Nixon, Blount & Shultz on Postal Service and Labor Negotiations

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Enjoy your picture.

Come on now.

problems to me, too.

Joey, our economic vitality, he knows that.

Well, right now, you've got to, you've got to.

You've got to.

Follow her to the area now.

Wait in the coachee.

The principal trust that we have as far as these negotiations are concerned is to get back for the postal management, the right to manage, which has been given away in the last six or eight years by the previous people.

And to get it back is going to cost money.

as far as a wage increase is concerned, is something more than the rest of the government might be prepared to pay.

And the only reason we would do that is because we get in return the right to manage, which we think would enable us to bring about productivity improvements that would have something to do with reducing the cost impact.

Just let me use a quick example.

About six or eight years ago,

That's a short hour, though, dude.

What kind of numbers are you talking about there in terms of the weight increase?

We have a somewhat better position than last year because of the legislation that you proposed and that did get passed.

It covers the classified civil service.

It sets a procedure whereby a study is made of comparability.

And then on the basis of that study, you state what the results of that are.

their implications for the wage change, and unless Congress vetoes it within a period of time, I believe in 60 days, it goes into effect automatically, and thereby Congress is kind of taken out of it.

Last year we had the pay bills in Congress simultaneously, and the unions were playing both these things together.

This year the procedure is, in a sense, locked in.

That doesn't mean that people couldn't

Right, that's what I'm talking about in our negotiations.

If, for instance, we end up with, say, a 10% wage increase, and your studies indicate only a 6% increase for the other government employees, that would be the natural pressures to match that 10%.

But, of course, the reason we have gone for the 10%, if that's what it happened to be, well, it's because we've got something in return.

That's a good point, but I really thought there ought to be, you ought to be aware of it, because we're dealing with big dollars and no negotiations.

How long arbitration would take, we don't know.

when I'm talking about asking the government, I want you to be aware that I actually listened to the postal service doing this and, nevertheless, it had its impact on the other government employees.

And another matter that, unless you want to discuss that in more detail.

Is there anything that, there's nothing really to do to say at this point except to urge you to do your best

As I'm sure you will, but keep it in balance.

Well, those that say we are too tough, and regardless, we're not going to try to give anything away.

I'm sure I know that.

We do think that if we ever get in a position to make a deal with them, that we are going to have to pay something.

That's something more than we would ordinarily pay under the comparability act.

Well, I wanted you to know what was going on.

I think this ability to manage is a very important ingredient, and it sort of has its parallel in something that we hope we can get the Productivity Commission thinking about, and that's what's known as productivity bargaining in the private sector, which is sort of similar.

Here is some practice that's very costly and unnecessary as far as management is concerned.

And we'll pay a penny an hour in order to get rid of the practice, that sort of business.

It has its pluses and minuses as a procedure, but it works reasonably well in some cases.

The minus to it, I might say, that is that if you do it very often, it gives people the idea that a bad practice is a very good thing because you can sell it.

And it creates a psychology.

That's, uh, it's just part of me, you know, you didn't learn that a long time ago.

So other people need to be, wake up to be, uh, realize that it's a full point.

Uh, but then we'll move on to another part of the group.

Now, we have, we have been, uh, looking very hard at what kind of organizations we ought to have over the

The level of confidence is very, very low.

The local post offices and the headquarters of the post office have been part Korea people and part blue.

The reasons it says I ever have been blue.

We'll do the best we can to solve that problem.

But you'll hear about it.

And we need to follow an effective way to go about organizing the course of it.

I won't go into the details of it.

I really just wanted to

If you have any comments about it, this is going to involve a reduction in force.

by Russell Wong yesterday about the way we are

We have a problem with all of that.

Sure.

As we've done with other cases, this is something the post office is doing.

And the White House has enough to do it.

I don't see you.

Well, we've lost some and we're going to lose some more and we've got

I say, you consider the retired military people.

Now, don't overlook, let me give you an example.

I don't know if you can get it.

Take Chapman.

Who?

Chapman.

Everybody agrees that if Chapman had not been a Marine, he'd probably be determined to teach.

No reflection more.

He'd be retiring.

He's 58 years of age, full of moxie, a good organizer, and so forth and so on.

Don't overlook the fact that in that military, you can find at the highest levels of machi-dotos.

Now then, you find a real goer who had a general play.

he was an admiral because he was a hell of a fellow.

McArthur used him, of course, and I mean, McArthur should come along, or Eisenhower.

They were great politicians.

So look at some of those, too, will you?

And you might get good men and less money there.

What people want to do is, you know, supplement their retirement.

I don't think they go up to retirement.

Yes, they do.

And military men?

Yes.

Come on, I think they bought it.

Well, they don't get the answer to that.

I don't know.

Be careful of the dog we're looking for, man.

I don't believe it.

Well, they don't get sent.

Well, better not.

Well, it's the number two man, and I made him move.

I keep moving out of the others, you know, and he would

Tom Moraday, and you can follow him.

Mark, we sent a wire to him.

He's a great guy.

Isn't he?

Oh, a great chairman of the chiefs.

Now, there's a guy when he retires.

Boy, you ought to have him.

He's a gung-ho, honest.

Don't you think so, George?

Yes, he's very attractive.

They're all narrow, though.

They just don't know how to put that organizing ability into productivity.

They're used to doing it in a cross-class way.

And he said, the only thing I really don't want is to see one of the recent Democrats as president.

And he said, y'all might want me to run next year in order to pull off some votes.

And he said, you know, if you've got these problems, you can carry on at some length about this thing, right?

Went on to say that if he wanted to talk to you about it, if you wanted him.

I don't know.

I have been in Washington for two years, non-politically.

I've begun to think a little bit about whether or not, what I might do in 1970.

I understand.

So I would have an interest in it.

What do you think, sir?

I hear a goal.

Oh, sure.

Oh, I have a goal, because I've only said I have positive problems.

I don't know what you would do about Spark.

Right.

This is the incumbent, Senator Brown.

He might be a citizen, I think.

Maybe come from Florida or something like that.

But he probably had to show.

Because if I come to Alabama, they'll all show.

We'll also be there, too.

What do you do?

Well, there's another event.

They want to come to the 200th anniversary or the 100th anniversary of Birmingham, too.

That's another thing.

This is a bad actor involved in the death of a metal honor man.

I think you would dare be a woman in Alabama with George Bonner in front of you.

God, isn't it?

These are a couple of real blues.

Back in Kuwait.

I heard a Portuguese phrase on TV.

Murder on food, robbery on business.

It's great.

I mean, they're going to put it out across the world.

But hang on, we'll talk about the U.N. in a second.

New York, it means nothing to New York.

George Washington had a beautiful speech, and it's only carried in New York.

So why do the country cares?

But God out there, can you imagine how they would carry the U.N. if you were?

Nixon, Blount & Shultz on Postal Service and Labor Negotiations

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on April 27, 1971

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