Oral History Program Theodore Stamos Interviewed by Tom Andros 13 July 1976 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Theodore Stamos Interviewed by Tom Andros 13 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: Stamos, Theodore, an oral history by Tom Andros, 13 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 Theodore Stamos. The interview was conducted on July 13, 1976, by Tom Andros in the home of the interviewee. Mr. Stamos discusses his career in the Ogden City Post Office, and his knowledge of the employment benefits there. TA: I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Mr. Ted Stamos. He is being interviewed at his home, and your address is... TS: 1538 6th. TA: 1538 6th. We are on the deck, and we have a terrific view of Ogden, and it seems like a real enjoyable place. This is for Oral History, and the subject is Union impact on the postal service. Ted at this time, if you would please give us a little bit of background concerning yourself, your family, where you came from, where you were born originally and so forth, and after that give us all your experiences of the postal service. TS: Well, I am a native of Utah. I was born twenty miles north of here in Brigham City. My early childhood was there. I went through high school in Salt Lake and returned to Ogden for the final year and graduated from Ogden High in the first graduating class of Ogden High School at 28th and Harrison. I married a local girl and had five children. I am 57 years old at the present time and started employment at the post office in Ogden, Utah as a letter carrier in 1941. So I am working on the 36th year of service. TA: Thirty-six years. TS: Yes. It's a lot longer than most of the people employed down there are old. I tend to play that up around some of the employees down there. We chuckle about it. At the present 1 time I am the second oldest seniority wise postal employee. Full service in the post office in Ogden. For your information Tom, Bill beats me by a few months. Your subject matter, I believe, had to do with Unionism and the impact of the Union. TA: Before we get into that, if you don't mind me interrupting, you said you were a letter carrier. I'm sure you just didn't go from a letter carrier to a manager. TS: Yes I did. TA: Did you? TS: Yes I did. Now back in the days when I started at the post office, just about every supervisor was a seniority type thing. Seniority was a big issue. If a man had been there that long so he was the next boss next in line when a vacancy came out. We had some good supervisors and we had some not so good. As a substitute carrier, I was a substitute letter carrier replacing regulars on their days off for approximately three years, and as a substitute carrier, I used to look over at the carrier foreman. He was a great big hunk of a man. He was smart. He was an intelligent man. He was a great supervisor. I would look at him and I would say to myself, boy someday I want that job. Well, it took me 17 years and also during that 17 years after two promotions all promotions to the supervisor level in the Ogden post office were from clerk force. A carrier didn't have a chance, and then if a carrier were promoted the next successful foreman after Sam Greg, my initial foreman was Arvel Porter. He had been a carrier. But before he could get the promotion he had to transfer in and be a clerk. About 1951, I guess it was, 1950, they came out with a testing program wherein craft employees would take a written test, and it was strictly post office knowledge, and then they were graded and placed into two different levels. The top ten grades and the second ten. And 2 of course they were positioned in the eligibility according to their grade. The highest grade was number one the second highest and so on down the list. The first one that was given, I competed in, I got third highest in the whole cotton pickin’ office of the guys that took it. Then the superintendent of mails came up to me and said, “How come you have such a damn high record? And such a high score on the supervisors test? You beat a lot of my clerks that do the work.” I was an arrogant young punk, still am even though I'm not young any more. The manager said that all there is left is that carriers aren't as stupid as you think they are. As a result of that particular examination, even though I was third down the line, there was a few promotions from that. About two years later, I took the test again and for some reason or another, I have forgotten what it is now I had on my mind, my wife was sick or some damn thing or another. I didn't pass at all. I didn't even get on the list. But the third time I took it, I was top on the list. It was from that roster that I was promoted. I was the first person promoted directly to a supervisor position from carrier rank in Ogden. TA: Outstanding. TS: Not really. And then too, I was promoted to then level 7, foreman of clerks. In that area I was completely green and knew damn little about that particular operation and what they did. I had a real good teacher. He was, of course, an older man at the time I was promoted to foreman of clerks. I was 37 or 38 years old about. He was an elderly gentleman. About my age now, 55 or 57, whatever. He was wise in the ways of moving the mail and getting the job done. I'll never forget one little thing. It was all hand done, there was no machines. Everything was lifted, carried, and walked with. He schooled into me very thoroughly to concentrate your work force on getting the bulk mails worked. 3 The magazines, the parcel post, and the big flats. Nobody wants to do it so get it done first. The letters will take care of themselves, and it worked. Well, I was in that position for just one year and then the vacancy came up for a carrier foreman, and that was the area that I was most experienced in as far as doing the work and what needed to be done. So I was carrier foreman for 8 years without a promotion. I had been told a couple of times that I had been doing such a damn good job that they wouldn't promote me away from it. This may be true because we had a hot shot time and motion team come in. They called it the Ponsip team about 1965. And among their recommendations was to down grade the position I was occupying from a level 8 to a level 7. This made me an excess 8 filling the position. About the same time there was a retirement at the Gorder Station post office and it was the assistant superintendent position there, which was my level. Later I was transferred to it. Then about in 3 to 6 months from that time a tour superintendent position was established. It was a new position. Down by the old terminal annex down by the railroad yard and I got that promotion to that job. It was the first time and the only time in my whole 35, 36 years of service that I had to work nights on a continuing basis. I did work nights for 3 years as tour superintendent. From there I was promoted to assistant superintendent of the mails when that man retired and I served in that capacity for three years. As long as this tape isn't going to be heard by anybody. Doing the job the way I thought I should do, I had to do with the installing of new machines, I was given the chore of making space, providing for the training to teach the clerks to operate the machines, to fit these great big monsters into a very confined space down there that was already overcrowded. Needless to say, we did it. But also I was also assigned the chore of making a pre- implementation cost study. The 4 deeper I got into it, the more I could see that dollar wise the darn things would never pay off. Here we put in six big monsters that in order for them to pay off and be productive and pay for themselves we had to have those cotton picking things operating 21 hours out of 24. In other words, we should have had volume enough to have them work that long. The volume of mail that was machinable was just a little under 8 hours. No way would those things pay off. All of my figures were based on the clerk pay. Subsequent to putting them in, it turned out that the people who worked those machines distributing the city mail were promoted to level 6. So no way would there be a payoff. Anyway, in my instructions of this cost study, I was supposed to have telephonic contact with the cost analysis people in Frisco. When I let them know what my thinking was they said we'll send in your report and we'll look it over and call you back. So within a week they called me back and they agreed with me that those machines would never pay off so they sent up a man from mechanization and engineering and he agreed with me. Then he went down and talked to the District manager and apparently he may have burned him pretty good because I was immediately given a letter of warning for trying to fight implementation of mechanization. One week subsequent to that there were three people who were above me. I was assistant superintendent of the mails. The superintendent of the mails, the assistant postmaster, and the postmaster had all retired which put me in top position at the time. Also there was a change in management structure. From the field structure we went to a step structure and there was three top positions all equal level and the postmaster. A promotion board was held one week subsequent to the time that I had the visit with Frisco and I did not get any of the 5 promotions. Since that time I have been held at the same level I had at that time because of my big fat mouth. TA: I am aware somewhat aware of the situation because I was a letter carrier at the time that all this was going on. One thing that I have an interest in, you joined in '41 as a letter carrier. Was there a union at this time? TS: There was a union, and had been for some time. All government agencies at that time did not recognize unions. We didn't have arbitration, we didn't have grievance rights, we were kind of a fraternal organization really. Social. Social type thing. I think the biggest function that a union did back at that time was to act more or less as a go between those carriers that might have been a little bit shy and scared of authority and so on, and they kind of carried the ball. We didn't get everything we thought we should. As an example, I was a substitute, a carrier substitute employee full time and I was available. I wasn't assigned. I completed certain duties for the day. Another job came up and then the carriers totaled a temporary employee to do the job. It was some simple thing. Well I immediately went to the union president and let it be known that I was available, I was a career person and here the boss was assigning a temp. So I got the job. That's about the extent of what the union would do then. Of course, they had a lot of social activity. We were just coming out of the depression, going into World War II situation and we were working for $0.65 an hour. But, there was more or less a group of people that would get together, and they did get quite frequently to the union meetings and have parties and dances and socialize a lot. That stuff isn't there now. I don't know why that is. Now the union really didn't get overly strong and wasn't truly recognized I don't think by the post office until sometime after I became a supervisor. The time that it really 6 became most strong with the government was when we first were allowed to have a union contract with government management. Back prior to that I know the unions did a lot for the employees. That was the only spokesman that we had at headquarters level to get us the various benefits that we are enjoying now. I said that when I started it was 65c an hour. It didn't matter how long you worked, there was no overtime. There was no Sunday premium pay, there was no holiday pay. It was still our own union officials and the lobbying of them that got into the post office. I think the benefits are government wide now. Looking at it from either side, I think the unions have been good for the employee and since we now have national agreement, the unions have been good for the supervisors. Even though you might say the agreements are craft oriented, it's the demands of the craft mainly that are written into the agreements. But there are also written into the agreement things that management could do. One thing that I think about the agreement that makes it real good from a national standpoint, just because a man is big, loud, tough doesn't make him a supervisor. The craft employees now under the labor agreement have just as big a stick as the management does. If the manager is wrong, they can go back at him and they can back him down. Before maybe they get in a fight and someone ends up with a broken nose and nothing was really settled. But if a manager is wrong, the employee is just as able as he is to correct it. If the employee is wrong under the terms of the agreement, the management has a lot of tools too where he can fight at the employee. I remember back in Washington, D.C. the seminar I attended there was a management man and he conducted a class in the national agreement, and the one thing that sticks with me is when he came in he held up the national agreement it was the first one we had. It was going in effect at the time I was 7 there in '65. He said this national agreement, I want all of you supervisors to understand one thing, there is nothing in that book that prevents you from moving the mail efficiently, and the guy is right. There isn't. It couldn't be written in there. I've just about run out of gas. You're going to have to do a little questioning Tommy. TA: How did the reorganization of the post office, how did this fit in? One thing about it, we are no longer civil service per se, since the reorganization. So how do you feel unionism fits in now? TS: Well, first of all you say we are no longer civil service per se, you're right. When the post office became a quasi-government organization, it was written into the federal law at that time that made the post office a private corporation that the benefits of civil service there would be a floor below which we could not go as a corporation. That floor was the level of benefits then applied to civil service employees. It is true that we aren't civil service, and yet at a meeting today that had to do with the agreement and grievances particularly, we aren't civil service and yet anybody who has military preference still can appeal any kind of a disciplinary decision or action through the civil service commission. So we are and we aren't. I don't know. I don't think it's breaking us too much. The union reorganization of the post office hasn't caused too much to happen in the post office. It's different than when we were strictly a government agency. The only thing that has really happened that is different, I believe is this business of the periodic every few years negotiating between the craft people. The one thing I am a little put out about with the reorganization, we were supposed to receive all kinds of training and supervisors and managers and so on and we were supposed to have modern concepts of management, etc., etc. So immediately they come up with what is prominently known as the Seattle 8 Plan and to be promoted you had to move to a different location. Well now for a good many years in the private sector this was true. In fact I think they have a little funny they say for the IBM Company. IBM did not mean International Business Machines. It meant I've Been Moved. From what I read this business of moving top management from here to there to somewhere else is causing more problems than benefits in that the wife of the persons and the children of the persons are disrupted. Their lives are disrupted they can't put roots down anywhere. They start making friends and boom, all of a sudden they move to a different place. The husband in that situation is fine because he is actively engaged in the proceedings of business that he is paid to do. The wife, she has to make new friends. She's frustrated. The children have to make new friends. They're frustrated. As I read it, it has just caused all kinds of domestic problems and so they have taken a look at that and changed their minds about moving people around so much, particularly if they don't want to go. The postal corporation by mandate from the law is supposed to become self-sufficient, self-sustaining anywhere it is or in its own way. Within 10 years from the date it was passed into law that they would become a corporation. The heck if it is. Here we are, a corporation and we can't control ourselves. We still have to request rate hikes and these have to be reviewed by people who are appointed by congress. There is an awful delay factor in it. I firmly believe that one of the reasons we have such a damned deficit right now is because of the delay in that last rate hike. You and I were discussing this today, they come around so damn frequently that the one that we have where postage went to 13c which was just the first of this year, hell it was in the mill for two years. Now we're talking postage 13c, we're only 9 talking the first class postage. Actually the first class postage is not the one that's causing us the problem and we're still getting a hell of a long ways away from unionism. TA: The point of it is, I think the important thing is unionism is subject also to anything that you want to add along with it is as important as anything. One thing I would like to ask you is you did mention earlier about seniority. This is basically the way that they appointed people and this is something that I think has changed. Now with your experience you've seen both ways. What is your feelings concerning both methods, seniority versus the other, testing and being appointed? TS: Well, my thinking on that is definitely seniority alone cannot be the only factor. This business of seniority you know I say I've had 35 years of experience in the post office. Seventeen years as a carrier. Actually as a carrier I had one years of training 17 times really. What else could I do? I feel a little bit differently in the areas being supervisor because every day is different. Every day you have different problems. Now that long period of time that I was carrier foreman it got to be very repetitious, and even though I was carrier foreman for eight years I wouldn't say that I had eight years of training or eight years of experience because some of it or a lot of it was repetitious. Now to really answer your question. Seniority has got to be considered but I think that it should only be considered if and when two people are equally qualified in background knowledge management experience and training. If these things are equal then I think seniority should do the rest. It's hard, well hell, one down there, the new postmaster is a guy 42 years old. It came out in the paper, I think he had 17 or 18 years of experience in the post office. Of course, he had a college sheepskin which was to his benefit, which was good. As it was announced in the newspaper, first of all his experience. I can double it. 10 The various positions he was in, just about any one of them that was named in the paper I can double that. Yet somewhere up the line, and this is a headquarter decision for a postmaster position at this level, which is level 24 here in Ogden. Somewhere along the line, they just decided that nobody in Ogden was eligible or qualified for the job. In fact the district manager in Salt Lake; he read it in the paper and now the top three candidates wouldn't make it. Now here I am 57 years old and I'm at the end of my career. No doubt about that. Whether it's one year, one minute, or 13 years. But it is kind of a slap in the face when they bring a young fellow in like that. TA: I can imagine. I know you have a considerable amount of knowledge of the overall operation of the total post office by D.C. and everything. Eliminating it to Ogden, the Ogden area since this is your home town and everything, how has the unionism improved the situation in Ogden itself? Or has it? If so, would a worker from what you can see in the member as well as the supervisor? TS: Well, I think it’s forced management to be a little bit more fair. Let's just take the area of overtime. Before the union was as strong as it is now, and I think this is a normal reaction if a supervisor needed some work done and it was going to require some overtime to get it done. He would take the fastest, the best, the best qualified, the one that could get the job done in the least amount of time. Now whether this is an improvement or not, there is two sides to look at it. That would be a savings to the post office because it didn't cost as much to get the job done. But now under the national agreement with the unions, this has to be equalized. Overtime has to be equalized in a given unit or area if the work is similar. If we have a carrier who performs acceptable standards and another carrier who's high strung, hot shot, sharp as can be, Tommy 11 Andros, we can't work the man. We can't work the best horse first. We can't kill the good horse, and not give any of the cream to the one who just isn't up to it. Maybe he just doesn't have the mentality. Maybe he doesn't have the reflexes. There are people who can step up to a letter case, eyeball it a few minutes, get the general location, the general lay out of it, picture in their mind the line of travel, and then boom they look at an address and they can pretty well place that mail in that general location. Where others every cotton picking letter, even if they have been on the route for ten different times, not continuous days but ten different times at broken intervals, it's completely strange to them. It would take them 2 or maybe 3 times as long to get the mail routed. But we still have to equalize the work load, if they desire. In the agreement, I do like that clause that is in there wherein you have to on a quarterly basis, I believe, post an overtime desire at request, and then the employees sign up for it. So there are those, and I'm getting to that age myself, that really don't want to work the extra hours. They don't need it. Their families are gone and they are making pretty good pay. Some of the older people, their homes are completely paid for, and they want to enjoy their own time. So, I think the union has helped in that area. The union has helped, very definitely in Ogden the union has helped in improving our environment that we work in. The annex is a damn good example of that. I'll never forget one winter evening it was about the second year I was there. It was winter. I was cold for about 10 days straight. For most of that time the cold wind was directly from the east. Well, that building down there was a barn. It had steam heat. There was heat in the radiators but the wind would enter from one side of the building and go out the other side of the building and take all the heat with it. Those people down there were working with jersey gloves on their hands 12 and coats on trying to keep warm. We don't have that now. There are of course in this new building some inconveniences, and I think the union may have had a little bit to do with that. I'm sure they did it, they let discomfort be known. In the new building those machines are noisy, so what did they do? They put down various things to cut out the noise. I don't think it necessarily happened in Ogden. Let's get to the big 12 position monsters. The letter sorting machines are noisy as heck. Not only are they noisy but this is a situation where the machine controls the man because on our distribution they set those machines to kick out 60 letters a minute. One every second and the operator, and there are 12 positions there. Each of those operators have to code in this great big bin designation for the letters that go back. The first time I saw those, one of those in operation, people looked like automatons. Their heads would nod just like they were tied to the machine. Now to help avoid fatigue, going insane, whatever, is a crime, and when you have a monotonous job like that, the union negotiated and instead of a 10 minute break which is recognized but not necessarily legally authorized by the government, the people on those machines got a 15 minute break every 2 hours. The crew had to be rotated every 45 minutes. They weren't required to sit at that position more than 45 minutes at a time. The crew is big enough, I think there is 27 people to run that machine. Some feed it, some cull from the back end and stack it in the trays. So they rotate every person. Every person assigned to that machine was an operator. I think the union got that. Then too, to cut down on the noise, and also to help relieve the monotony of it, all the latest models now have headphones and plug them in and listen to all the music instead of hear all of this damn noise. And you can have background music playing in your ear and still do a pretty fair job. Some people can, some people 13 can't. Some people drive them nuts. Of course, it depends on what their likes are or what kind of music they are listening to. TA: Do you think the Ogden Union would have fared as well by the fact that the other letter carriers and other craft unions that are available to join? The way it is now, it's national and what do you feel the impact of having a national union? In other words, we are connected, you know, we are such a small office. Would we have any say in a let's say, a sector union versus a national union, in your opinion? TS: I think this would be like if I owned a fairly good sized small store, a restaurant or a hardware store or something like this, and say I had 10, 15 people working for me. If they weren't affiliated and I think this is what you are referring to, decided to have a union among themselves, where they would negotiate with me as a manager, possibly things would come up that very definitely, I would just come out with a flat no, with unequivocally, "I'm the boss, it's my money invested. If you don't like what I'm going to do, go find yourself a new job somewhere else." But I believe when you are attached to a national union or a bigger than just your own locale, they are stronger. They have got advisors. They can come in, whether this is good or bad, it's hard to say, it depends on the various situations involved. But at least those employees that are working for management, and in the case of private ownership, the employee is the one that makes the money for management. He doesn't do it. He invests his money. But it is those people, those are the tools that he uses to make the money to make profit. And I don't think that in the post office if we just had an Ogden City Union, it would be too effective. First of all, well the biggest reason for that is of course the post office is one of the biggest employers in the world and there are 33,500 post offices in the nation, or at 14 least there was the last time I heard. I know they closed up a lot of small ones, so there is around 33,000. If every one of these had their own individual unions, would there be a oneness? They would be headed in different directions. There wouldn't be any continuity or any uniformity. And yet on the other hand, there is one thing that I have wondered about. Now this really don't have a hell of a lot to do with unions per se, but because of the various numbers of post offices all over the nation in different standard of living areas, might be a way of putting it, how come the city carrier out in a little town like Roy, Utah, where cost of living isn't too high; well maybe this is a bad example because this northern Utah area with the military bases the cost of living is fairly high. Let's go out into Nevada, Ely, Nevada or Elko or something like that, or over in Wyoming where the cost of living is quite low. Why should they receive the same salary as the person in a big urban area like New York City or San Francisco or something like that? I think there should be an area salary system in all government areas. Just because it says, “O.k. you're going to be a level 5.” Well, a level 5 in Evanston, Wyoming, that salary is one hell of a lot of money. Well some carriers in some cities make more money than the mayor or city officials, the elected city officials. And to me it's kind of silly. Another thing that is a little bit silly in the salary structure, but this is a different ball of wax, is the rural carriers. There are many, many cities wherein because rural carriers' salary is based on, oh it's based on everything they do, on the miles they serve, the number of families they serve, the number of letters they get average for a two week span. It is ridiculous, but many, many rural carriers in a lot of rural city areas were making more than their boss, the postmaster, guaranteed to them. In fact, in many of those and of course this was at the time when all these were political appointments, 15 many of those postmasters, when the rural carrier retired, he would resign the postmastership to take over the rural job because it paid better. TA: How do you think the public feels toward the postal service in regards to the benefits and the pay and all that the union has got for their members? TS: Well, I think there is always both sides. A lot of the public think that all government employees are overpaid. Get too much for what they are doing. And then, on the other hand, there are those who know that a man has to make a decent living. We sometimes think or we hear a lot of times, why is a plumber worth 10 bucks an hour or whatever he charges? Well, he has to make a living. If you've got a camper or a nice home or provide good clothes for your kids, want vacations and so on, you can understand. He wants the same thing for his family. The public, some are against, some think we should work for nothing. Others think that maybe some of them think we might be a little underpaid. I don't know. In the carrier area, how many people would be willing, especially the complainers, to go out every single day regardless of what the weather is, so damn hot that you {deleted} your butt when you walk up the street or so cockeyed cold that your fingers are ready to fall off from handling the mail. Before we had mechanization, I know many, many times I wondered whether my fingers would last a day in the cold weather, even though you put gloves on. Your fingers aren't active. You're holding a bundle of letters in one hand and they are just dead still, not pulsating any blood through them. I feel sorry for those who think we are overpaid. I would like to see them try the job. TA: What is your feelings as a manager on the right to work law in Utah? 16 TS: The right to work law in Utah, of course would only affect private sectors because in government service, even now it is not a closed shop, and never has been. So no way as a manager in the post office will the work law affect me because we've had it all along. No problem. If a person was a union member, fine. If he wasn't a union member, just fine too. Now before the national agreement which we agreed to, a non-union member in the post office and possibly other government agencies too, the union would not do anything for them. And in a way taking a look at it from the union side, why should they? Because that particular man didn't contribute anything in the way of dues or help in anyway. They figured they didn't need it. Yet he did enjoy the same benefits because the benefits were for everybody. Since that time though, now how it is in Utah, their right to work law, whether this is or in the private sector, I don't know, but in the post office if a man is not a union member and he has a grievance, the union still has to handle it. Of course, I don't know, I've never seen this happen, but possibly they only do a halfhearted job. Where a union member, a dues paying member, I'm sure they will go all the way for the cost to help him. The right to work law though I think, is good even for the private sector and that is only a personal opinion. Why should a man have to if he can't pay dues, pay money for the privilege of working to earn a living in a job where union people are employed? I don't believe you should have to. I think it should be optional. We've been a free country now for 200 years. We're celebrating a birthday. TA: There you go. TS: And I think each man should have the privilege of deciding what he wants to do himself, not be forced, not be dictated to by anyone. That point can be argued too. We probably are dictated to. As a craft employee, and my actual function with the union, I would say 17 {deleted} I was a union member. Because I did appreciate that the union did a lot for us. I did appreciate that they make it {deleted}. And whatever my union dues were, maybe it was only 50 cents a month, I don't know, but that little bit I'm sure, multiplied 750,000 times, that's how many employees there are, adds up to quite a sum. That portion that went back into input. I think unions are okay. TA: One thing that you hear a considerable amount of unofficial talk, and this is from managers as well as fellow employees, craft employees, and that is what is managements feelings and or your personal feelings, I imagine this has been discussed, A - concerning the veteran and the veteran preference, B - concerning the retiree who is drawing a retirement from the service and then becomes a postal employee? TS: Or any other government employee as far as that's concerned. Well, as far as veteran’s preference, or disabilities VA preference, I think they should have it. After all, when each of us went into the service, whether we went voluntarily or was drafted, we took quite a risk. We went out. We tried to fight, whatever, to help our country keep the standard of living that we got, the freedoms that we got, and there was a sacrifice involved. I am one of them. I was pulled away from home for 2 years at a time when a couple of my children were very, very, very young. It's just 2 years of your life, but you didn't elect to, particularly if you were drafted to this type of situation I think that they should have this preference. Now, as far as retirement is concerned, where a military person, he's in 20 years, in the military, and he ends up with a little retirement, and then he comes into a government agency to work. The only thing I can say there, I think possibly, there is something wrong with our retirement setup if this can be done because it boosts up your 18 retirement considerably, I believe. Otherwise it wouldn't be done. But I will say that had I had the opportunity and knowledge to do the same damn thing, I would have done it too because I think it is a good deal. But I think there is something wrong there. I think there could be something changed wherein the number of years in service--well now wait a minute. I'm not so familiar with what military retirement pay is. Could be, cause our retirement is so good, could be that military retirement pay is terribly low. So for the same numbers of years of service in a government agency as opposed to particularly in the military and then for a little while in the government so that you get your high dues, maybe there is something lacking in the military retirement that induces people to do this. It gives them the edge too. I still don't blame them. I think they're smart cookies. I think you're smart. You're one of these people. Faren Dillinger is one of them. We got two or three of them down there. They were smart enough to do it and well, I think, what's this training that they give you just before your— TA: That is no longer in being. It was transitional. TS: Now, in that training, I'm sure the military was advised of these benefits and why not? This is just like, pardon the expressions, wetbacks that come into this country and immediately go on welfare because they have been advised of it. They know about it. So they go on it. There is a lot of people who will take what they can get for whatever little effort they can do. I'm not applying this necessarily to military people, although there are some of those too, Tom. TA: What is your feelings, and if any discussion has been made in management, concerning the fact that the Hatch Act and things of this nature to where the postal employee should have a more open voice in elections? 19 TS: The Hatch Act as I understand it, I think you can—now when you say a more open voice, you mean to publicly get up and campaign for someone? Well, I don't think that should be that they be restricted from going out and actively working for a political person, if as a result of this they don't use this donated time as a lever to getting political favors in return. It don't work that way, but I think every person has his rights; should be allowed to express himself. Under the Hatch Act, about the only thing you can do is wear a button, 'I like Ike' or something like that. But you can't go out and knock on doors and say, “Hey, I think you should vote for Ike for this reason or that reason." But technically I think it boils down to something maybe not quite that small. I think the Hatch Act stops us too much. There are people in the government service who could go out for electoral offices or part time offices, and why shouldn't they? If they are capable, if they've got the time and can spend the time. If they're interested, they can do a good job. But here we go again. You've got to somehow and I don't know how in blazes it could be done, maybe this is the whole idea of the Hatch Act. You've got to divorce politics from the job you are doing, particularly if you're in government, because you do something for the Democrats or Republicans or Communists, the American Party or whatever, and they happen to be the party in power, then I don't believe for that reason alone you should receive any favors in the job you are doing. And that's the bad part. That's the thing that spoils their victory. TA: But hasn't the post office been accused of being a political ball game from day one, even without the Hatch Act, or before the Hatch Act or whenever it was? How have you seen this? 20 TS: The political ball game that's involved there was prior to the reorganization situation. All postmasters were nothing but political appointments. This was a political plot. He got the job because he was active in the various political parties. All our RFD carriers were political appointments. Since the reorganization - well, let's go back. Under that of course we got some good postmasters, but most of them we got didn't know the cost of a 5 cent stamp. If you tell this to anyone I'll get killed, but we had one for 20 some odd years, Ed Zundel, appointed by the Democrats and while the Democrats were in office, he was under the present rules of resume. He was in office so cockeyed long, he thought he was king and with a democratic congress, they then passed a law that postmasters once being appointed have a lifetime appointment or if it was their option to resign. Prior to that, every time a political party control was changed, a postmaster was changed all over the nation. I still think we do have some of this, although it is not supposed to be done in that who are our top postmasters in Washington now? What the hell does Clausen know or Baylor know who ran a canning company about running a post office? I'm sure they are very, very knowledgeable people in business management. They have to be to have the jobs that they have. They are probably well trained in this. But damn it, there is nothing like running a post office like running a post office. There is no college you can go to teach you post office. We had to develop our own. And this class, well this started when I was in 3rd class of that particular school. It is PSMI now, Post Services Management Institute and they are subcontracted to Norman Oklahoma College. And they now have knowledgeable teachers there to teach us. Then I believe we have picked up a college campus, I'm not sure if it is in Frisco or L.A., but it is TSMYS and these people are people who are knowledgeable of post office 21 teaching post office. And that is the only place you can learn. You can't get it outside, because it's different. There is nothing outside that's the same. Logistics, sure, any transportation officer, railroad transportation officer, trucking line transportation officer, could probably come into the post office and handle that. But when it comes to handling the mail, that's a different ball of wax entirely. TA: Ted, I'll bring this to a conclusion on one big final push and that is I would like to know your opinions of the no strike policy and why you feel we should be able to or not be able to strike? TS: I don't believe that anybody, I think that no strike policy should be everywhere. I think there has got to be a better way of, I don't like to use forcing, of agreeing to a solution to whatever problem there is, particularly in the post office or any other type service. Post office, because it is a service. There are people, old people, who depend on the mail. This is the only place where they have any touch with the outside world. This is where they get their retirement checks. In many, many areas this is the only place they get the new from the outside world in that the magazines and newspapers go through the mail. Business people are so tied up with the mail. Most of their - all of their billing is done by mail now. Your credit companies, your credit cards. Without the mail now, because of a strike or something that stops it for a while, everything would stop. All business would stop. No communication. Okay, you could use telephones but then the cost really goes unprofitably. They talk about the high cost of mail, 13 cents as opposed to a telephone call. That is pretty damn reasonable. I really think that not necessarily does it have to be a law, no strike, in government if this is the case. You don't strike against government, so it says. I just think that there should be a better way and can be and has got to be 22 found a better way of arbitrating particular differences or coming to an agreement to whatever is requested or demanded, whichever way you want to put it, by the union as far as benefits and things are concerned. Sometimes, and of course I believe, I firmly believe this, that whenever there are negotiations for a new contract, both sides, and this is in my opinion, is kind of silly and yet I guess it is a way of life, both sides demand more than they ever anticipate getting. And they start trading horses, trading off; I'll concede this if you concede to that. I don't know why in the devil people, I guess we never will have it, but I don't know why people can't just honestly get together and come out with what they actually want and what they figure is fair and decide on it, but unions will go out and say, "O.k., we want a 12 per cent increase and they end up settling for 6." Well that is all they intended to get in the first place. Why in the hell didn't they start out that way? TA: What was the effect on Ogden when postal strike in '71? TS: Well, the postal strike in '71 didn't affect Ogden at all. It affected New York City, but I do have a firsthand accounting of that. It happened shortly before I went back to Washington, D.C. and the mother hen of our class; by mother hen I mean he was a postal employee who had attended the class at a previous session and then was held over for two or three subsequent classes to shepherd those classes to the various training1 programs. His name was Sullivan. I have forgotten his first name right now, but he was a station superintendent in New York City at the time of the strike. I think he had the Church Street Station, which is a large apartment complex area. And those apartments back there, the carriers do not deliver to the individual boxes or individual drawers. All of the mail, all of the milk, all of the bread deliveries, everything is delivered 23 to a central location, even the newspapers. The building manager provides service from that point to the apartment doors. This is getting a little ways away from it. During the strike, Mr. Sullivan set up a whole flock of slow delivery cases alphabetically. It was carriers who were on strike, so he had a clip crew. Threw the whole general delivery situation with the exception of these various apartments. They were bulked into what we call direct. He informed each of the apartment building managers to recall it. They would have to come to the post office because the carriers wouldn't deliver. And so they did. Now, he tried to handle all the mail, and with the bulk mail, the flat mail, this got prohibitive as heck so then he went first class only and newspapers and weeklies. This got too bulky. So he did away with all newspapers and it was first class only. So everybody could get their first class mail, their checks and so on. He said he had people screaming at him day in and day out. They wanted their Wall Street Journals and they wanted their T.V. Guides and all this stuff. Sure they wanted it, but damn it, it couldn't be done. But he did get all of their checks to them and all of the important mail and first class mail, so that businesses could be conducted. The strike ended in New York, as I recall him telling me, I think it was late Saturday night. And he immediately got wind of it. He got his subordinate supervisors all busy on the phone and they pulled in the full crew - oh, now all of this mail that was not delivered was stacked; second class mail and third class, some came in although there was an embargo on it. Of course you can't shut it all off, was stacked up in the basement. So, come this Sunday, real early or late Saturday night, he got the whole flock of crew of carriers in. And Sunday, of course, is non-delivery day, so they paid overtime or holiday pay or whatever, and he got it all out, if you can imagine. He got the whole damn thing. But he said he worked those guys’ 24 butts off. He got it all out. Come Monday, the main office downtown phoned him and said, "Hey, the strikes over. You better call in your whole crew and get your mail delivered." "Hell," he said, "I've already got it done. I called them in yesterday." But it was only New York that went out on strike. The only thing that hurt us is we did put out an embargo on outgoing mail to New York City. TA: I really appreciate all the time and effort that you've spent and again I did say I was going to conclude this, but one thing I have noticed, well say a military retiree who has joined the postal service and it seemed to be quite a bit of nepotism. It seems like if it is not like brother and sister or father and son, it is cousin and uncle and it seems to be quite a family knit situation in the postal service in Ogden. I am very limited on my experience and I was wondering what your experiences are in this area? TS: Well, there has been some nepotism here, yes. But I don't believe, well first of all, nepotism in a post office is just about an impossible thing as far as getting employment is concerned because first of all, every person who is employed has to take the same intelligence tests and has to achieve a score that puts them in the reach of being hired. Now under civil service regulations, there is a definite criteria, how to hire and who to hire. Under the last time that I was really involved in it, and I don't suppose it has changed a whole hell of a lot since then, you could take anyone of the top three to fill a position. Supposing you took number 3. You passed over number 1 and number 2, and took number 3 and you still had additional positions that you had to fill. Then you could take any one of the top 3. You pass over number 1 and number 2 and take number 3 again. Now you've passed number 1 and 2 twice. The next two positions that come up, you better hire those people or else you have to make one heck of a good justification to 25 the civil service commissioner as to why you passed them up. Now this is under civil service regulations. We are no longer under civil service regulation as far as that is concerned. But we still have that same regulation. Now as far as nepotism is concerned in Ogden, Jack Hazen, his father was a former post office employee. Jack Hazen became a supervisor; worked up through the ranks. He worked as a clerk for a long time before he got his first promotion. In fact, I beat him to it, being promoted to a supervisor. While his dad was on the job, Jack didn't advance any faster than any of the rest of us. One other person that I know who had a former parent in there is Dick Fleming. His dad was a mail carrier for years. Dick Fleming is only a mail carrier. Dick Fleming had to compete and come in the same as anybody else. Maybe he had military preference, I don't know. Possibly he did. But when it comes to nepotism as far as advancement is concerned, there isn't anybody. Now Jack Hazen is the only one who became a supervisor who had a relative who was a supervisor. Now it happens I do have a nephew down there. Dale Tinis. He came in originally by taking the test. I was only a carrier at the time. So I had no control over getting him in on that. Sure I suggested to him that he take the test and so on and he got the job. Later he resigned. Then I was promoted during the period he was off. He was out for 7 years. I don't remember how long, and wanted to get back in. He applied several places. I mean he applied to several of his supervisors that were above me; postmaster, the superintendent of the mail, personnel officer, and so on, and he came to me and asked me if I could help him in any way. I thought the kid was a pretty good worker and I did put in my two bits worth for him but I definitely told him he was my nephew. Now, what 26 other nepotism there is there, I am not aware of unless you are aware of something I am not. TA: No, I just wanted your feelings on it and at the beginning of the interview, I failed to identify the time and date. The beginning time was 1945 hours. The date was 13 July, 1976. My name is Tommy Andros. I am the interviewer. I am an employee of the post office and I have been working under Mr. Stamos off and on for the last 3 years. But with that, this does conclude the interview and I would like to thank you for your time and all the information that you have given us. TS: Tommy, I don't like the expression working under. I would rather appear under the direction of. 27