put 20 years in the post office, that's 40 years. Retirement goes up in respect to the years of service. That's the only extra benefit you get as far as retirement is concerned. If a guy wants to work, it's no different than if you retire from the school district and go to selling insurance, if you retire from the post office and go work in a gas station. What difference does it make? I mean, this is a person's own, if he wants to work after he retires, that's his business. I'm sure I don't know what people make. I don't know what rank you were. I understand you were a sergeant or something like that, but it doesn't make that much difference. But I'm sure you don't make that much retirement on a 20 year basis. I know you weren't in much more than 20 because you got in and out at the age you did, or any of the rest of them that are working down there, that they could get that much retirement that they could live on. All joking aside, I think it's a person's own business. Just like for 14 years I worked for the post office, I worked two jobs, I worked another job. I put in about 20 to 40 hours a week on it. What's the difference? Whether I'm double dipping there or whether I'm double dipping, the only they say is the government paying your retirement and you're working for them again. But here again, your retirement isn't that much, I 16 don't believe, from the government. If you want to work at the post office or work anywhere else as long as you are qualified to do the job physically. I don't think they should create jobs for a handicapped veteran that was medically retired, to take away a job from somebody else who is physically able to handle it. This is my opinion. If he is physically able to handle it, so what. Whose business is it? I do a lot of kidding about it, but that's still beside the point. TA: How do you feel about the Hatch act? Do you think it should be strictly enforced? Maybe we could broaden it a little bit. GL: Explain it a little bit then I will tell you about it. TA: Well, you know that's the one where we can't take too much effort in political involvement. GL: Ok. I have mixed feelings about this too, but I think if a person has the time and it doesn't interfere with his work, if they don't have to give him special time off to attend meetings and such, I think if he wants to get politically involved, he should be able to. In fact, I think we all should be politically involved if we have the time. But I don't think that the post office should pay them time off to go to a convention. If he wants to use his annual leave to go and can get the time off then he should. I feel the same way about going to a union convention. I don't think they should be given special privileges because if they don't have the seniority to get the time off why should they take annual leave and vacation time away from somebody that has more seniority but isn't going to a convention. It's the same principle if you wanted to be on a city council fine. I'm for this. I think they should let them be politically involved as long as it doesn't interfere with their current job. And as long as they don't use this politics to better their job or their job 17 to better the politics. Either direction. It's no different in being involved in a church or a club or anything else. If they want to be involved, that's their business. When they are off the clock after 8 hours are up, what they do with it, other than being a criminal or such as this, and I don't think they should wear their uniforms to things like this just to make an impression. But I think if they want to be involved that should be their privilege. If they want to work another job, it's their privilege too. What difference you know? As long as it doesn't keep them from doing their own job. Does that answer your question? TA: Oh yes. You're doing fine. I want you to feel free if you have any comments. GL: Of course I could get a lot of rebuttal from a lot of people on this but this is the way I feel about it. I think most of those who would rebuttal would be your strong union members that would say hey. You know. That's the reason why I say the union has got its price. When it comes to my private life, the union doesn't have much to say about it. It's my life not theirs. TA: The union is normally always stressing seniority as being one of the biggest things there is to determine an employee's right or job or so forth. How do you feel in this area? Do you feel that this is the determining factor? GL: Well, I think seniority should have its place. But I think sometimes ability should be considered and rule out seniority, particularly in advancements or better job, not necessarily a different route because a route is a route, you can make your own route. I know I have lost my seniority three times altogether. As of now, I don't have much seniority. With all the time I have in, I have got 25 years of service and I have only 5 or 6 years of seniority. That isn't much, but it doesn't bother me. I did this when I transferred. I do wish they would accept, as long as you are in the post office postal service. I think 18 your service should continue whether you transfer from one office to another. Maybe not instantaneously. In other words what I am trying to say is, supposing I transferred in 1969. I think for a year at least I should have got my seniority back. But when I became a regular, I think I should have got my seniority back, or a year after I got here got my seniority back. But in the meantime I had to pay a penalty for three years or two years or something but not forever, you know. It used to be that when you transferred in the same office one craft to another, you lost your seniority for five years, and then you regained it. In other words, when you sent from carrying to clerk you lost your seniority for five years, and then you got your date back. After five years they did away with that, and that is one thing I was against. I think five years may be a good thing on the transfer, but you lose it for five years but then get it back. By that time, you are established on a route, you're established wherever you might be. The only benefit seniority has is around vacation time, and I've had my mixed feelings about this too. I think that in an office such as Ogden, where we have got three stations, you might say, Ben Lomond, Gorter, and the Main, I think the vacation should be by station on a seniority basis rather than over all. In other words, they could say, well we have twenty carriers out at Ben Lomond, ok, and we've got say twenty in each of the places, that's 60. They've got more than this. We've got 70. Ok, they could pro-rate this out to each station so they let 14 people go on vacation at one time. Let 4 from one station, 4 from another, 3 from another, and 3 from the last, or whatever. Let the vacations be picked by stations rather than by the whole office. It would give more people the advantage to get prime time. I know that I went down there the other day and there were 7 people off from our station. That makes it rough on the supervision, that makes it rough on the 19 service, it makes it rough on everybody because you can't take that many out of 20 routes and have anybody left to know what they are doing on the routes. And this should be in the clerk’s office. If there are clerks in one station, he should be given an opportunity. Maybe they only have three, but still why should they be shuffled to the bottom because this is a big job? We've all had the opportunity to get these jobs. Whether they get them or not, that's another thing. I think where you are assigned, I think that's where your seniority should mean a little more. If they are going to knock it off from one office to another then they should knock it off from one station to another. I think it would stop a lot of transferring around too, I know this is a headache too for supervision when people transfer from one route to another just to get a day off. You bring up union on days off and vacations and seniority and so forth. I was under rotating days off and I still like it the best. The thing it gives people with children, no matter what their seniority is an opportunity to have a weekend off with them once in a while. I don't have any children at home, only two teenage boys, and they could care less about what I do on Friday's and Saturday's. They don't usually go with us anyhow. But when you have little children that are in school from 6 to 12 year olds. I think that the father should have an opportunity to be with those kids once in a while. And they work on a certain day off. They always end up with Wednesday off and the kids were in school and they don't get any planned vacation either. They get it after September or before May. They still call it prime vacation, but you don't get it until school starts or before school let out. So when are you with your kids? The family unit is still the main unit as far as this world is concerned. And this would mean a lot to me because that's the reason I like the post 20 office because you have time with your family. You’re not gone twelve to fourteen hours a day. You can work close to home. TA: Anything else you would like to add? That is very informative, really. GL: Well, you asked me to think about what I would like to say, and this is the way I feel about it. I feel that there are a lot of good programs in the post office. I feel that there are some that can be improved on. But again I think that one of the biggest problems that we have right here in this office is the lack of communication between the management and the employee. TA: Do you think the union is helping this out. GL: I don't think they are helping it. I think that if the union would think of some of these kinds of things and go to a labor-management meeting they could suggest that hey, Mr. Warren Phillips some of the carriers out in the Ben Lomond office never see you. How about coming out some morning and just going around and B.S. with them a little bit or talk to them. Just informally go through rather than having to be introduced every time you go through, so many of them never see you. Maybe some afternoon come out and talk with the guys who just came off their route and get acquainted with them. I think that there is not enough time spent with them. If he doesn't have time maybe some of the other supervisors could get out there. All supervisors could spend a little more time talking with the employees. I think our foreman in the Ben Lomond office does a pretty good office of getting around, chewing the fat and is very personal about things and that means a lot. Sometimes carriers come in and he isn't feeling too good maybe he has had a bad night or one of his kids are sick or something and somebody comes up to him and says, hey how are you feeling this morning? Well, my boy doesn't feel so good. 21 What's wrong with him? This has taken a lot of weight off that carrier’s shoulder. If you are concerned about him, he can go out and do a better job because he knows that you are thinking about him. Maybe he isn't carrying it all by himself. I even noticed this in the service. When I was in the service the best people I worked under and I was a staff sergeant in the army, and I know that the officers that took concern with their people, their men were the best liked and you could get the most out of. Not the one that says, to heck with you and I don't care whether your wife likes it or not, and all this jazz. They should have a little concern with people. I think we all want this a little bit. Every one of us need a little bit of back slapping. I heard the statement one time made that there was only six inches difference in a kick in the pants and a slap on the shoulder. You can get a lot more out of a slap on the shoulder than a kick in the pants. I think sometimes is all we get is the kicks and never the slaps. TA: What else would you like to see changed as far as the union improving conditions? GL: Well, here again, I think the union should not just at a union meeting ask for suggestions, because that's about an hour and a half long. How can you cover 80 people in an hour and a half and get ideas. I think the union president could come a long and say hey, do you have any ideas or anything you would like to have thrown out in the next meeting and have an agenda made up. You go to a club and you don't just discuss everything right there you are talking to each other all day long. Sure we talk about it ourselves but if the union takes all these remarks in, they don't have to put names on them. Just say, it has been suggested that we talk about this, or discuss this. Maybe think about this project or this program or this problem. There are problems that come up that the union never knows about because by the time the union meeting 22 comes up it is forgotten. But that's what I think the union representative should be is a representative and not someone to just go down there and tell them what is wrong with the whole world. That is one of my gripes about the union. I know that the clerks union back in California we had a little suggestion box on one of the clerks desks. Anytime a clerk had a suggestion he wanted to get to the people so that we could discuss it. We would talk about it and if we felt that it was strong enough or worthwhile enough to take to the management, we did. If we didn't, then we would kick it around ourselves and see what we could do with it ourselves. Sometimes you don't want to take your problems directly to the top. Because you might be wrong and then you get in trouble or you get blackballed or you get for some reason the management on your neck. I don't particularly like that. I don't like management on my neck. I think sometimes the union has a tendency to like to keep things stirred up. And we like to keep things stirred up. It's a two way street. I don't know of any real things they can do other than just get closer to the people. After all, maybe they aren't getting paid for this but this is what their job is. If he is going to represent me, the union representative he ought to know what I'm thinking. You can't get 80 people’s ideas in an hour and a half. That is one of my big gripes about the union. They need to talk to people. If they would come around and chat with us a little bit, maybe we could come up with some ideas. Sometimes the union ideas aren't so good and we have a better one. TA: One thing I would like to talk about, how do you think the post office has changed with the re-organization? GL: In the postal service? TA: Yes, in the postal service. 23 GL: I disagreed with it before, and I still disagree with it. If they would have done it the way they originally, everybody thought they were going to do it and put it in the hands of a committee. But there is still politics in it. Too much politics. That's what they were supposed to have taken out of it. I don't think they will ever, in this day and age ever be self-sufficient. Under any conditions. After all the post office is a service. And you don't always pay for services. You go into a service station and buy a dollars’ worth of gas, get your windshields washed, and your tires checked and if you buy a tank full of gas you get the same service. So, what is service? That's the thing. It has gotten to the point where they think that we should, and there is no way that you can take a 130 letter and take it to New York or to Los Angeles and make money on it. You could take a billion in a day and never make any money on it. I think that if the personnel were happier in the service, they'd give better service. I think we should be required to give better service, just like I mentioned, picking up letters. If that person has to carry that letter downtown to mail it, he goes right past the business place where he is going to mail it to, what's the reason for putting a stamp on it. We had a case like this come up where one of the carriers took a letter back from the state tax bureau. It only had 13C on it, it had to have another $0.22 put on it and she literally raised cane. She said, I could have driven to Salt Lake for that. She couldn't have, but this is the way people feel about it. I know why they had to send it back to her, because the department wouldn't accept it, she's wrong because she couldn't have driven to Salt Lake on $0.35. No matter what kind of car she drove that's only a half a tank of gas. It was sent back because it was short postage and if you have to drive, like I say if you can't get the mail picked up at your house and you have to drive downtown to deposit it, why do you even mail it. This is what you call 24 service and this is what we have to pay for. They don't miss it so much going through taxes, but you keep raising the postal rates and you miss it. I think we are cutting a lot of people out of using the mail by raising the postage too high for first class mail. Some of these other types of mail, I think are under charged in a few respects. We had another case here the other day when all the mail came through with $0.12 on it. I don't know yet why they put that 12c on it. It wasn't presorted to the routes, it wasn't presorted to the streets, why should they be given the benefit of the penny when the average person it costs $0.13. This came out of a company. I can't see this. This political mumble jumble they've got. How can they send catalogs out at such a cheap rate, literally speaking compared to what you pay for a first class letter. Then they get the catalogs out where they sell the merchandise why should they be given such a drastic cut. You have to have at least, I forget what it is, a certain rate percentage has to be advertisement and a certain percentage non-advertisement to qualify. Some of these publishers got past this rate, this percentage of advertisement because you got through some of these magazines and the first ten pages are all advertisements. They have 40 pages in the magazines and the first ten pages are all advertisement, that's what lost the business, it wasn't the postage, because they still weren't paying very much. I'm still amazed at Look magazines or Life magazines or the Saturday Evening Post, or the Readers Digest is still in business. Evidently they are still making money or they wouldn't be, the subscription rate is enough to pay for it and yet the people are still subscribing because they aren't reading all advertisement. We get enough advertisement on T.V. and from the local newspapers without having to come out of the Readers Digest or any other magazine. Time magazine is still in business. You can't tell 25 me that they are any better off that Look or Life could have been if they were the right type of magazine. I can understand certain magazines having to charge exuberant rates because they aren't so exclusively read by the public. National Geographic is another prime example. Their subscriptions are increasing every year. I can remember when there were very, very few people that could even subscribe to the National Geographic. You had to have a little referral card before you could even order it, and yet they are still in business because they aren’t full of advertisement. They have enough of it, but they don't have too much of it. So I don't think it is the rates that are cutting the magazines out, I think it's just the type of material that's in them because people aren't just subscribing to them. Rates have never put the catalog out of business. Book rates and such as this that we get. This morning, I think that we had in our parcel, Ray Jones and I were talking about this. He said, if I didn't have all these books and records, I wouldn't have any parcels. Literally speaking, I had a whole sack full of stuff and there was three parcels in it that wasn't books or records. They are the ones with all the rate cuts. United Parcel doesn't deliver because we rate them out so much cheaper. Yet it costs just as much to deliver that, a lot more really because you can't handle too many of them, as it does a second class or a first class piece of mail. I'm not against bulk rates because I think bulk rates are something, if they are the right kind of bulk rate where you have to have so many to mail them out. I think bulk rates should include routing, which most of ours does. When they route it out to a route it's fine. That's no problem because it's the casing that slows everybody down. Just a few of my observances over the years. 26 TA: Well, they are most wanted and very much appreciated. I will conclude this interview and say, Glen, thanks a lot. I really appreciate it and I feel that it was very informative and you have a lot to say and I think there will be a lot of people listening to it. GL: Well, thanks. TA: You bet, my pleasure. 27