March marks the beginning of tornado season. Each installation should have a plan for your safety. Each installation should review procedures for severe weather conditions. You are encouraged to invite your supervision to review and train those procedures via talks and drills. Ask for instructions on places to shelter. Ask for a description of the alert/alarm. Insist on a roll call once gathered. Insist on specific pre-assigned team members to assist with evacuation (mindful of those with physical impairments, language barriers, or away from their duty station)!

Part 7 – Utilize the tools of Union Bulletin Boards, the Vindicator, APWU Local 232 website, and other media – for APWU members Safety Training and awareness

Let us engage to one another in the name of enrichment, education, and edification so that we as individuals may be uplifted in the knowledge of things of value in our workplace and to our lives.

This element of the plan is simply:

Union Bulletin Boards: Per the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) Article 22, “The Employer shall furnish separate bulletin boards for the exclusive use of the Union.” These bulletin boards should be used in part to provide regular safety messages and educational postings. The objective is to do this in 2 phases. 1) Investigate and assure the existence of these exclusive bulletin boards in each of our installations. And 2), utilize a portion of the allotted space for regularly refreshed messages of safety and similar educational notices of policy and practices within the USPS Safety Program. The APWU recognizes the importance of basic posts and billings for the advancement of its members.

The Vindicator: The official newsletter and a source of official notices for Local 232 is the Vindicator. It is published monthly under the direction of the Executive Board and reviewed by the assigned editor. This publication is delivered to over 1400 members via the USPS and through the APWU232.org website. It provides a printed forum so that messages of relevance from Local officers and additional informational material may be reviewed by you, the member, at your convenience. The Vindicator is an effective means to supply an education regarding safety and the happenings of safety efforts by our union. The objective is to include a safety message monthly in the column entitled “The Safe Zone”. This message should encourage and empower each member in the USPS Safety Program.

APWU Local 232 website (APWU232.org):

Other Media: Also, provided in CBA Article 22, “The Union may place their literature racks in swing rooms, if space is available. Only suitable notices and literature may be posted or placed in literature racks. There shall be no posting or placement of literature in literature racks except upon the authority of officially designated representatives of the Union.”

You are the American Postal Workers Union Local 232. You positively mark the United States Postal Service in the Ohio 2 District by providing safe, skilled, and informed labor, inasmuch that, “We should give our country the strongest assurance that we are ready, at all times …..That we are a respectable body is certain …… Blessed with talents, let us engage to one another, and our country in particular, that we will use them for the honour and advantage of America in general!”   -extracted from the Fort Gower Resolves, 05 November 1774, given on the beautiful Ohio at the current village of Hockingport, Athens County, Ohio

You make us American proud!

Tony George – American Postal Workers Union Local 232 Safety Officer