Joint Area and District Safety and Health Committees
Dear Committee Chair:
The United States Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO, are committed to the premise that every postal employee must have a safe and healthy workplace. Article 14 of our Collective Bargaining Agreement states that it is management’s responsibility to provide safe working conditions and that the Union will cooperate with and assist management to live up to this responsibility.
To this end, the Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) want to remind you of the importance of having functioning District and Area Joint Safety and Health Committees, which includes holding regular committee meetings. However, it is more than just having a meeting. District and Area Management and Union Leaders must be committed to making these meetings productive where safety issues can be freely shared, properly addressed, and safety issues jointly resolved. Management and the Union must be open to listening and working together. The goal is that we jointly cooperate on providing safe working conditions that ensure each employee will go home uninjured and healthy at the end of the day. Workplace injuries and illnesses take large tolls on the injured whether it be physical, mental, or in their familial and personal relationships. The financial costs to both the individual and Postal Service are large as well.
The parties at the national level are committed to helping you make your District and Area Joint Safety and Health Committees as effective as possible. In order to accomplish this, we are requesting that the committee let the parties at headquarters know whether or not your District or Area Joint Safety and Health Committees are functioning and meeting regularly. Additionally, we would like your input on what types of training you believe would be beneficial to both management and union safety officials. Do not limit your suggestions to just postal training. Look beyond that to possible OSHA training, the various safety council trainings, or even training other industries and businesses conduct.
We are requesting that you provide your ideas no later than (30 days of the date of letter). Please send your responses via email to: Linda DeCarlo (linda.decarlo@usps.gov) and Charlie Cash (ccash@apwu.org)].
We look forward to cooperating with you to improve workplace safety and the United States Postal Service, so everyone goes home safe at the end of each workday.
Thank-you,
Linda Decarlo & Vance Zimmerman
For the original PDF version of this announcement, click here.