From the National Association of Postal Supervisors:

Senate Could Take Up Postal Measure Soon

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has told his Democratic colleagues that he intends to schedule floor time in February for the consideration of comprehensive postal reform legislation.  The Senate returns next week from its month-long holiday recess to begin the new session. The House returned this week.

According to Senate staff, Reid’s scheduling plan looks to Senate action on postal reform before mid-February.  It envisions postal reform as the second item of business in the new session, following Senate action on internet piracy legislation. Reid intends to bring the internet legislation to the floor next week, but growing controversy over the legislation is generating significant opposition, potentially scrambling Reid’s scheduling plans.

Meanwhile, the bipartisan team of Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) are readying a postal legislative package for floor action.  Their bill, S. 1789, was approved as amended on November 9 by the Senate Commitee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.  A number of other Senators are likely to offer further amendments when the bill comes to the floor.

Also, action on the payroll tax holiday legislation, which the Congress extended for only two months in December, will also occupy Senate (and House) floor time in February.  Because differing versions were approved by the two chambers, Senate and House conferees will begin to meet next week to start to hammer out the differences.  The current extension expires on February 29.  A crucial part of the House-approved approach toward financing the payroll tax holiday, which NAPS opposes, would increase the FERS and CSRS retirement contributions of current postal and federal employees by 1.5 percent over the next three years.  It also would extend the two-year federal employee pay freeze by an additional year.

Growing Critism of USPS Plant Consolidation on Capitol Hill

In other developments, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), became one of the  latest members of Congress to go on record against the proposed closure of up to 252 of about 461 mail processing facilities.  The USPS plant consolidation plan, which would eliminate nearly 30,000 jobs, has unleashed a flood of criticism from Washington lawmakers.

“This plan has profoundly negative implications for timely and  reliable mail service in northern, western and eastern Maine, a  geographically vast and rural area of our state,” Snowe said in a news  release after visiting an eastern Maine processing and distribution  facility that employs 183 people and is slated for consolidation with  another plant.  She described herself as “unpersuaded” by the merits of the USPS plant consolidation plan, and believes it would “disproportionately slow down mail  delivery to rural areas of Maine.”

Sentiments like these prompted the Postal Service last month to impose a moratorium on  closings of all processing plants and post offices until mid-May,  although closure and consolidation studies will proceed.  The Postal Service is also pursuing a change in service standards that will drop  overnight delivery of first-class mail.  NAPS opposes the proposed change in service standards and has intervened in the Postal Regulatory Commission’s review of the change.  NAPS also favors “right-sizing” of the postal plant network, rather than closure of as significant a number of plants as USPS plans in order to save costs.

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Bruce Moyer

Legislative Counsel to NAPS

From the National Association of Postal Supervisors:

Today the Postal Service formally announced that they would be conducting a study of the current mail processing network with the goal of eliminating about half of the processing facilities in the distribution network.

National Association of Postal Supervisors President Louis Atkins stated that “the current processing network employed by the Postal Service provides for overnight delivery of First Class Mail in virtually every corner of the country.

Today, if you mail a letter across town or to a destination that is within a distance of 60 miles or so from the point where you mailed your letter, that letter will be delivered the next day. The Postal Service measures their performance on this delivery and this year they are delivering this type of mail on time at a 96.3% success rate”. This important overnight service will be lost if the Postal Service’s plans are implemented to drastically cut the network capabilities they now have in place.

Atkins added: “We are now in this financial crisis because the Postal Service has a requirement to pre-fund future retiree health benefits in a plan that is so bizarre that they are actually setting money aside for employees who will retire seventy-five years in the future. We are setting aside funds for people’s retirement that are not even born yet! ”.

Many employee groups and the mailing community have pointed out that the Postal Service has been overpaying both of the retirement systems that provide annuities to postal employees to the tune of $55 to $75 billion dollars. Those within the postal community have sought to have these overpayments used to satisfy the pre-funding requirements that were mandated by the last Postal Reorganization Bill that was passed in 2006.

Because of stalled legislation in the United States Congress that could easily correct the current financial struggles of the Postal Service, they have had to resort to making drastic reductions in the number of post offices and other operational changes to try to balance the costs of running the Post Office in line with revenue.

Atkins, who was a career postal employee and former postal manager, is sympathetic to the dilemma facing the Postal Service. He understands that no one in the leadership of the Postal Service relishes the idea of dismantling the institution that has served this country, even before the country was founded.

“Since the Congress cannot take the responsibility that they have to resolve this serious problem, the Postal Service is attempting to do it on their own. We have already cut 1,000’s of positions and closed administrative offices, all of which did not affect the customer. These changes will be the first to be directly felt by the mailing community and the American public”, said Atkins.

Congress could resolve this problem by passing HR 1351, a bill that has already received wide support from both democrats and some republicans. Atkins stated that the Postal Service is an American institution that works for all Americans and there should be bi-partisan support in
the Congress to keep the Postal Service in good health.

NAPS members will be joining with the members of the four major employee unions on September 27th to highlight our mutual efforts to convince the Congress to pass HR 1351 in this session of Congress. NAPS members, along with the employees they manage, will be making personal visits to local offices of every member of the Congress to deliver petitions and the message to act immediately on the passage of HR 1351

From the National Association of Postal Supervicors:

September 09, 2011

The leadership of the National Association of Postal Supervisors (NAPS) has agreed to join forces with the four postal unions representing employees of the Postal Service to designate September 27, 2011 as a day of action to Save America’s Postal Service.

Together, NAPS, the American Postal Workers Union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association will rally in every congressional district in the country to concentrate our efforts to build support for H.R. 1351, a bill introduced in the House by Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA).

“NAPS members must take decisive action to let their member of Congress know that the Postal Service, an agency who serves every constituent in their respective districts needs relief that can only be assured through the passage of HR 1351. This is the time to join with all other employee groups to get this message to our members of Congress”, said NAPS President, Louis Atkins.

Atkins added; “This is an ideal opportunity for postal employees from a variety of positions to join forces in a common effort to save the Postal Service as we know it today”.

Passage of HR 1351, would prevent the financial collapse of the USPS — without closing thousands of post offices, eliminating hundreds of mail processing facilities, delaying mail delivery, laying off 120,000 workers, cutting postal workers’ pay, or ending collective bargaining rights. It would allow the Postal Service to apply billions of dollars in pension overpayments to the congressional mandate that requires the USPS to pre-fund the healthcare benefits of future retirees.

No other government agency or private company bears this burden, which forces the Postal Service to fund a 75-year liability in 10 years — at a cost of more than $5 billion annually. Without the mandate, the USPS would have shown a surplus of $611 million over the past four fiscal years.

Unfortunately, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has another idea. Word on Capitol Hill is that Chairman Issa is blocking consideration of HR 1351.

Instead of working with the Postal Service and its’ employees, Rep. Issa has introduced his own bill that would destroy the Postal Service as we know it. His bill (H.R. 2309) would do nothing to correct the cause of the USPS financial crisis: It would do nothing about the pension overpayments or the pre-funding requirement.

Issa’s bill would establish a new bureaucracy called the “solvency authority” with the power to unilaterally cut wages, abolish benefits, and end protection against layoffs. Issa’s bill would also create a board that would order $1 billion worth of post office closures in the first year and $1 billion worth of facility closures in the second year. If HR 2309 is enacted, thousands of offices throughout the country would be closed.

At the same time, the Postal Service is proposing legislative changes that would authorize management to lay off 120,000 workers and that would remove postal employees from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and from federal retirement plans.

At the rallies on Sept. 27, postal employees will be asking legislators to co-sponsor and support the passage of HR 1351, the bill that would restore financial stability to the Postal Service. The legislation already has 193 co-sponsors, including both Democrats and Republicans. Where lawmakers have already signed on, the rallies will thank them for their support and ask them to pledge to do everything in their power to ensure its passage.

Each employee group will work together at the national level to identify responsibilities for specific congressional districts, and locals have already begun designating District Leads for various locations. The District Leads will secure permits (where necessary), contact the media, and make other arrangements.

The postal employee groups have developed a common Web site to provide information about the rallies, which will be held from 4-5:30 p.m. A complete list of rally locations will be posted on the site by Sept. 16, and the site will be updated frequently in the lead-up to the march. Visit saveamericaspostalservice.org for the latest news about the Sept. 27 rallies.

via The National Association of Postal Supervisors.

From the National Association of Postal Supervisors:

August 31, 2011

Dear Member of the United States Senate:

I write on behalf of the nearly 32,000 members of our association, many of whom work and vote in your District.

The United States Postal Service faces an unprecedented crisis. It is projected to run out of cash on September 30, an outcome caused largely by retiree health care prepayments the Postal Service is required to make that are far larger than reasonable or necessary. This result is due to Congressional statutory requirements imposed in 2006, not to Postal Service mismanagement.

We urge Congress to realign the Postal Service’s retiree health prefunding schedule to a larger time period consistent with what the Postal Service can afford, making use of a surplus created by Postal Service pension overpayments. That pension surplus, according to studies of the Postal Regulatory Commission and the Inspector General of the Postal Service, could be as large as $55-75 billion. Legislative proposals offered by Sen. Tom Carper (S. 1010) and Sen. Susan Collins (S. 353), in part, would realign the Postal Service’s prefunding payments.

Realignment of the Postal Service’s retiree health prefunding payments clearly would defuse the postal crisis. Most important, this action would eliminate the need for sweeping, alternative proposals recently advanced by the Postal Service, which we oppose, which would:

• Reduce delivery to six days per week to five days per week or less;
• Eliminate overnight delivery of First Class mail in local areas, resulting in the closure of nearly half of current mail processing facilities, eliminating thousands of jobs;
• Close thousands of small Post Offices, many of them in rural areas; and
• Permit the Postal Service to secede from the federal health and retirement programs and create alternative health and retirement plans for its employees and retirees.

The proposals offered by Sen. Tom Carper and Sen. Susan Collins, in part, would require the Office of Personnel Management to review the postal Service’s past pension payments, using modern, well-accepted principles of accounting, and to require the Postal Service to use any surplus of payments to satisfy its remaining health prefunding obligations under the 2006 law.

We urge you to support these measured and responsible efforts proposed by your colleagues to stabilize the Postal Service’s financial outlook. Without swift action, it will be difficult, if not impossible to avoid the massive changes in service and infrastructure the USPS unnecessarily has had to propose.

Louis M. Atkins
President

Atkins letter to Senate.pdf (application/pdf Object).

NAPS Leg/Reg Update – August 1, 2011

Back to Code Blue

The dust is settling on what’s just happened in Washington.

History has been made. The Age of Austerity in the United Sates has begun.

What does the new debt reduction legislation, whose protracted birth over the past week portrayed Washington at its worst, mean for the United States Postal Service?

Good news and bad news. First the good news. Because the Postal Service is “off-budget,” (or not part of the federal budget), the Postal Service is immune from the punishing, arbitrary cuts imposed on the rest of the federal government by the debt legislation — the “Budget Control Act of 2011“. (The Postal Service went off-budget in 1989.)

The bad news is that the debt legislation doesn’t throw a lifeline to the Postal Service, given its dire financial straits. Although the White House attempted two weeks ago to include the Postal Service in its “grand bargain” proposal, those efforts failed.

All this means that the Postal Service is back to Code Blue. September 30 is approaching and the Postal Service is showing every sign of refraining from writing the $5.5B check for its retiree health benefit obligations that is due — in order to stave off insolvency.

Congress could yet throw a lifeline to the Postal Service sometime this fall, but with a price, potentially involving legislation introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), that would essentially throw the bankrupt Postal Service into receivership.

Finally, does the debt legislation affect postal employees? Here again, the answer is yes, but not directly. Dreaded cuts in civil service retirement and health insurance benefits themselves are not mandated by the debt legislation. However, benefit cuts eventually are likely and are still in the mix.

The second stage of budget cuts mandated by the debt law — coming in December out of the Joint Committee’s recommendations on $1.5 trillion in spending cuts — could include proposals that have been circulating for months. These could include increasing the employee contribution for retirement, reducing retirement benefits by changing the way those benefits are calculated, increasing employee contributions for health insurance, and making cost of living adjustments less generous for all retirees. There is a small glimmer of hope: a White House fact sheet on the debt legislation suggests that federal pensions could be exempt from the across-the-board cuts that would be triggered by the legislation if Congress fails to approve the Joint Committee’s recommendations.

Many in Washington are still deciphering the perilous path of pitfalls created by this new legislation. There are certain to be more brinksmanship moments over further spending cuts down the road, though those moments are unlikely to be as calamitous as a government default could have been.

Looking back on the past week, the Republic still endures, but with a black eye, and a waistline about to begin a take-no-prisoners diet.

Bruce Moyer
Legislative Counsel to NAPS

From the National Association of Postmasters of the US:

Presidents of NAPUS, The League of Postmasters, and NAPS are scheduled to meet with the Postmaster General on Wednesday, July 27, 2011. NAPUS President Bob Rapoza said that he will ask for time to discuss the impact on Postmasters whose offices were recently identified to be included as part of a discontinuance feasibility study.

A review list for the possible discontinuance of approximately 2800 post offices has raised the anxiety level of impacted Postmasters, who are concerned over what options may be available to them if they receive a Reduction In Force (RIF) notice. As stated on the NAPUS website on Friday, there is no certainty that all of the offices on the list will be closed. Additionally, the process could take as long as 7-10 months before a final decision would be made to close an office.

Impacted Postmasters are encouraged to check the NAPUS website for updates on discussions with USPS leaders about available options if a RIF notice is received. To see a list of offices under study for discontinuance click here . For information on how the review process works, please go to the NAPUS Action Guide (PDF). Additional information will be provided as soon as it becomes available.

Charlie Moser

July 26, 2011

via NAPUS.

NAPS Leg/Reg Update – July 25, 2011

Will USPS be included in a debt reduction deal? Financial reforms for the Postal Service, according to a Congressional source, were included in the “grand bargain” that was emerging from debt ceiling talks between President Obama and House Speaker Boehner a week ago. But those White House negotiations stalled last Friday, and House and Senate leaders are now headed toward separate backup plans to raise the debt ceiling. Postal Service reform provisions were aimed at a postage rate increase, greater commercial flexibility, a change in delivery frequency, and some adjustment in USPS pension payments and obligations. The foremost question now is whether USPS reforms will remain in any debt reduction plan that commands enough bipartisan appeal to pass Congress by August 2. If so, those reforms could provide a way for the Postal Service to avoid defaulting on its $5.5 B retiree health benefit payment due September 30 or its $1.2B workers comp payment in early October. (Background: http://scr.bi/nv6bau and http://scr.bi/ot2dHZ)

Benefit hits likely, no matter whose debt deal survives. What is more certain is that benefit cuts for civil servants and postal employees will be included in any budget deal that rises to the top. The likely hits will include increased employee contributions to pension programs, both by new employees and current employees, though new employees could be hit far more. The increases are likely to be phased in over time. The hits could also include another year of freezes on federal pay, as well as greater employee contributions for health insurance. A change in the measure to calculate cost-of-living adjustments to federal and military pensions and Social Security could cause COLAs to be about 0.25 of a percentage point lower than those calculated by the price index now used. http://bit.ly/rbRcN7

Progress on postal legislation wilts. Like the heat wave that has blistered Washington, the pace of postal relief legislation has slowed to a crawl. There are no signs of USPS relief legislation moving in the Senate or the House of Representatives. In the Senate, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), each of whom have introduced dueling postal bills, are at an impasse over the future of six-day delivery. Carper wants to give the Postal Service flexibility to reduce delivery days, while Collins maintains that delivery day reduction will accelerate a downward cycle. http://nyti.ms/oMMDNn

In the House, House Oversight Committee chairman Darryll Issa (R-CA) has refrained from moving legislation (HR 1351) by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), supported universally by the postal community, to address USPS pension overpayments and retiree health prefunding obligations. On another front, a procedural attack by Issa on the inclusion of the 6-day delivery mandate in the House Financial Services-General Government appropriation bill appears to have been sidelined. A veto threat against the entire funding bill by President Obama because of severe cuts in IRS funding has postponed House floor action on the bill.

Correcting USPS pension overpayments and transferring any surplus to the retiree health fund remains the optimum solution for solving the Postal Service’s immediate financial problems and avoiding insolvency.

The Postal Service Inspector General in a recent report stands by its findings that the Postal Service has been unfairly overcharged $75 billion for its contributions to the Civil Service Retirement System and has overfunded the Federal Employees’ Retirement System by an additional $7 billion.

Legislation is needed to fully fund the Postal Service’s retiree obligations and eliminate the need for further prefunding. This is why legislation introduced by Rep. Stephen Lynch (HR 1351) is the best immediate solution. Click here to send a message to your House lawmaker to urge cosponsorship of HR 1351.

Post office closures on the way. The US Postal Service is expected this week to announce the planned closure of at least 3,000 post offices, and to ask the Postal Regulatory Commission for an advisory opinion validating its closure plan. The PRC has committed to providing the review within 90 days. The Postal Service has already briefed staff in both the Senate and the House on the retail network review, which forms part of a major effort to “right size” the retail network.

IG reports detail savings in mail processing, transpo networks. The Postal Service Inspector General has issued a series of reports (http://bit.ly/qAa8dX and http://bit.ly/rkz4vW) in recent weeks suggesting ways the agency could find savings by closing processing plants (down to 135) and cutting back on door-to-door delivery of mail.

From the National Association of Postal Supervisors:

NAPS requested clarification from Postal Headquarters regarding the announcement that Postal Service officer and executive compensation would be frozen, as it relates to the Postal Service’s pay-for-performance program. Postal Headquarters stated that the USPS Awards Program for employee recognition and incentive awards which includes monetary SPOT Awards, AVP Awards, etc. will be suspended until further notice. The pay-for-performance (PFP) program pertaining to field EAS is not subject to this suspension. Furthermore, NAPS pay agreement with the USPS regarding PFP expired on October 1, 2010. Therefore, at this time, NAPS is under no agreement with the USPS regarding PFP after FY2010.

via The National Association of Postal Supervisors.

Stetement by National Association of Postal Supervisors President Louios Atkins:

June 30, 2011- The sweeping legislation proposed by Congressman Darrell Issa (H.R. 2019) to overhaul the United States Postal Service is dangerously misguided. It is an attack upon the management authority of the Postal Service and its dedicated workforce. The legislation should be firmly rejected by the Congress.

The legislation is misguided because it fails to address the immediate cause of the Postal Service’s financial problems – far too aggressive retiree health prefunding payments and pension overpayments. Congress largely created these perverse problems; Congress should first fix them.

Mr. Issa’s legislation, by failing to deal constructively with the prefunding and pension overpayment issues, would only worsen the Postal Service’s deteriorating financial condition. The creation of new government entities under the bill, like the Commission for Postal Reorganization and the Postal Service Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, will result in more government and more costs, not less. Mr. Issa’s legislation also falls short in failing to authorize new avenues of commerce for the Postal Service as part of a broader, realistic business model for the 21st century.

We continue to support proposals that will authorize the Postal Service to use billions of dollars in pension overpayments – as conclusively determined by the Postal Regulatory Commission and the Inspector General of the Postal Service – to help prepay its retiree health care costs. We urge the Congress to adopt the common-sense measures proposed by Rep. Stephen Lynch and Senator Tom Carper and Senator Susan Collins that would address the overpayments issue and help restore the Postal Service’s financial health.

From NAPUS:

June 28th, 2011

USPS Executive Vice President of Labor Relations, Anthony J. Vegliante today announced promotional salary increase limits for nonbargaining employees. Mr. Vegliante said “The fiscal health of the Postal Service continues to be at risk and, as a result, we must remain focused on opportunities to encourage fiscal restraint.”

Effective immediately, promotional increases must be limited to the following:

• Salary increase of 3 to 5 percent for promotions
• Salary increase of no more than 8 percent if an employee is promoted more than once within 52 weeks.

All promotional increases that exceed the above guidelines must be reviewed and approved by the Chief Human Resources Officer. This applies to all Headquarters and field nonbargaining promotions, except under the following conditions:

• When a higher increase is necessary to bring the salary to the minimum of the new grade.
• For promotions to designated supervisory positions covered under the supervisory differential adjustment provision, when a higher increase is necessary to bring it to the minimum salary rate.

Requests submitted for review must provide clear justification for exceeding the above stated promotional increase amounts.

The above change eliminates the former policy of salary increases from 3 to 10 percent for the promotion of a nonbargaining unit employee and a higher level of approval for increases of more than 8 percent.

June 27, 2011