Slashdot Mirror

The article you linked to described privately hired aircraft, not government aircraft being used to kill US citizens. Of course it being Wikipedia it may not be a definitive description.

This site, presumably pro-union describes it that way as well.

http://www.apwu.org/laborhistory/10-4_blairmountain/10-4_blairmountain.htm

Regardless of what is being said I don't see a problem with the President authorizing use of force to kill a US citizen if the citizen is actively resisting law enforcement with his own weaponry. Drones or whatever the means doesn't signify much to me.

The problem is the idea of an Afghanistan style take out. That is too much like a summary execution without due process.

To me that would be grounds for impeachment and possible other legal action.

Ugh, I even previewed to make sure I didn't mess up the hyperlinks. The link to the pay scale info is http://www.apwu.org/dept/ind-rel/irpayinfo.htm. My apologies.

Yes, that problem is the APWU. Explain to me why a postal worker with less than three years of service can accrue 208 hours between sick leave and annual leave? In fact, who the hell gets 13 days of sick leave to begin with? 15 years of service, gets 312 hours, that's 39 days or 15% of annual full time hours (2080). I wish I only had to work 85% of my scheduled time, was allowed to act like a complete asshat to everyone that walked in the door, and really didn't have to perform or excel at my job in any real way. Just stick around and rack up the years. It's an odd thing, most of the actual delivery people I've ever had or met were pleasant, and they certainly have a tough ass job. However, every time I've ever stepped foot into an actual post office, presence has always been met with an attitude, as if I'm ruining their day that they have to do anything what so ever other than collect their sick pay and a rather decent paycheck every two weeks. Don't get me started on retirement. I just went through their ballpark estimator, and using my current salary information (which is probably less than average at the PO), I can expect to replace over 97% of my final wages.

There are so many things that Fedex isn't required to do that the USPS is that it doesn't seem useful to look at just labor costs as a percentage of operating expenses. Fedex isn't required by law to deliver packages six days a week. Fedex isn't required by law to maintain an office in every dippy little town in the US. Fedex isn't required by law to investigate cases of mail fraud, they leave that the the USPS. Fedex doesn't hold packages and mail when people are away from their residences. Fedex isn't required by law to fully fund 30 years of pensions and medical expense for retirees in a ten year time span as the USPS is. The USPS actually makes a profit on its operations. There are estimates that the USPS has been overcharged $75 billion in contributions to the Civil Service Retirement System pension fund. In 2006 congress put a forward funding mandate on the USPS. That payment is due this year, to the tune of $5.5B -- 5,500,000,000.00. Guess how big the shortfall is expected to be in this "crisis". The real problem with the USPS is that it gets micromanaged by congress. How long do you think Fedex and UPS would be profitable if they were subject to the same level of highly politicized oversight as the USPS?

Fedex labor cost is 32%, USPS is 80%.

There are so many things that Fedex isn't required to do that the USPS is that it doesn't seem useful to look at just labor costs as a percentage of operating expenses. Fedex isn't required by law to deliver packages six days a week. Fedex isn't required by law to maintain an office in every dippy little town in the US. Fedex isn't required by law to investigate cases of mail fraud, they leave that the the USPS. Fedex doesn't hold packages and mail when people are away from their residences. Fedex isn't required by law to fully fund 30 years of pensions and medical expense for retirees in a ten year time span as the USPS is. The USPS actually makes a profit on its operations. There are estimates that the USPS has been overcharged $75 billion in contributions to the Civil Service Retirement System pension fund. If it weren't for a 2006 law requiring it to over fund it's retiree pension and medical expenses it likely wouldn't be in the financial mess it's in.

The contract between USPS and the APWU doesn't say they can "never decrease their workforce" at all.

You may be thinking of the part of the contract which says that employees hired before September 15, 1978 have "lifetime protection against layoff" (Article 6(1)), and that employees who have more than six years service have a more limited set of protections against layoff (Article 6(2)). Everyone else gets sixty days notice (Article 6(B) and 6(C)).

The Joint Contract Interpretation Manual is here, and took me a whole five seconds to find via google.

How about April 1, 2005 in Des Moines, Iowa? Not sure if having it on April Fool's Day in significant :)