THE
i chigan Daily


I


Vol. LXXXIV, No. 30-S

Ann Arbor, Michigan-Wednesday, June 19, 1974

Ten Cents

Twelve Pages

Postal couriers threaten walkout


By CHERYL PILATE
The threat of a nationwide postal strike
is becoming more and more imminent
as disgruntled letter carriers protest a
new forwarding process which they
claim "dehumanizes" their job and de-
lays mail delivery.
The "centralized mark-up" system,
the primary cause of the discontent, will
reduce the number of letter carriers,
lengthen their routes, and cut the num-
ber of postal vehicles.

sources.
"People are talking strike more and
more every day," claims one local let-
ter carrier. "I'm not sure when it's go-
ing to happen, but I think it will happen
sometime soon."
Although labor leaders have termed
the walkout rumors "much more than an
idle threat," most of the talk has been
"underground" because it is presently
illegal for federal civil service em-
ployes to strike.

fect locally June 15, was instituted to
"clean up and speed up the forwarding
process."
Many local letter carriers, however,
claim that centralized mark-up will
cause delivery delays of up to two weeks
because of the limited number of cler
ical employes re-routing the mails and
their inexperience with letter processing.
"Centralized mark-up will end up like
all the other attempts at mechanization
of the mails," says a local letter carrier
and union member. "Things will slow up
and there will be a tremendous backlog
of letters."

UNDER THE new system, clerical
workers rather than carriers are re-
sponsible for re-addressing the mail. Let-
ter carriers contend that this usurps one
of their most important tasks and elimi-
nates a major source of pride in their
jobs.
"We know the people on our route
better than their next door neighbors
do," says one city mailman. "It should
be our job to forward their letters and
make sure they get their mail on time."
The centralized mark-up process is
also intended to streamline forwarding
operations by eliminating addressing
See POSTAL, Page 10

A MASSIVE walkout by letter carriers ACCORDING to Ann Arbor Postmas-
from New York to California has been ter Richard Schneeberger, the new let-
predicted by several postal union ter-sorting method, which went into ef-

Israeli planes raid Lebanon
as Nixon leaves Middle East

By The Associated Press
Israeli planes bombed and
strafed suspected A r a b terrorist
centers in Lebanon yesterday, min-
utes before President N i x o n left
Jordan at the end of his Middle
East tour, the Israeli command re-
ported.
The air raids came as Nixon was
declaring in Amman that "enor-
mously difficult" problems remain
in the way of a Middle East peace.
THE BOMBING evidently was a de-
layed retaliation for the Palestinian
guerrilla attack last Thursday on the
Shamir kibbutz near the Golan Heights,
in which three women were killed and
three men wounded. The f o u r Arab
raiders also were killed.
Lebanese sources reported a second
Israeli bombing raid last night against
villages in southern Lebanon and the
Arkoub area in the southeastern corner
of the country bordering S y r i a and
Israel.
The sources said the Israelis were
bombing and rocketing the outskirts of
Hasbaya, Richaya El Wadi and Kfeir
villages.
THERE WAS no immediate confirma-
tion of the second raid from Israel.
Egypt's foreign minister, Ismail Fah-
my, said yesterday that continued Is-
raeli attacks on Lebanon are "under-
mining" chances of peace in the Middle
East, Egypt's official Middle East News
Agency reported.
He said Egypt will not stand by while
the attacks continue, and called on the
United Nations to take immediate action
to stop "this brutal aggression."
INITIAL REPORTS from Beirut said
two Palestinians were wounded in the
half-hour air raid yesterday. They gave
no estimate of damage.
The Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, which claimed credit for
Thursday's attack, had called it "our
reaction to the Nixon visit to the Arab
world."
In Beirut, Popular Front spokesman
Abdul Abbas said: "That is how every
Arab should receive Nixon, the chief
imperialist in the world."
MEANWHILE, President Nixon was
stopping overnight in the Portuguese
Azores Islands for talks- with Portugal's
See ISRAEL, Page 10

STRIKING WORKERS at the Argus Optics plant on State Road demonstrate during yesterday afternoon's shift change.
More than 100 of the company's 140 employes are striking to demand that they be allowed to unionize.
p Strikin A ueployes
pi cket, demand unionization


By STEPHEN HERSH
About 25 striking employes of the
Argus Optics plant on State Road shout-
ed and waved signs yesterday in a
demonstration urging other workers not
to cross their picket lines.
The six-day-old strike is aimed at
forcing the company to recognize the
United Auto Workers (UAW) as a bar-
gaining agent for its employes. The.
Argus plant specializes in lens grinding,
polishing and blocking.

cent of the workers who would become
UAW members if the union were recog-
nized by the company, have joined the
strike, according to strikers. The factory
has a total of approximately 140 em-
playes.
The dispute centers around the legiti-
macy of an April 1973 election in which
workers voted to accept UAW repre-
sentation. Maurice Day, president of the
Argus company, of which the plant is
a branch, claimed yesterday that "mis-
statements were made during the pre-
election campaign" which rendered the

balloting invalid.
The company has brought its com-
plaint concerning the election before the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The board ruled against the company.
A Court of Appeals ruling on the matter
is now pending.
"THE UNION is impatient," remarked
Day. "We're willing to wait for the
appeal to come through."
But one striker argued, "The NLRB
supervised the vote. It was fair. They're
just stalling.
See ARGUS, Page 10

SOM

E 110 EMPLOYES, about 90 per