Postal Unions Seek White House Intervention To Address USPS Crisis

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APWU Web News Article #079-09, July 16, 2009

The presidents of the four major postal unions have asked the White House to address the “deepening crisis” facing the Postal Service, asserting that “the Obama administration must intervene now to avoid both a political and economic train wreck.”

“The recession has had a severe impact on the Postal Service’s finances,” the union leaders wrote to White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, “and the situation has deteriorated significantly” since they met with White House staffers in March.

A financial collapse of the nation’s mail system “would pose a dire threat to the administration’s recovery plan,” the letter said. “Fortunately, such a collapse can be averted without resort to a taxpayer bailout, by reforming the retiree health prefunding provisions of the law. The Postal Service needs immediate relief from a law adopted in 2006, which requires the Postal Service to prefund its future retiree health liabilities,” the union presidents wrote.

“No other government agency or private company in America is required to prefund at all,” they noted, “much less on such an accelerated schedule.”

Congress is attempting to find a solution with H.R. 22, the letter said, but is hindered by “questionable rules” of the Congressional Budget Office that “score” (calculate the “cost” of) intergovernmental transfers, the letter said.

“But it is increasingly clear that this legislation will not be enough to solve the crisis,” the union presidents wrote. “A policy decision must be made at the highest levels on whether it makes sense to sacrifice the future viability of the Postal Service to comply with a misguided policy devised by the previous administration that is, in any case, no longer appropriate in the current economic environment.”

“There is a need to look at long-term structural reforms to help the USPS survive in the Internet age,” the union presidents said, “but the current crisis is not the result of changing technology. Rather, it stems from two factors: the collapse of several mail-intensive sectors of the economy (housing, real estate, finance, etc.) and the excessively onerous prefunding requirements adopted in 2006. If not for the prefunding requirements, the USPS would be able to weather the economic crisis.”

Signing the letter were APWU President William Burrus, National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric V. Rolando, National Rural Letter Carriers Association President Don Cantriel and National Postal Mail Handlers President John F. Hegarty.

21 thoughts on “Postal Unions Seek White House Intervention To Address USPS Crisis”

  2. Wake up people, this is a well thought out and deliberate plan to privatize the postal service. The Europeon privatized, and bought there internet service. The machines we use to process mail, is outdated when we install it. The problem is that we survive inspite of poor management with dedicated employees that keep spoiling there plans.

  4. Work as fast as you can, as safely as you can, and do your job professionally everyday. Mis-Management is killing us.

  5. Apparently there are a lot of misconceptions about supervisors and managers. I will admit that some of the characterizations I have seen here may be accurate about a few, but please don’t paint everyone with the same brush. You wouldn’t want to have a supervisor who thought that all craft employees were useless slugs, would you? 95% of my employees are good hardworking people. I certainly wouldn’t lump them in with the 5% who aren’t. Why do you?

    I am a college graduate. I went through 16 weeks of ASP. I have been a supervisor for 11 years and I have learned every aspect of my job by working 10-12 hours a day. If I don’t find a job in the next few weeks, I will no longer work for the USPS.

    Unfortunately, because I worked hard at the job I have, I didn’t go out on a lot of details, so now I am not “best qualified” for a lot of jobs I could do but probably won’t have the chance to do. I have two craft unions in my facility trying to help me keep my job because they know that I am good at what I do and I treat my employees with dignity and respect. They don’t want to lose a good supervisor and have told that to upper management. It won’t make a difference, but it’s nice to know I have their support.

    At some point we have to stop the sophomoric name calling and start working together. Yes, the Postal Service is in financial crisis. Yes, there has been mismanagement. Yes, we need Congress to pass HR-22 to help us survive, but we all need to do our part. That means not pointing fingers. It means that we have to recognize a common goal: to make sure the USPS survives. This isn’t just about us and whether we have a job until we retire. If the Postal Service fails, our entire economy will collapse.

    Each employee must do their part. Those who are “retired on the clock” get the lead out. Either retire for real or get back to work (even if you only have 70 days to go)! For those of you who do your job but drag it out to last 8 hours ask yourself, “If I owned this company, would I be happy with my performance today?” If you can’t honestly say “yes” then step up the pace. Carriers back by 5? OK, but some of you can be back by 3 and drag it out to 5. Don’t do it. The job you save just might be your own.

  7. Everybody have 2 routes deliver one mon,wed, fri..the other route tues,thur, sat.git ridd or half work force

  8. Until they revamp and severely down size the entire Postal management system, this ship is headed for the rocks. There seems to be higher ups in here who have a stake in seeing that we fail. Alot of money is to be made by whoever gets to skim off the cream after we sink. This is also happening in our Federal Government. Don’t trust the one world government pushers. They want to Socialize and control the Middleclass. So there is no Middleclass.

  9. I don’t know what area you are in but here in the Northeast most Postmasters( level 13-18) put in over 40 hours….work through lunch, come in early, stay late and aren’t compensated for it. There are a lot of dedicated employees, both craft and management who go above and beyond….and there are alot of slugs who milk the system and are adding to it’s decline in both craft and mamnagement , too. Which one are you??

  10. Joseph sounds correct to me. My last 2 post masters that came to my office didn’t even know that there were different classes of mail—they both got promoted. Can’t even find a post master within 50 miles of where I work that puts in more than 25 hours a week. All management has destroyed the post office.

  12. OBAMA! U GOT 2 B OUT OF YOUR AL-GORE. HE IS IN THE PROCESS OF DESTROYING EVERYTHING THAT IS GREAT ABOUT THIS COUNTRY AND U GUYS WANT HIM TO SOLVE R PROBLEMS? HOW ABOUT THIS, LET OSAMA DO HIS WORST ON RECKING R ECOMONY EVEN WORST THAN THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION AND WE WORK ON FIXING R MANY PROBLEMS OURSELVES. WHAT R WE PAYING OUR UNION DUES FOR? HOWS THIS SOUND? IF YOUR HANDS DON’T TOUCH THE MAIL. YOUR GONE. IF WHAT WE DO DOESN’T MAKE THE POST OFFICE ANY MONEY. STOP DOING IT. NOW! THE SOLUTION 2 R PROBLEMS ISN’T GETTING RID OF CARRIERS, CUTTING ROUTES AND HIRING MORE 2R4B’S. POST OFFICE COULD GET RID OF HALF THE SUPERVISORS NATIONWIDE AND IT WOULD HAVE ZERO IMPACT ON DELIVERING THE MAIL. WHATEVER DOESN’T MAKE MONEY FOR PO. STOP IT IMMEDIATELY.

  13. Cut out the waste and do it with haste! Pass HR 22. Cut the basses(uh, I mean bosses)who we don’t need. Bill Young, just retired NALC prez,
    says we could do without 60,000 supervisors and
    all the mail would still get delivered. If the situation is so dire why is the USPS spending
    millions on TV ads about Priority Shipping and
    T-shirts? Then Mgmnt wants to cut to five day
    delivery. Day #6 gives us an advantage over UPS and FedEx at a better price.

  15. stubborness!…..they are trying to pull every rabbit out of their hat that they could,so they can avoid the obvious…….get rid of the useless managers.they hired too many years ago.they sure take care of their own dont they!!

  16. What do you expect. Management has three basic characteristics.
    1. They were promoted because they could not do their craft job.
    2. There is no minimum education required.
    3. Management has no leadership or people skills.

    It is not isolated. From top to bottom, and from coast to coast, the ineptness is rampant.

  17. Hey Nekki,

    For starters I don’t believe one word of your post. You’re most likely a union thug. Second if you really did DJ a NAPS christmas party then it must have been all PCES there. The so called PFP dictates how much of a raise you get. If your at the max of the EAS payscale you get a lump sum payment. There are no bounses. I’m sure you will spend the last 70 days like most of your career, in the union office only to come out for overtime.

  19. OK, I’ve got 70 days left and I don’t give a rip. I will tell you the problem. I had the (mis)fortune of being allowed to DJ a NAPS Christmas party. The only topic of conversation and speeches were the bonuses. All the problems in the USPS stem from managerial bonuses. Stop the bonuses and all problems stop. Lost revenue? Yeah, it all goes into their pockets. Going home early? Good for you! You’re only assuring their bonus.
    Wake up Sheeple! There are no merit raises in the USPS. Want to know what you’re working for? I’m in FERS and I get a whopping $485 a month for retirement.
    Shed no tears for the jerks that destroyed the USPS.

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