a discussion about our union, our dues -- and the profligate.

We fight with passion and he inspires. Are you ready for a war? Alright, welcome back to From Eight Arbitration, the midweek edition. It's going to be the Finances edition, okay? Before I get into that, let me tell you where we're going. Brent 70 will be there tomorrow in San Diego, okay? Brent 70 tomorrow, San Diego. On the 12th Sunday, Brent 709, Reno, Nevada. And as always, the Sundays are difficult for people. We cannot thank you enough for coming out everywhere we've been on a Sunday. Whether it's two or two thousand, like James said, we're going to be there. And just cannot thank you enough for those that show up on a Sunday to listen to us. There could be anywhere you wanted to be at your day off and you choose to come out there so we cannot thank you enough. So that'll be Brent 709, Reno, Nevada. That's Sunday the 12th. On the 14th will be in Orlando, Florida. Brent 1091. That's Brent 1091 on the 14th Orlando, Florida. Brent 133, Sacramento, California will be there on the 16th. Alright? So the 16th, Brent 133, Sacramento, California. And so that's kind of where we'll be in the next two weeks. So hopefully we'll see everybody there. Talk to us, ask us questions. We're going to have a great time. And we look forward to seeing everybody. What today's going to be this episode is not going to make you happy. It's one of those. I remember David Gross-Koff and we talked about it a little bit. When he told me about the numbers, the finances, when he told his branch, because his branch sent him to go look at the books. And he told me, so this is a conversation I do not want to have with y'all. And it's just one of those things. When you hear the numbers, when you hear what's happening with us, as far as the NEOC and this current president, the spending, out of control, violations of the Constitution, you're not going to be happy. And that's just the bottom line. I know as rank and file, I was out there today, humping it, sweating my ass off. So many of you around the country doing the same thing, and like blue. We've been abandoned by the service. They've turned the back on us. They treat us like we're second class citizens. And you're fixing to hear about your agent. You're fixing to hear about your agent, the spending. And you will not believe it. The one thing I ask you, and a lot of people were concerned about this, turn your anger into action. Turn your anger into action and vote. Do not under any circumstance. Get out of the union. Do not because you cannot vote if you do. And you've got to vote for change. You've got to vote for change. Fiscal responsibility will be one of the top priorities, getting down to the bare minimum of what we need, and then seeing what we need after that. We have got to stop this spending. It is out of control. And you're fixing to see it. And it's going to make you angry. I'm telling you, I was hot, but I tried to remain civil. But we have David Groskov, Rocky Ocasio, and Camillo Simpson Lewis. All three of them went to Washington, as well as Miss Palm, Denado, and they looked at the books as much as they were allowed to. And you'll see what I'm talking about later. Here it is. Here's the episode, the financial situation of the NELC. And it is what it is. It is what it is. We attempted to get this clown out of there at last convention. And we were, you know, NBA's got involved. They wanted this clown in there. And like they say, you get what you vote for. And so we're reaping the world went on that, the repercussions of that, of the business agent stepping up and trying to save this bastard. But you're fixing to hear it firsthand, okay, what they found. And you are not going to be happy. I love you. I love you, light blue. Okay, look. Everything's going to be all right. I promise you that adults are fixing to take back over this thing and put the city letter carrier first. And we will look back on this as the darkest days of our union under this clown. Okay. I will talk to y'all Monday. We'll be back Monday and cover over some more screenshots. All right. But I love you. I love you. And I think about you every day out there doing this in the heat. I was out there sweating like I said, thinking about y'all. So many people reaching out with different stories have one gentleman said. They got out on his route cracked an egg on a manhole cover did a loop when he came back. The egg was fried. And that's how serious it is out there. We're going to talk about some of those things Monday. Okay, let me get off here and get on with this. But the financial situation at the NLC, I'll talk to y'all Monday. All right. I love you very much. Bye-bye. All right. So I've got three individuals tonight. I've already talked to y'all a little bit about what was going on. I've got David Girl's call. A commuter Lewis and Rocky a Casio. And all three went to Washington at the same time. And look at the books and things that they found were alarming. I'm going to let them tell you. But they were alarming and concerning. And as a city letter carrier, when I found out about it, when I was told about it, I was not happy. And I'm sure that that will come out as they begin talking because every time they talk about it, I get angry about it. Because of the waste, what I feel like is waste. The excess of spending by somebody who you know that I don't care about in our president Brian Rintrow. I think that I've always said it that he was born on third and thinks he had a triple. And I believe that this is a perfect example of somebody who is basically fell into something that he didn't deserve. And the way he's spending our money will probably make everybody pissed off. And so I'm going to let them speak. And then because I'll just keep going on that. But I'll let them. I'll let them speak and tell y'all what they found. I'll probably ask a few questions. Maybe not. I'm going to try to do my best to keep my mouth shut and let them talk. But I'm not happy. Y'all won't be happy. They're not happy. I remember Dave. Dave's going to talk first. I remember Dave when he told me that he had talked to his branch. It was kind of. I don't know how you say it. Dave, it's your kind of like this is a conversation. I don't want to have you. and based on the NALC Headquarters Financial Reports and the LM2 reports, the increase in those expenses was concerning to me. So I had started sending some communication with President Renfro since early July of 2024 regarding the NALC's LM2. My first correspondence was set on July 2nd, 2024 regarding and requesting disbursements and receipts of expenses. On July 16th, 2024, President Renfro responded to this inquiry stating to contact Secretary Treasurer Nicole Ryan to review those records if I so chose. So meaning I got a response back that hey if you want to see this stuff come on down here to Washington and we'll show that to you. The second correspondence was sent July 25th, 2025 where I posed multiple questions about what's contained in the LM2 and information about NALCrest because at that time there's kind of was a hiatus about the spending reports for NALCrest which were published pretty regularly under President Rolando's administration. President Ronfro did respond to me on August 18th, 2025 answering some of my initial questions but not all of them. So I sent a third communication on August 18th, 2020 or I'm sorry August 29th, 2025 asking President Renfro to respond to the questions that he failed to answer in the July 25th correspondence. At that point instead of getting a response back from President Renfro I received a phone call from Executive Vice President Barner stating that he and Secretary Treasurer Nicole Ryan would schedule a call to explain the outstanding questions that President Renfro's communication failed to address. That call took place on October 30th, 2025 and I was raising concerns and asking for financial and administrative information regarding NALC headquarters expenditures, practices with receipts and overall cash flow of the NALC. At that point I worked with Nicole Ryan at the end of December 2025 and Paul Barner to set up several days of a financial review of financial and administrative records and that review took place with Nicole Ryan and Paul Barner occurring on January 20th, 2026 through January 23rd, 2026 in Nicole Ryan's office at NALC headquarters. And going into this thing, again I'm the president of a branch, you know, I obviously oversee the financial information for here in branch three. So I'm familiar with looking at some of this stuff but you know I'm not a secretary treasurer, you know I'm not you know a financial auditor or anything like that. So I didn't want to go down by myself. I wanted to take some folks with me that did have some specialties in that stuff. And those three ladies happen to be Pam Donato at a NALC branch nine in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Camilla Lewis president, branch one 32 Dallas, Texas and Rocky Acasio who is the executive vice president of branch 70. And like I said, I specifically asked the ladies to come with me because I know they have some expertise in you know looking at these types of records. So the we all went you know down there for basically that time frame the 20th through the 23rd. We were there for pretty much eight hours a day if not a little bit more reviewing the records that secretary treasurer Ryan produced for us to take a look at. And that would you know take us into you know the the concerns. For example that the the four of us were seeing you know when we don't when we went down there. So that's kind of the the general background of how this thing rolled out. Alright so you're Rocky you can go ahead and how you got involved what your thing was and then we're gonna start getting into some details. Alright. Okay alright well as Dave mentioned I'm from branch 70 in San Diego, California. Prior to becoming the executive vice president from a branch I was a secretary treasurer so I was in charge of producing all the information that would go in the LM2 report. So because I was familiar with the LM2 report that was one reason why I went but the reason I from brand 70 got involved is because here in region one we did not have a national business agent. Renfrow was taking a long time months and months and months nearly a year it took for him to appoint a national business agent. So in January when I went I was tasked by my branch to find out what is going on at NALC headquarters that we at region one don't have a seat at the table with the executive council and have a national business agent. Also though I personally was looking at just like Dave the financial reports that get posted in the postal records. You know because they are posted every February in August it was concerning to me as a rank and file member to see especially as a secretary treasurer of my branch to see that hella headquarters is basically spending more in you know on whatever they were spending the money on over and above what they were taking in and do. You know I don't know about any of the other branches that all of you represent but in your branch you operate on dues money so you need to be able to make sure that what you take in and do covers the expenses. I know here at brand 70 we don't have other forms of revenue that we use to get money. We rely on the dues membership and we responsibly make sure that we do not spend more than we take in and we make sure we have reserves because the one thing when I went to secretary train secretary treasurer trainings. You know they talked about how you need to have an annual budget. How you need to make sure you have enough money on reserves to take care of any expenditures and how you need to make sure that the dues are at the appropriate rate in order for you to take care of the expenses of your branch. So you know on a personal level as a rank and file member those financial statements were concerning to me but as a member in good standing in region one the fact that we did not have a business agent was very troubling and our members were very upset about that and that's the reason I got sent to Washington DC. All right and then Kim obviously you know what they saying that he wanted some experienced individuals you're a president of a large branch in Dallas and kind of how did you get wrote them to with Dave. Pretty much just like Rocky said with the ex of not having a business agent for region. Chuck Assange was after looking at the financial reports that were just as theirs were I was concerned about why we were spending more money than we were being when we were taking in and as a as an art. Also my was concerned as to what was the purpose behind it I wanted to see firsthand how our monies were being spent and it was alarming when we went there for that visit in January to see the things that we were able to see. One of the things that was really troubling and to just looking on the suspecting to us in the post record was it was a piece of like Rocky and Dave both said that we were spending more money than we were actually taking in and we're taught to do pretty much just the opposite whereas Rocky stated also we are being taught in these classes that we attend yearly to make sure that we have a reserve in the event of an emergency and the way it was looking at the way our monies was being spent as an organization it appears as if we're not going to be in good position in the event that something doesn't care and we're going to need our monies because we all understand and know money's gone money spent is money gone and you can't replace it that way it's just this once it's spent it's gone and that was concerning and alarming to me. Alright so you'll get down there and you're looking at the financials we're spending more than we're taking in as far as do so how do you compensate for that with a union this large this many members we'll get into figures as far as staffers in a second but So how do you compensate? You got to survive somehow. If you're saying, hey, we're bringing in these dues. We're spending more than we're bringing in. Now we stand afloat. - I'll take that one, ladies, if you'd like. - Go for it, Dave. - Okay, generally there are three income sources for the NALC. The one, obviously, that everybody's familiar with is the member dues. Those are the monies from the active and the retired NALC members across the country that are paid directly to headquarters and then they divvy that up for the branches, cuts and things like that. The second revenue source for the NALC and specifically the thing that you're talking about, Corey, what is the thing that we're using to make up the shortfall is what's called our service allowance. And what the service allowance is, that's monies received from OPM for the operation of the NALC health benefit plan. And the third thing that we have that brings in money is the building corporation fund. This is listing of all the NALC own buildings and properties, each of those properties has its own LLC insulating it from the NALC in case whatever they're sued or something goes wrong and something like that. And the other thing that the members should know, the main fiduciaries for the NALC is a firm called Willis Tower in Watson. The main auditors for the NALC are Dave Dorsey and his associates, which Dave is usually one of the folks putting on those trainings for the branches around the country as far as how to run your branch. And then the health benefit plan and the annuity trust fund controller is controlled by an individual whose name is Rick Lafayette. So that's, to your specific question, Corey, how are we making up that deficit because we're spending more money than the dues are bringing in? The major, it's a combination of that service allowance and the building corporation fund, but the majority of that from what I can tell is from the service allowance. And according to the 2026 LM2 here in the last year, NALC headquarters under the Renfro administration has taken out $29.5 million to cover costs associated with operating the NALC. Now, if you look at the 2026 LM2, it shows we are operating with a $2 million surplus. However, it's a simple math. If we didn't take $29.5 million out of the service allowance, we certainly wouldn't have a $2 million to the good budget. We'd be in the whole $27.5 million. So that's how it appears, at least looking at those LM2s, we're making up the shortfall in the dues money, not bringing in enough money to cover expenses. - Well, that's my own bargaining to me. So if we didn't borrow, take out $29 million. Was it $29 million? - $29.5 million. - $29.5 million. - So it was $29.5, yeah, I just said 1/2. Rocky said $29.5, I said $29.5. And here's another number for you, Corey. So I went back and I looked at, as far back as the LM2s would go, on the Department of Labor's website, which is 2017. Under President Rolando in 2017, we took out $0 out of the service allowance, 2018, $0, 2019, $0, 2020, Fred took out $8 million, 2021, Fred took out $5.5 million. So over the period of six years there, that Fred was in from 17 to 21, he took out $13.5 million out of the service allowance. Now Brian Renfrow, when you look at, and going into 2022, because him and Fred kind of split that, point there a little bit. So 2023, Renfrow took out $12.25 million, 2024, 14.45 million, 2025, 19 million, and then last year, 29.5 million. In other words, the Renfrow administration has taken $71.2 million out of the service allowance over four years. Again, Fred was 13.5 over six. Brian is 71.2 over four. Yes, due to math on that. How are we? What is that possible? I mean, are there things that we can point to finger? I said, this is why, I mean, you know, to try to help this man out as much as possible. Now, Fred, you said, spent 13.5, took that out, right? Yes. And what was Brian's total number again? 71.2. Got it. So what are we looking at that we can say, well, most of them went to this. Is there something like that? Most of them went to this or I can account for because I had to do this with it? Well, there's quite a few things. I mean, there's been, you know, an uptick, I'll call it, you know, in the number of people that the Renfro administration number one has hired, whether those are replacement hires or whether those are new hires and whether those, you know, are folks that are on staff or things not considered normal staff. And then, you know, you also have these new folks in these new positions that the president is offering compensation packages for and it's quite staggering what some of these compensation packages are. But let's talk. Let's talk. Let's talk about that for a second. Because you gave me some numbers. And Fred obviously did a very good job of, when you talk about, I do show you things, except like you just talked about in his tenure 13.5. But special assistance he had, I believe you all said, five to six. Is that right? And Renfro is five to six. And now Renfro is somewhere around 2022. Is that right? That's correct. I mean, if you look at, let's look at recent LM2s. If you look at the LM2 report for 2022, 2023, there was 10 assistant to the president and it went up to 19. And then you go to the next LM report from 2023 to 2024. It went from 19 to 20. And then I believe the next one, the 2024, 2025, has gone up to 22. So, you know, it's doubled. And if you look at it starting with when it used to be about five or six, it's doubled. And in some instances, you could say it's crippled, quadrupled. Now, what are we talking about? Who are these people? I don't know names, but just what are the special assistance? What they did? Well, that's interesting because like with some of them, you know, if you look at the LM report, what department within the NALC that they work for, and so you can guess that the work is for that particular department. For others, they're just listed as special assistance to the president. So, you know, that, you know, and they're quite a few that are just for the president. So it's very hard to ascertain exactly what they do because on the LM2, it doesn't say. But the fact remains that there's quite a few new hires within the, you know, headquarters building. And, you know, and that is possibly where a lot of money can be saved because that's not only income, you would also say, you know, if you don't need that many, which, you know, somehow Fred was able to manage. And you look at the fact that the grievance procedure has been bogged down. So all of these people haven't helped to, you know, change the backlog. But, you know, when you look at what they get for benefits and then salaries and anything for travel, and then of course, you know, when they become vested in their in the retirement system, that the NALC offers, that's a lot of money that could be saved, you know, if you use the workforce that you have effectively. Yeah, because my thing is, go ahead. Now, I was just saying, you know, at local branch level, there's no branch office that's going to be able to operate top heavy and maintain. you know, any money within the account, you know, you have to operate within your, you know, budget. So, you know, the fact that, you know, you've got that number, how much money he's had to, you know, get from the service allowance in order to stay in budget, if that's how you want to, what you want to call it. You know, again, any local branch, if they did the same thing and they made themselves so top heavy, where there is no money to get, you know, from another source in order to keep that afloat. So, how long are we going to be able to sustain this, him borrowing this money? Not long at all. A decade, a decade, a best if he keeps up, you know, the current rate. So, a decade, we'll be able to survive, borrowing this money. And just like I raised, hell was about Steiner, you know, somebody come out and say, hey, look, we keep saying that we're broke, we're having a ball money from the government. And we continue to increase the manager of workforce. And I said, hey, start there. Well, basically, we were doing the same thing at the end of the year. Yes, I think that you just say that, Corey, because you're absolutely correct. We doing the same thing that the post services do. We're having to borrow this money to pay our bills. Yeah, I mean, it's not alone, because it is the NLC's money. Right. But it's money that's absolutely right. It's being spent frivolously. Yeah, it's because there when I watched, you know, when I watched them grill in the Steiner, when Rand Paul is like, we're not giving you more, you borrowed all you can borrow. Eventually, we're going to, we're going to get all we can get. Right. You say about a decade. I mean, based on what we're aware of, that's what it looks like. And so he's increased staffers. What it looks like. And some people have even said it's an NALC within an NALC that he's created. He's kind of an NALC within the NALC with with all these different staffers. Fred had around five to six and he's got around 20 to 22. And we're having to get all this extra money. And that's still that's still an astronomical number day when you say 13.5 and up into 70 million. Well, let me give you a let me give you an example, Corey. Okay. How one job has exploded. Okay. And you know, in most of us, you know, they know how the NALC works knows that every NALC president has had a chief of staff. And president, Renfro is no different. President Renfro has a chief of staff. And the issue that you got here is it's at least what it appears to me. The chief of staff doesn't do the chief of staff's job. The chief of staff is doing a lobbyist job, which was her former job for the NALC. And the NALC employees lobbyists, you know, on our staff to do that. So you've got the current chief of staff doing lobbying work that we have lobbyists that we're paying to do. And then because the chief of staff is apparently lobbying, they've created a new position, which is a deputy chief of staff. So now there's two people in the same exact position. And then you throw on top of that. The NALC has hired the former chief of staff. He is a company called East Street Consulting. And the former chief of staff is on our roles to the tune of $20,000 a month. So you've got three kind of people doing the same job that one person was doing for decades and decades. That's funny. That's not funny. But and I'm going to get on that just like in our and this is one of the things that I was raising. And I was about five years ago with the postmaster here in Nashville. The MCSO position is right up one of the postmaster manager customer service right up one of the postmaster called for one position. And they would have two or three doing the same job. And so anytime they're bitching about something, I'm like hang on a second. You all got three people doing one job. And this is what you're saying is you got Brian with the chief of staff who's not doing chief of staff duties. They're doing lobbying duties. And so he's hired two other people to do the chief of staff job because the chief of staff been doing their jobs. Is that right? And when you start talking numbers like for example, you know, in financial year 26, the chief of staff grossed 281,107. He $2 in gross salary. Then you're paying Eastern consulting $20,000 a month. Then you've got the deputy chief of staff who's gross salary is $118,457,000. And so you're paying Eastern consulting $118,457. I mean when you start adding this up, the money alone is substantial. And that doesn't include, you know, your benefit package, you know, your health care, your retirement, you know, any of that stuff. Because we've seen some of these folks on social media that like to add in all these extras to make it look like people make a certain amount of money. And then we're going to talk actual salaries here today. I know what you're talking about. Of course, that also doesn't take into the fact that the expenditures expenditures that are associated with the work that they're doing. Like Dave said, we're not throwing it all in together. But we are still spending monies for the expenses that they're submitting to in L.C. And so let's talk about the chief of staff because you're all those numbers out at me. And this is what's going to piss me off Dave. I'll go ahead and take this is what's going to piss me off. And it's also there's a personal attorney that's been hired. And so outside of Cohen, Wyce and Simon who are our attorneys who are own retainer and so he has gone out and hired a personal attorney who is not a labor attorney. Is that right. That is correct. And just so you're aware that's for a lot of unions. That's a very highly unusual thing to have a lawyer as an employee of, you know, said union or said company. Usually like we do with Cohen, Wyce and Simon, we're contracting that stuff out. But in this case here, we have this personal attorney. And this individual also on the latest LM2 report is the highest paid employee in the NELC. Okay. I'll see. There you go. So we have a personal attorney. And I believe this personal attorney. They're not a labor attorney. They're from Mississippi. Is that right. If I remember correctly or Louisiana. Correct. I believe they're from the South when we were down the me and the three ladies when we were down there in January, we asked Secretary treasurer Ryan and executive vice president barner. What exactly does this personal attorney do and the only thing between the two of them that they could come up with that they were aware of was this individual was the refer the first review on bylaws submitted by branches. Okay. And so they're the highest paid person at the NELC. Correct. Because they're hired by the NELC. They're on the LM2, right. Yep. Which means they're they're going to get into our retirement system as well, right. Correct. Yeah. And so let's just talk about because here's my thing. This is I'll just cut to it. And I want to be simple. Dave. And we talked about this a while back. Now look, all this is coming out now. Because you have repeatedly attempted to get rent throw to talk to you. Yes. Of course, one. Right. Correct. And nothing. Correct. I can get let me give you I'll give you a brief synopsis of January of this year, basically up until May. You know, so on January 27th, I email president, rent, throw an information request relating to the chief of staff. And the personal attorneys bonuses. Because what we discovered when we were down there in January on one of the rep, the financial reports. We recognized and we noticed the, you know, salary category. And next to the salary category was a bonus category. And the recorded that the chief of staff was getting a $1,150 a week bonus. And that personal attorney was getting a $2,766 and 40 sent a week bonus. And that's when I turned into Cole and Paul and basically said, what is this? And they had no idea. Nobody had heard of anybody ever that was employed by the NA LC getting a bonus. Yet I was looking at a report. And it was shown to Nicole and it was shown to Paul. And they, you know, seen the same thing I seen. And nobody knew why those folks were getting bonuses. Number one. And the concern, anything about that is the executive vice president, Paul Barner, is, you know, basically the head of all that stuff. And he's got no idea that this is happening. Nobody could explain to us why these two positions were being paid bonuses. And for example, we didn't see any other positions that received bonuses just the staff and just the personal attorney. Now the chief of staff is getting how much a week bonus? $1,150. And the personal attorney was getting what? $2,766 and 40 cents. Okay. On top of their salary and benefit package. Yeah. On top of their weekly salary. So this is weekly. And I want to point out besides the fact what David mentioned about Nicole and Paul being both surprised by this. You know, are any LC constitution under Article 9? You know, executive council requires the executive council to approve and or ratify, you know, salaries, wages, all of that. So if in fact the constitution was followed, that should not have been of any surprise to either of those two. So, you know, Brian Renfrow has not adhered to our national constitution. Well, that's not the first time. Correct. Let me get that. But that adds to the fact is to why there's so much money that's outgoing because he's doing things that he's not getting approval from the executive council for. And Cory, when we when we tried to get copies of the minutes from those executive council meetings, they denied us that. That's what I was fixing again to. They go ahead. I know. Yeah, let me keep going because I'm going to get right Rocky makes an excellent point in this communication between myself and president Renfrow from January until May will back that up. So I also asked for copies of offer letters for any new hires copies of executive council meeting meeting minutes specifically correlating to new hires and or payroll compensation and explanation of the chief of staff's travel. That was on 127 26 on 210 26. I email president Renfrow asking him to respond to my 127 26 communication among other things and the national president failed to respond on 224. I then had no choice because the national president was refusing to communicate with me. I had no choice at that point to keep this conversation between myself and the national president. I then email the entire executive council asking them to get answers to my 127 26 communication between myself and president Renfrow and I sent all 27 members. There's normally 28 but like Rocky said region one didn't have an MBA. That's why I sent 27 certified letters with the same emailing closed. Multiple members did ask for my questioning to be put on the executive council agenda the national president did put it on the next agenda and what I was told they he spent very little time addressing any of it and moved on. So on 3 10 I again emailed the executive council notifying them that I had not received a response from my 127 26 communication and by this time those certified letters you know the USPS tracking confirm were coming back. So when I started plugging all those in region 8 refused my certified letter and region 4 refused to pick it up when they were notified again was that region 8 refused the letter. And region 4 refused to pick it up when they were notified which I find extremely bizarre when somebody's trying to send communication to you about the finances of the national union to business agents couldn't be bothered you know to open that letter. And again on 3 10 I asked the executive council to get a response from him. President Renfrow does respond on 3 10 and he states that he will not supply any human resources or employment information other than quote what the law requires him to he will not provide any payroll documents he will not provide any job offers he will not provide any executive council meeting minutes he states he would be happy to answer any of my questions relating to the things he is denying and he states that the chief of staffs travel to turkey in Greece were due to political trips with members of Congress. And I've said this before about the NALC it runs around how it's the most transparent democratic union in the nation. And here you have the president of branch 3 asking very specific questions I'm not throwing an information information request out there trying to drag a net and look at all this stuff I asked for very specific things when it came to payroll records when it came to meeting minutes because what I wanted to do is exactly what Rocky said. Rocky read exactly what that constitution says the president has the right to hire the president has the right to set payroll and compensation packages but when he does that the executive council has to approve that now one would think if that's what the constitution says that would be in your meeting minutes so you could prove that he's clearly told me I'm not getting those meeting minutes and he's clearly using our own lawyers saying well I'm not providing a member in good standing in the NALC aka myself any of this information you know and that you know obviously doesn't sit well with me so then I'm 3 23 I email president Renfro asking if the executive council I cut rate to the chase like you said Gary on 3 23 I email Renfro and ask him if the executive council approved the weekly bonuses of the chief of staff and the personal attorney and if so the please provide me with a date of the meeting why did I do that because on 3 10 he said he'd be happy to answer my questions right on 5 21 again I email the executive council asking if they can get answers to my 3 23 26 and my 127 26 communication and that's when the airwaves go dead since May 21st I have not heard a dang thing about anything I've been denied copies of everything and there's no evidence that the national president followed the constitution when he offered those paying compensation packages to those individuals and then what we did just so you know because people might be like well wait a minute Dave that was 5 21 today's whatever it is 7 8 how come you know you're waiting till 7 8 to say something because I was waiting for the 20 26 LM 2 to be released which was released on 6 29 to double check to see if in fact those bonuses and things were corresponding to the chief of staff and that personal attorneys you know records in that LM 2 which they do and that's why now we're you know we're saying something at this point that's the national president and the majority of the executive council clearly aren't going to answer these questions so unfortunately now it's time that I got to tell a story like I said and like you so eloquently put that I didn't want to have to tell my membership. I remember you're telling me that I remember telling you saying that you went to your members and you're like this is not a meeting that I want to have with you. Call it corruption whatever you want to call it to me if you hide and stuff like that as a do's paying member in good standing I should have access to those minutes. We talk about transparency all the time right? Yeah you work for me I don't work for you you work for me. But you know, Cory, one other thing. Nicole Ryan told the four of us, we were the first people in the history of the NALC to have her come to NALC headquarters to review records. Really? The first ones. I'll say this. I jump on Barnard all the time. But from what I understood he was very helpful. And so is Nicole, right? They were both very helpful. I mean, Nicole knows her stuff backwards and forwards. When we were asking for what we were asking for, she knew exactly where to go and what to get. And you know, for a lot of you that don't know, you know, Paul Barnard's obviously the executive vice president of the union. But Paul runs, you know, the ship behind the scenes with all this stuff to do with the money, with investments, the properties, you know, all these things. If you want to know, you know, what's going on, you know, financially with money, where we're at with properties, what's going on, you know, like they were working when we were there. They were working on remodeling, you know, president run for his office. He took us up there. He showed us how that project was going. He explained that entire thing to us, you know, Paul knows, you know, the ins and outs and the nooks and crannies of all this stuff. And that's why I found it very odd that, you know, he was in shock when he saw these bonuses being handed out because even he wasn't aware of that. It's that possible though. If my job, I got two people whose job is to see these monies. And to not know, there's something wrong here. There's a leak in the boat. And we got we got money going out. And I know for a fact, I've been in these executive council means none of this has been approved. How is that possible for him to just sneak that under everybody's nose like that? Well, I mean, I got my, you know, I got my ideas. Obviously, I can't prove them. But, you know, for I give you a quick example. And again, what I'm about to say, I don't know if it's true. But for example, you know, Paul Barnard's over human resources. He should know everything going on there. But for example, if the national president goes to the actual head of human resources and says, don't tell the executive vice president this, guess what happens? And that's Ken Riker, right? Correct. Yeah. Correct. And so that's not being told to the executive vice president like it should. And that's why we saw the, the look of surprise on EVP burners face. So if I get it as a steward, I get an information request, the management, I want these specific things because I'm going to prove what you're doing. I want the minutes. Correct. Because I want to show in these executive council meetings when it was brought up about these people, these extra hires and, and their wages. I can prove that on what executive and y'all are denied that, denied other things. I got this pen in the mail the other day. And, and I wore it proudly around my route. It says, let it tears work harder, deserve higher pay. Did anybody else get that pen? We got it. I look at this pen. I'm looking at it right here. So let it tears work harder, deserve higher pay. And I've got a chief of staff who's getting a $1,150 bonus a week. And I've got a personal attorney who is not a labor attorney. The highest paid individual employee at the NELC making $2,766 a week in a bonus, right? Yep. We've got a TA. And this is what has pissed me off, Dave, for the longest time. Where during the TA and all y'all know, all y'all are against it. We're begging. We're begging for more money. As a city-letter care craft, we are begging. And I've said on my podcast a million times that they were throwing us scraps. We don't want to be eating scraps. We don't want to be in the soup line. We want to be eating steak because we are the essential worker. We are the ones out there doing the actual work. We're the only ones fucking working. Is the city-letter care like blue. I've always said the postal service is abandon us. The way they treat us, you know, they say that we're not worth fast food workers wages. And so the only people we have to turn to is my agent who turned their back on us and said, no, y'all will continue to eat scraps because it's the best we can do. And then I hear the president who shoved that TA down our throats after we voted it down because we didn't have enough. I hear that he is hiring personal attorneys, friends, college roommates, as whatever, making a hundred and some thousand dollars a year. And a chief of staff who's not doing the damn job, making one thousand one hundred fifty dollars a week in bonus. And you're going to tell me that you're not going to fight for me when I vote that TA down, that pisses me off. That has light blue that pisses me off. And it shows that we will, what is this? What is this fan about eating cake? Can't have your cake you needed to. Well, we're eating cake, you know. And so the problem is, is I've got somebody that's so out of touch. It's let them eat cake, right? Let them eat cake. You want to talk out of touch, Cory? Yeah. Okay, let's talk out of touch. You just touched on it. In that last TA, we got what 1.3, 1.4, 1.5 CCAs got 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, right? You're fixing to piss me off again, aren't you? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. So the chief, so for example, the chief of staff, fiscal year 25, 211,505 dollars gross fiscal year 26, 281,172 dollars gross percent increase in one year, 33%. Personal attorney, financial year 256, 169, financial year 26, 353, 342, percent increase, 38%. Apparently, if you're on the Friends and Family Plan with the Renfro administration, you get well over a 30% a year increase. But if you're a member of the union that he represents, you get 1.3, 1.4, 1.5. And that's the best they can do. And it pisses me off, Dave, that my people rose up like they did on that TA, demanding better, demanding better wages. The hell, I would go off every week on here about what you did to us as far as that TA. And begging to fight for us, begging my agent to fight, refusing to do so on the entire time. He's given a chief of staff a 33% raise and a personal attorney who's not even a labor attorney, just a personal attorney that he hired. Oh, that's basically one of us, 38% raise. And then he's got this cat down there in Mississippi. What does he do? Director of commutation bail. You're referring to Jason Bailey, who's the director of community service. Director of community service. Down in Mississippi, he's not a city letter carrier either. He's a cat down in Mississippi. And just a matter of letter carriers. Correct. Camitra is correct. That job was held by Pam Donato. You know, that job was held by Christina Davidson. A letter carriers held that job exclusively until the Renfrow administration. And now we have this individual, you know, making six figures a year. And when we went down there, we reviewed, you know, what the director was making. And we could only see he was probably in the building in any LC headquarters. And again, we only saw a portion of the year's records. But if we average that out, he might have been in the building a handful of times a month if you are lucky. This guy's making six figures, you know, benefit package, the whole nine. And, you know, he's he's not in the building. You know, we don't know where he is. So what was what was Barnars and did they have one hour showing them this? Did they have any concern where they like holy shit? We didn't know. Yeah, I mean, there was, I mean, ladies that you can, back me up on this. I mean, they some of the stuff that we were reviewing, you could just tell by their physical reaction, which I don't think anybody's an Emmy award winner. in that room, they were genuinely shocked by what we were uncovering. There's no doubt about it. Just for the record, Nicole and Paul did back up our general premise of how that spending is going, meaning we're taking in less dues and we're spending more money than we're taking in and basically the service allowances, the only thing mailing us out. Because I asked what I thought was the obvious question. We get this money for the service allowance for our healthcare plan through OPM. What would happen if for some reason the current administration of the country, the next administration of the country, whoever that may be, come election time? What happens if one day they say, "Hey, guess what? People who run health benefit plans, we're not going to reimburse you anymore." Then what? Which is real. That's my point. I said, "What happens then?" And the response was, "We're going to have to obviously come up with a game plan if that happens." I said, "Well, why don't we not wait for that to happen and let's try to come up with a game plan for that now?" How is it that Fred was able to just be 13.5? And Ernst Rose put 70 on that S. Again, the staffing was much less under Fred Orlando. He was a better caretaker of our finances. And also, if you look at, I'll bring us an example. Look at what happened when they were going around the country with the TA. They had four locations where you could go to discuss the tentative agreement. When Fred was in office, they would pick one location. And the four locations that were selected were expensive location, San Francisco, I believe was one of them. Washington, D.C. was the other one in Texas, Creme Trout. Houston. Houston, Texas. And I can't remember the fourth location. And he brought the entire executive council to all four locations. That's a lot of guts. He could have set. And the bodyguards. That's right, that's other hires. But see, something where he could have, the bread for administration could have been smarter and spent money one time on a location where it would have been less expensive. And more attendees could attend because that was the other thing. There weren't very many attendees at each of these four because it was short notice. And because they were spread out and because it was extensive location selected, I just remember the last time we actually had to talk about a possible contract change was, they brought us all to Las Vegas. A central location where it was well attended and a lot of branches were able to go because there was a nice notice. So when you spread out the four locations, the notice period shortened, it just really made it very difficult but very expensive because you had at least 28 people and some staff employees that traveled to at least three of those locations because if they're domiciled in Washington, DC, that didn't cost them anything. But it sure did cost all the local branches a lot of money to do that. So that's one area where they could have saved money and worked a little smarter with our dues. But they chose not to. The Renfro administration chose not to do that. And like I said, I've entered a guess. I don't have the numbers because I didn't attend the other three locations. But if you were to add up how many people attend is all four compared to when you put it in a central location, you didn't get near the attendance because of the fact it was done the way it was done. Do we know how much those attorneys cost a month? Is there a firm? Is there a firm that he's getting those? I'm sorry. The guards, bodyguards. Again, I haven't seen these numbers. What I've been told is two of those bodyguards cost the NELC approximately $10,000 to $11,000 a month is what I've been told. But I have not seen that. That wasn't some of the records that were made available to us January 20th to the 23rd. But that's what I've been told. Something else I want to do talk about a little bit, Corey, because it's just something I don't understand. Again, going back to my 127, 26 communication with President Renfro, I ask him about the, to give me an explanation of why the chief of staff went to Big Sky Montana, Greece, and Istanbul, Turkey. And he sends me an email back and what he tells me is, well, those were political trips. That's how I know the chief of staff is doing political lobbying work and not doing chief of staff work. This is something that I can't wrap my head around it again. Maybe I'm naive. I don't know. But Dave Großguff, lobbies, Congress. I've never lobbied Congress anywhere other than the seat in my office at 48, 45 Union Road in Cheetah, Wagon, New York, or my annual lobbying trip to Washington, DC. And we seen invoices and receipts for the chief of staff, like I said, going to Greece, going to Istanbul, Turkey, going to Big Sky Montana. And Brian responded to me and said those were political trips. And I said, great, for what? Never got a response. Because here's where I'm going with the whole thing. You live and work in Washington, DC. If you want to talk to somebody, you walk right across the freaking street. And they're all right there. Okay? There's whatever the Republican social club, the Democratic social club, their leadership pecs, everything is located in Washington, DC. Why do I got to go to Big Sky Montana to talk to the chairman of something? What's up, committee, when he's right across the street? What the frick do I got to fly halfway around the world to go to Istanbul, frigging Turkey, to talk to somebody? What do you think where, what do you think? Where, turkeys? You know, my point is, why do we have to do that? That, I mean, I don't know what I've, I've never been to Istanbul, Turkey. I've never been to Greece, but I can't imagine a couple of plane tickets over there as cheap, let alone hotel and expenses and everything else. And again, I wouldn't, and I thoroughly understand politics and how that stuff works and things like that. Listen, if we were going to Big Sky Montana, if we were going to Istanbul, Turkey, if we were going to Greece, and I had, you know, polka, pasting Congress, I shut my mouth because I would see that that expenditure was paying dividends, okay? But I'm not seeing that, you know, and that kind of frosts my ass that we're spending that kind of money and we're not getting anything in return. And since those trips, I've been told the president and the chief of staff have been to London, England. And again, if there's some other reason, because for example, I know like for food drive or for uni, you know, the global union for the postal unions, we have to go overseas, you know, for some of these things. I understand that. But if somebody can please explain to me why my chief of staff is halfway around the world and I'm not being shown anything to the men and women that I represent in the political arena that benefits them, then, you know, Dave Grosskowski got a problem with that. Can you say the president? Let's not forget, though, Corey, that's not her job. Correct. Yeah. We have lobbyists that we pay to do that stuff. So the chief of staff and the president went to London. England, yes. Now, if I'm not mistaken and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, in the We're report, this chief of staff was the one who told Fred Orlando that she was not comfortable being around Brian. Is that right? That's true. That's correct. Yes. Huh. Well, well, I think I'll stop. Apparently, you know, according to the 2026 LM2 for the the mere cost of a total compensation package of $337,000. and $273 were now comfortable. - That'll make you comfortable real quick, won't it? - Apparently. - You can, thank you very much. - Thank you very much. - You give me $1100 a week bonus, I get comfortable to a lot of shit. - But what job have you ever heard of that gives that type of bonus? For what reason? - Yeah, well that's the cheapest staff. - Let's spend cheaper staffs in the past. - Correct. - What's this one apart? - But yeah. - Anyway. - See that in a fee of comfortable way, Brian. - Yeah. Well, you know, this is something I know I've been wanting to talk about for a long time. There's been waiting on that, like you said, David LM2 to come out so that you could verify a double check. So that's what I want up there. It's been a great deal of time looking through what you could look through. Talked with a lot of people. Has any of the business sites reached out to y'all? Sants and said, hey, we had no idea, man. Or we would have held that sum but you count them. Was anybody reached out since then? - Nobody's reached out per se, but for example, when we were there, I was questioning the people in the building. I asked, Nicole Ryan, I asked, Paul Barner, I asked James Henry, I asked Chris Jackson, I asked, Matt Julian, who's the Assistant Secretary of Treasury. Has any of this stuff ever been run by you guys in an executive council? And everybody I talked to at headquarters said, no, absolutely not. - Yeah, so that was so you were waiting at the minutes right there. - Correct. - Yeah. - No. Well, y'all got anything else you don't want to say? I mean, anything else you want to cover 'cause that's pissed me off. And so, I know the care is gonna be pissed off. And the one thing I would say to everybody is, you cannot, no matter how frustrated you are at the TA, no matter how frustrated you are at everything the rent roll's done or has not done. The one thing you cannot do is get out of the union. That was what we were afraid of. It was people like, what the fuck am I in the union for? This some of it's a spin and more than we're taking in. And he's paying people all these fat ass bonuses and pissing on us. If you get out of the union, you cannot vote. We've got to vote this out. If you get out of the union, you have no voice. And so, that's one thing I would implore everybody is to make sure, you know, that you're gonna get angry with your vote, you know. So, go ahead, Rocky, you're gonna say something? - Oh, I was just gonna say, you know, you've got the right point as far as we've got to vote because we've got to put a stop to all of this. You know, we love this union and we wanna make sure this union stands strong and represents members. And so, we've gotta put a stop to all this unnecessary spending. You know, we've gotta put a stop to, you know, the spending that could be done better, you know, like we've talked, as we've talked about, the over hiring at headquarters, you know, the compensation packets are outrageous, the way they put out information. And the other thing with the legislative, I also am like Dave, I'm an active in the legislative arena because I'm a legislatively A-Zon. And I represent the district with that has Sarah Jacobs, who's a great support of the post office. But, you know, the money could be better spent with making sure that all the locals get involved in lobbying their own congressional leaders because here's the thing. Because Dave, like Dave mentioned, all anyone at headquarters has to do is go across the street. Imagine what kind of power we would have legislatively is every congressional leader, right? Every congressman and woman, new personally or was lobbied personally by their local NALC branch presidents or members. - Yeah. - That would be, you know, how many people, you know, that would be. But when every member of Congress did go in whatever Senate hearing they're having or, you know, committee hearing they're having, and the NALC president walks in, the NALC president walks in with a lot of power because all of them already know their actual constituents are concerned and have been talking to them as opposed to the way they do it now. They do it from the top down. Well, our NALC president can walk in and say he's got this many members, but we all know our members of Congress listen to their constituents. He is not their constituent. He's our NALC president, but he's not their constituent. He's a constituent for one place, but not for all 50 states and territories that are represented by Congress. So that's another place where they could actually spend the money wisely and get more bang for the buck. And they don't do that. And David's absolutely right in the fact that, you know, when he talks to, who he needs to talk to, you know, and I know people, you know, hear this, but the SNDC, you know, Dave was able to rally his local congressional leaders and stop that. Put a stop to that and keep service within the community where it is. And, you know, that is so important. We need to make sure that, you know, our members understand that the service to their customers is so important because as a public service, we need to make sure we provide the type of service that customers remember and enjoy so that they stick up for us when all this nonsense comes about as to, you know, privatization or, you know, the loss of funds, you know, with the postal service. You know, if we, if we can, our job, on the, you know, as the grassroots effort in every single, you know, state, every single city, you know, we have a lot of power. And, you know, it's not being utilized properly because up at the top, the Renfrored Administration wants to spend the money on themselves. And, you know, and that is wrong. And again, the biggest perpetrator is Renfrored himself because he is abusing his power as the president of the NALC. So we need to make sure that that power is ended by electing and voting for a new NALC president. - Well, you're 100% right. And, you know, I know that Vafiata's business age of reason two just said, I would re re re re re like Renfrored because he speaks so well to Congress. That's it. This, that's been us into oblivion. This on the city letter here continues to do so. Turned his back on us as far as the will of the city letter kind of TA. But he speaks well to Congress. We're gonna be broken in a few years, but at least he speaks well. Others have come out and said, well, you know, he speaks so good to Congress. That's what we need to be doing. Like you said, that's what branch presidents and the constituents need to be doing. The rank and file can be doing that now. That's through the voters, the Congress is gonna listen to the voters. I've always said, what do I say? You need to get out of the public. Get out of the public and tell them who you are, what we do, why we're important, why we're essential. We need me doing that. But you're gonna say you're gonna re elect some bonehead because he speaks well to Congress. We should be doing that. That's our job. And we pay people to do that. But you're gonna keep somebody in there that's gonna destroy this union because he speaks well. Good God, we're in trouble, you know, in region two, what are you thinking? You know, I know Rooney is going against somebody who's a huge room for a supporter talking about, but if Renfrow asked me to be on a slate, I'd be on a slate. I would run from Renfrow. If I was anybody, if he came talk to me and say I want to be on my slate, I'm running out the door. No, he is devastating us. And I don't get it, man, I don't understand this infatuation with this cat who every time he turned around as something else he's doing because again, he was not ready. He was not ready for this. This is a beast, a beast of a job. And he was not ready. You need somebody who's been in those fires as a fighter. And he's not here. And he's showing you, he is like a country club in the him with just inviting your friends, you know. But anyway, we are sinking. Cory, we are sinking in area area. You are absolutely, name an area, Kim, and it's the greatest procedure, sinking. You know, you look, finances sinking, arbitration nationally, sinking. Yeah. You got education sinking. They finally came out with this module that they're using after three and a half years of him being in an office, we finally have a module they've come up with to educate down people. You know, know, sinking. You're right. DRT. It's been hijacked. It's useless now because they're just sending things up back, log there at the DRT. Not enough arbitrators, sinking. You're right. You name something. Nothing he has done is working. There's not one facet of this union that's working under this clown and you got people still, still kissing that ass and I don't get it. Well, there's a facet that's working, Cory. That's the friends and family playing, brother. If you're a friend of the man, hey, if you're a friend of this cat, you in there because you're on the hook forever. With these, because they're going to get there a time, but you're on the hook forever. You know, they get to five years and that's it. They, they, you can be playing them forever. They'll be sitting on their playing call of duty. You know, but anyway, anybody else can't anything else say I'm going to get riled up, man, and I'm going to be on here an hour. But, uh, anybody else can't anything they want to say that you're forgotten anything? No. A lot more, but I think for today, we're good. I think you're right. But hey, I appreciate you all more than you know, going up there, uh, you know, walking into that. I do appreciate a barner and a cold run because like I said, you know, what they could do, they did. Um, so I do appreciate them, you know, but for y'all to be the only the first ones in history to go do that, that speaks volumes about that as well. We need to be more invested in that, more interested in that. And when we take over, hopefully people will be, you know, and they'll see that we have brought this thing back to like it should be and not all this waste was spending, you know, cut this thing down to the bare bones and see what we need really. But I appreciate all three of y'all coming on and speaking to the people about what y'all found. And, um, you know, maybe we'll do this again, but I think that y'all have said enough to piss everybody off. But, um, so anyway, thank y'all again for coming on. I hope you have a great night. And I will see y'all when I see you. All right. Thank you. All right. Good night. Have a good night. See y'all.