WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Susan Collins, one of the lead sponsors of bipartisan, comprehensive postal reform, received praise for her leadership on the issue from the U.S. Postal Service Inspector General.
David C. Williams wrote to Senator Collins to express his appreciation for her work to put the Postal Service on a financially viable path.
Senator Collins’ bill includes a one-year moratorium on closures of small, rural post offices unless there is no significant community opposition to the closure. It encourages the Postal Service to work with the community to explore options such as co-locating a post office within a retail store or sharing space with government agencies. Senator Collins authored a key provision that would result in the continued operation of the Eastern Maine Processing Center in Hampden by mandating certain overnight delivery standards in some areas. In Maine, reliable overnight delivery service would be impossible without both the Eastern Maine facility in Hampden and the Southern Maine plant in Scarborough. The Hampden plant could not be closed as long as these standards become law.
Inspector General Williams’ letter is attached.
May 1 , 2012
The Honorable Susan Collins
Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland
Security and Governmental Affairs
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator Collins:
I wanted to express my appreciation and congratulations for your extraordinary
efforts to put the U.S. Postal Service on a path to long-term financial viability.
Members of both parties together created workable compromises that provide
valuable and important provisions in the legislation, critical to the financial
viability of the Postal Service.
I hope that the House will now follow your lead in helping to position one of this
nation’s greatest and oldest institutions for future success.
Sincerely,
David C. Williams
Inspector General
And while we’re thanking people, APWU union officials would like to thank all it’s lemmings and their dues money for that fantastic retirement plan only us union bosses have.
While you are worrying about whether you’ll retire or whether the APWU will be able to save our jobs or whether you’ll get a VERA (which APWU is against), the following might interest you about something you have paid for with your union dues that you will be unable to enjoy like our union officers do:
APWU Officers Qualified Retirement Plan is a 401k plan which has $55,398,175 net assets as of end of year, which is drastically more than the average for all Company 401k Plans. The plan has been in effect since 7/1/1971, and is a Multiple-Employer.
Participants
The APWU Officers Qualified Retirement Plan’s 401k plan has 119 active participants , which is slightly more than the average for all Company 401k Plans. The APWU Officers Qualified Retirement Plan 401k plan has 102 retired or separated participants receiving benefits, which is drastically more than the average for all Company 401k Plans.
So contact APWU today for a piece of their pie! You stewards should also contact them! Wonder why nothing is posted bout this on APWU.org. You didn’t know about this? You should ask bout it at the next union meeting. You should ask…and keep paying dem dues bruthas n sistas sos we can continue raking in the dough.
USPS must be reformed as the means for using Postal Service as the communicator in the era of advance communication technology as reduced the need for using primitive means of purchasing a postage stamp and depositing written message in the postal system for 2-3 day delivery to a physical address is past history. Politicans must face reality and reform need of USPS to meet demand for use of services or subsidize to continue to waste money for services not in demand. Mail volume has declined to the point that revenue has decreased resulting in massive monatary losses such as 5.1 billion dollars ytd and politicans want to continue playing post office for political reasons and the majority of Americans could care less. 6 day mail street delivery is a wasted expense as even treasury dept. and social security admn. are requiring direct deposit for checks by march 2013.
The trend in demand by business is go paperless conduct business on line and customers are being rewarded by doing so.
Neighborhood post offices contribute very little to the need for postal use in the 21st century. Stamps can be purchased at national grocery and retail drug stores.
Changing demographics over time has reduced the need for smaall community post offices that in many instances are within a 5-6 radius of each other. Small offices postmasters pay is outrageous at $63000.-$72000. for selling stamps and boxing mail with no delivery or 2-3 rural routes.
Politicans play the game of politics, parties and pressure groups in using the post office as a ploy in their hidden persuader attempt to gain favor votes.
That’s what we do!
Senator Coburn should resign his seat on the Senate. He is a right wing wacko that just talks B.S. just to hear himself talk! Has no knowledge of legislation Or law! The simple minded put the freak in office!!!
the pmg taking a pay-cut, are you kidding me? this bill ain’t gonna look like anything this senator got kudos for. this process is gonna drag out and screw all the craft workers including our finest vets. i’m sorry for the poor attitude, but morale is rock bottom and from past experinces getting screwed ain’t letting up to soon. crafts are taking the pay-cuts and i’m not kidding.
What is this a mutual admiration society? Writing letters back and forth isn’t getting any thing done for the employees who are waiting to learn their collective fates. Why even print a story about these kiss asses in the first place? All this patting each other on the back stuff makes me feel like throwing up! Bunch of BS that’s all it is. Goes to show you how far they’ve got their heads up their asses.
I have written this outline a year ago how to save the post office and hire 280000 vets. End saturday delivery except for parcels, priority mail and express mail. Pluis continue to pick-up mail. Keep the post offices open on saturday so people can do tranactions. For FERS employees give them the same retirement that congress gives themselfs. For the CRCS give them thier retirement pluis $500.00 for every year served. Phase the Vets in over a 6 months increments. These new hires would come in at entry level, which is half the wage of the top career employee. These Vets should enjoy the same career that I enjoyed. Stop prefunding retierement and health care to the current level of X many years. HELP OUR YOUNG VETS NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2012 2:57 am
Its amazing to me that a Congressman Darrell Issa is more powerful than 62 senators…(1789) and 229 Congressman(Hr1351)…man that guy spits in their presence…he must be one bad dude the rest of congress must have NO BALLS
That’s the problem here, No bill is going to go to house floor anytime soon. Just doesn’t work that way. What a shame the way they string all these people along like this. I don’t agree with closing massive post offices down. But where I live we have a processing plant and 3 other little post offices. We don’t need those small branches.. Tell ya the truth I think it would be a great idea having branches in grocery stores. I do know just hearing Senator McCain’s name makes my skin crawl. It’s very obvious what his agenda is. He should be ashamed of himself.. Once again it shows me how the Republican party is not for the working people. All for the rich and the rich getting richer!! I think postmaster should of stood his ground about closures maybe it would push the house to work on this bill and make it happen. Who knows. Post master general is a train wreck. Something has to happen here and soon!!!
We will never pass anything that doesn’t enrich the rich further and that gives the average worker anything!
” Why isn’t anyone reporting on that?”
They are reporting… read below…you have these three assholes along with all the assholes in the house along with all the assholes running the post office along with all the far rightwing assholes that only want their agenda pushed on the people.
No more for the poeple by the people crap.
“On the other hand, three Republicans — Sen. John McCain (AZ), Sen. Tom Coburn (OK), and Sen. Bob Corker (TN) — are urging Donahoe to quickly implement planned cutbacks. “Despite the Senate’s passage last week of S. 1789, the 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2012, we believe it is very unlikely that both the House and Senate will come to agreement on legislation that reforms the postal system anytime soon and strongly encourage you to move forward with the cost-saving changes you have previously outlined,” they wrote.
In other words, “Implement the closures.” The ones the PMG never mentioned?”
I look at this site every day, all I want to know is when is the House going to be voting on our bill S1789? Why isn’t anyone reporting on that? Are we on the agenda anytime soon or what? I don’t care about all the other stuff, just when is this thing going to pass, we get out VERA early out, and the rest of the poor young postal workers can breathe a sign of relief for their job future, and we can get on with the rest of our lives. Why is Congress taking so long when they know our financial situation and our dire running out of time delima? Congressional proceedure is crap. Everything takes wayyyy tooooo long.