National Association of Postal Supervisors Legislative and Regulatory Update – August 7, 2008
In this Issue:
* NAPS Challenges USPS Network Plan, Questions USPS Outsourcing
* Preserve Universal Service and the Mailbox Monopoly, NAPS Tells the PRC
* USPS Announces Greater Quarterly Loss Than Expected Read the rest of this entry »
National Association of Postal Supervisors Legislative and Regulatory Update – July 31, 2008
House Approves FERS Sick Leave and Thrift Savings Reforms
The House of Representatives has approved legislation that would give employees covered under the Federal Employees Retirement System largely the same retirement credit for unused sick leave as already applies to workers covered under the older Civil Service Retirement System. Also included in the House-passed measure are improvements to the Thrift Savings Plan. The conferral of FERS sick leave credit has been a legislative goal of the National Association of Postal Supervisors.
The FERS sick leave approach approved by the House last night is more generous than that originally proposed in FERS sick leave legislation introduced earlier this year by Rep. James Moran (D-VA). Under the measure approved by the House, FERS employees who retire within three years of the bill’s enactment would receive service credit, in the computation of their pension, for 75 percent of their accrued sick leave at the time of retirement. Those who retire three years after enactment would receive 100% credit for all of their unused sick leave. Moran’s original proposal would have provided a cash payout to FERS employees of up to $10,000 for unused sick leave.
Delighted with the more generous approach approved by the House, Congressman Moran in a statement said, “Our current use-it or lose-it sick leave system for FERS employees hurts productivity and increases training costs.” “We need to be incentivizing the accrual of sick leave, not encouraging people to call in sick in the weeks leading up to retirement. With today’s passage, we’re putting FERS employees on par with their CSRS colleagues, replacing a flawed approach to sick leave with one proven to work in everybody’s favor.”
The FERS sick leave provisions were included in a larger measure approved by the House that would grant the Food and Drug Administration authority over tobacco products. The bill, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (H.R. 1110), was approved by a 326-102 vote. It would require the FDA to regulate the labeling and advertising of tobacco products and ban flavored cigarettes excluding menthol.
The tobacco measure also includes provisions that would improve the Thrift Savings Plan, including the automatic enrollment into the TSP of of newly-hired eligible federal and postal employees and members of the military. It also would authorize the Federal Thrift Retirement Investment Board to establish a Roth contribution plan and self-directed investment options within the TSP. It is the addition of the Roth contribution plan option that, under Congressional budget scoring rules, would provide additional federal revenue, making possible the more generous, CSRS-like FERS sick leave formula. The Roth revenue also offsets the loss of federal tobacco taxes from an anticipated decline in smoking.
The tobacco bill, including the FERS and TSP provisions, now moves to the Senate, where its prospects are uncertain. The bill enjoyed wide bipartisan support in the House, but few days remain in the legislative calendar, and Republican leaders and the Bush administration are opposed to the tobacco provisions. The White House has threatened to veto the bill, arguing that it would disproportionately tax low-income Americans, through user fees assessed against tobacco companies to raise funds to underwrite FDA’s regulatory efforts. The Postal Supervisors and other postal and federal employee groups will continue to push for enactment.
Bruce Moyer
Legislative Counsel, National Association of Postal Supervisors
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The following is a statement from Change to Win Chair Anna Burger regarding recent speculation that union-busting FedEx CEO Fred Smith is on presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s short list for vice-presidential picks.
“Recent reports that FedEx CEO Fred Smith is being considered by John McCain as a potential vice-presidential pick are beyond disturbing. As a well-known lifelong union buster, Smith has a disgraceful record of stripping workers of their most basic rights to organize and fight for a living wage. It is disheartening, although not surprising, that John McCain would consider picking such a notorious enemy of hard working men and women to be his running mate.
“In the 35 years that Fred Smith has been the CEO of FedEx he has repeatedly fought against workers joining together to have a voice on the job, openly stating that he ‘doesn’t intend to recognize any unions at Federal Express.’ Less than 2% of the 200,000 American workers at FedEx are in a union. In contrast, UPS unionized workers make nearly 30 percent more than they non-union counterparts at FedEx. Despite organizing efforts, FedEx has filed appeal after appeal to deny their workers the right to bargain collectively, and has sought national legislation to thwart union organizing.
“Americans have already suffered through seven years of a White House that places corporate interests before the interests of America’s working families and we’ve seen the results – millions of homeowners facing foreclosure, gas prices at record levels, and skyrocketing health care costs. Workers cannot afford another lobbyist-dominated administration. A vice-president Fred Smith would be bad for America, and bad for workers. Working families need leadership in the White House that will help them reclaim the American Dream, not a third Bush term.”
About Change to Win
Change to Win is a six million member partnership of seven unions founded in 2005 to represent workers in the industries and occupations of the 21st century economy. Change to Win committed to restoring the American Dream for a new generation of workers – wages that can support a family, affordable health care, a secure retirement, and the opportunity for the future. The seven affiliated unions are: Service Employees International Union, UNITE HERE, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Laborers’ International Union of North America, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America and United Farm Workers of America.
National Association of Postal Supervisors
Legislative and Regulatory Update — July 7, 2008
In this Issue:
* Postal Service Seeks Early Out Authority as Restructuring Plans Emerge
* Congress Pursues Pared-Down Agenda
* House Panel Approves Five-Day Delivery Study
* NAPS to Urge Preservation of Universal Service
Postal Service Seeks Early Out Authority as Restructuring Plans Emerge
The Postal Service reportedly has requested Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) — more commonly known as “early out authority” — from the Office of Personnel Management, to seek permission to temporarily lower the age and service requirements to increase the number of USPS employees eligible for retirement.
Details on the VERA request are sketchy, but the pursuit of VERA is not surprising, given the need for the Postal Service to pursue significant cost-cutting moves to offset falling First-Class mail volume and rising costs, especially as soaring gas prices flatten USPS profits.
VERA theoretically encourages more voluntary attrition in order to permit an agency to pursue downsizing and restructuring with minimal workforce disruption. Acceptance rates by Postal employees to early-out offers in past restructuring efforts has been mixed at best.
According to unconfirmed reports, the Postal Service will target the next round of early-out offers to specific areas, but without the aid of buyouts or additional financial incentives to sweeten their appeal.
The Postal Service also recently announced plans to continue efforts to reorganize its processing and transportation networks, potentially leading to the elimination of significant numbers of jobs, starting at airport mail centers (AMCs), and continuing to mail processing plants and bulk mail centers. In a “network rationalization report” released to Congress on June 20, the Postal Service revealed few details on which facilities would be identified for further consolidation, indicating it planned to continue to asses the feasibility of of further restructuring through the use of “recently enhanced” AMP guidelines.
The USPS also announced in the report that it would continue to explore the potential of outsourcing the processing and transportation of mail in the Bulk Mail Center network through its Time-Definite Surface Network program. As Federal Times recently reported, the Postal Service also may outsource some BMC sorting functions to private companies, reportedly to free up space to install Flats Sequence System equipment.
The Postal Service indicated it could take up to two years to further solicit expert and public opinion to decide which plants and BMCs to realign. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 — The office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., issued the following news release:
The U.S. Senate has approved legislation sponsored by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to extend the sale of the highly successful Breast Cancer Research Stamp for four additional years beyond the current expiration date of December 31, 2007. The legislation is cosponsored by a bipartisan coalition of 62 additional Senators.
The Senate last night approved the House-passed bill, which included a provision requiring the National Institutes for Health and the Department of Defense to submit an annual report to Congress and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on significant advances achieved due to funding from the Breast Cancer Research Stamp. Read the rest of this entry »
WASHINGTON, DC– Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) today introduced a bipartisan amendment reaffirming that both federal law and the Constitution protect sealed domestic mail from being searched. The amendment is in response to a signing statement that the White House issued in conjunction with the signing of the Collins- Carper postal reform legislation.
In a speech before the U.S. Senate, Senator Collins explained that following the singing of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, the White House issued a statement that resulted in confusion about the Administration`s commitment to abide by the basic privacy protections afforded sealed domestic mail.
“The President`s spokesman has explained that the signing statement was not intended to change the scope of the law. But the statement caused confusion and concern about the President`s commitment to abide by the basic privacy protections afforded sealed domestic mail,“ said Senator Collins. “Given this unfortunate perception, I wish to be very clear as the author of the postal reform legislation. Nothing in the Postal Reform Act or in the President`s signing statement alters in any way the privacy and civil liberty protections provided to a person who sends or receives sealed mail.“ The Collins-Carper Postal Reform bill, which was signed into law in December 2006, represents the most sweeping reforms of the U.S. Postal Service in over three decades. It will help the Postal Service meet the challenges of the 21st Century, establishes a new rate setting system, and helps ensure a strong financial future for the Postal Service. And it protects the basic features of universal service. The new law also provided for continued authority for the Postal Service to establish a class of mail sealed against inspection.
“Under current law, mail sealed against inspection is entitled to the Constitutional protection against unreasonable searches. With only limited exceptions, the government needs a court warrant before it can search sealed mail,“ said Senator Collins. Senator Collins` resolution is cosponsored by Senators Carper, Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Norm Coleman (R-MN).
The free market has spoken! The Cato Institute book “Free the Mails”, which featured an essay by Bush appointed BOG Chairman James C. Miller III advocating the privatization of the US Postal Service, apparently didn’t exactly fly off the shelves when it was published in 1988. A check of the Cato Institute’s online bookstore shows that there are still copies gathering dust there nineteen years later, even though the price has been slashed to just three bucks! And if you think that’s still too much to pay, you can pick up a copy on Amazon for just sixty three cents. It appears that in the marketplace of ideas, postal privatization has been judged practically worthless…
USPS Governor Mickey Barnett earned a brief mention in Sunday’s New York Times coverage of the unfolding scandal invoving the Bush Administration’s attempts to fire US Attorneys who had not been vigorous enough in their pursuit of Democratic politicians. See also the mention in Joe Monahan’s New Mexico Politics blog.
From last week’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee:
SEN. SPECTER: As you know, this committee was hard at work with legislation which I had proposed and others had co-sponsored and four hearings. And I think we could have been of assistance to you if we had been consulted.
The issue of the signing statements, Mr. Attorney General, continues to be a matter of major concern. Read the rest of this entry »
