Postal Union Official Target of Recall Effort

A group of postal workers has begun a drive to oust the president of an Orange County postal workers union, organizers said Saturday.

Barbara Ribar, editor of the local union’s Coastal Line newsletter, said the target of the recall drive is Bobby Donelson, president of the Southwest Coastal Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union.

In order to force a recall election, Ribar said, she needs signatures from at least 10% of the union members at five different offices.

She said she hoped to have the necessary number of signatures collected within a few weeks. Total union membership is 2,200.

Locked Out of Office

Ribar has claimed that Donelson locked her out of her editor’s office and has refused to allow her to publish the newsletter, thereby censoring a voice of dissent within the union.

The dispute between the two union leaders followed Ribar’s charges of several months ago that Donelson misused union dues and assets to promote his own candidacy for president during the elections last April.

Meanwhile, Donelson, who has called the whole matter “an internal thing,” is challenging a U.S. Department of Labor lawsuit seeking to nullify the April 2 election on the grounds that union dues were used to promote incumbent candidates.

Ribar said it would cost the union “at least $50,000, maybe more like $100,000” to fight the suit.

She said Donelson should simply agree to new elections.