Strike Off

Postmen stay at work--for now

Just eight hours before a threatened nationwide postal strike was to begin last week, neither side showed any sign of budging. Postmaster General William F. Bolger adamantly refused to go back to the bargaining table. Three postal unions were just as insistent on reopening negotiations after their members had voted to reject a contract calling for a 19.5% pay increase over three years.

Then U.S. Mediation Director Wayne Horvitz came to the rescue with a formula acceptable to both sides. Talks would resume for 15 days under a new mediator, James J. Healy, professor of industrial relations at the Harvard Business School. But this concession to the unions would be balanced by one for the Postal Service: if agreement was not reached within that time, Healy could impose an arbitrated settlement. Explained Horvitz with studied ambiguity: "It will be a form of a negotiated-mediated settlement."

The plan gave everyone a badly needed respite until the new deadline Sept. 16. "Horvitz did a fantastic job," exulted a White House aide. Happiest of all were the two postal union leaders who had strict instructions from their members to call a strike--even though postal strikes are illegal--if the Postal Service did not resume talks. Said J. Joseph Vacca, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers: "I can breathe again for the first time in a week."

Fifteen days may or may not be enough time to resolve the tangled issues. Desperately trying to control inflation, the Carter Administration cannot afford to enlarge the average 6.5%-a-year pay boost; doing so would make it that much harder to restrain subsequent labor demands. Beyond that, the Postal Service, which is running a $700 million annual deficit, is threatened by growing competition from private carriers. If it has to raise the price of stamps, it will lose still more customers. Noted a participant in the talks: "The Postal Service did not need any importuning from the White House to stand firm on the wage package."

Postal workers, on the other hand, argue that the proffered increase lags behind the rate of inflation, which is expected to be about 8% this year. Moreover, they contend that then-productivity has risen 7.2% this year. What this argument ignores is that postal workers already average close to $16,000 a year, which is 50% more than the mean for all U.S. nonfarm workers.

The Postal Service wants to increase productivity further by eliminating more workers. As part of the agreement to resume bargaining, Bolger insisted on reopening discussion of the no-layoff clause in the contract. Facing tough re-election battles this fall, Vacca and Emmet Andrews, president of the American Postal Workers Union, cannot easily agree to weakening the provision. But as one union leader admits, "it's a whole new game."

Much depends on the skill of Mediator Healy, 62, who has been settling labor disputes, especially in the railroad and maritime industries, since 1945. "He is one of the two or three best in the country for this kind of work," says Horvitz. Under the unusual bargaining agreement, Healy has considerable room for maneuver. Both sides will have to be wary of rejecting proposals for fear that the final binding arbitration might be worse.

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