USPS ‘Incentive’ Program Results In 19,000 APWU-Craft Retirements

Posted on by Lu

Approximately 19,000 USPS employees in APWU-represented crafts will retire or separate from the Postal Service before Dec. 1 and receive a $15,000 incentive under an agreement negotiated by the union.

A Memorandum of Understanding creating the incentive program was signed on Aug. 24. “This agreement achieved a long-standing objective of the APWU,” said union President William Burrus.

The agreement applied to non-probationary career postal employees in the APWU bargaining unit; the incentive was offered to eligible employees who terminated their service through Optional (Regular) Retirement, Voluntary Early Retirement, or separation. (Eligible PTR and PTF employees received offers of proportional percentages of the incentive.)

It included employees in the Clerk Craft, Maintenance Craft, Motor Vehicle Services Craft, mail equipment shops, material distribution centers, and occupational health nurses, with some exceptions and limitations.

Not covered by the agreement were employees who were issued a notice of discharge on or before Aug. 24; MPE 9s, ET 10s, and ET 11s who could not be replaced without training; Operating Services employees; employees in the Accounting Services section of the IT/ASC bargaining unit, probationary employees, and Transitional Employees.

Depending on whether they were eligible for early or regular retirement, employees were required to apply for retirement by Sept. 25 or express interest by that date. Some employees can revoke their decisions until the effective date of retirement, so the final tally could be significantly lower than the 19,738 reported by the USPS.

According to the unofficial numbers as of Sept. 25, approximately 3,000 Mail Handlers, who received an offer virtually identical to the APWU-negotiated agreement, also took part in the USPS retirement-incentive program

Requests                                                   Optional      VER       Separations           Total
Week ending Sept. 4                              10,164          0          111                            10,275
Week ending Sept. 11                               3,387        1,056  38                              4,481
Week ending Sept. 18                               1,913         1,073  107                             3,093
Week ending Sept. 25                                940            667    282                             1,889
TOTAL                                                   16,404      2,796      538                           19,738*

* All figures are unofficial. Because some employees can revoke their decisions until the effective date of retirement, the final tally may be lower. source: APWU

9 thoughts on “USPS ‘Incentive’ Program Results In 19,000 APWU-Craft Retirements”

  1. i agree with sam, worked 31yrs 9mo was told no incentive, after loosing my husband in 02, my son in 05, and my best friend 6 mo later, it was hard for me to go to work and my desire to serve died so i had to go to stay sane,31yrs no displinary action against me til 2008, i believe mr.burris knew what was going down from the get go.

  2. First of all Burrus advised APWU craft to wait. If you did not, no one to blame but yourself. Also people keep mentioning taxes are taken out. OF COURSE TAXES ARE TAKEN OUT! IT’S INCOME!!! I retired last year after 40 yrs. Didn’t get the incentive. That’s the breaks. Life is not always fair.

  3. I understand the people that retired at the end of Sept. received their 10 grand after taxes, etc came to 7800.00.

  4. Yes, it was said that if we retired Oct. 31, 2009 we would receive 10 grand minus fed, state, soc. sec and whatever else they can take from our check. We would receive the money mid November to late November. Now, I hear it is Dec. 11, 2009 or is it even 2009????? I guess our union will let them drag it out as long as they want since they got rid of us like they wanted. No one wanted to leave more than I. I feel we need to be compensated and to get paid the interest on our ten grand that it accumulated for as long as they drag it out. Has anyone looked into this. Our union. DUH!

  6. The fact that everyone who left on Aug 24th or before will not receive the 10,000, just shows that Burrus does not treat all postal employees equally. That issue should have been included.
    No one can state that it is fair to omit employees who went through hell every day for 30 years, not to receive the same 10,000 dollars.

    Glad Burrus is leaving, the rotten backstabbing thug.

  7. Did too many people retire? is this the reason we have to wait until December 11 instead of the promised November 13 to collect the ten grand?It is an outrage!

  8. Postalvet – You would think the APWU web site doesn’t have this information because the USPS did not release it until today, maybe?

    Besides – what could you possibly glean from this information other than the number retiring? And what exactly do you need that information for?

  9. good job postal reporter.

    you would think the APWU web site would have this infomation, but sadly they do not.

Comments are closed.