NAPS Executive Vice President pens commentary on behalf of Federal-Postal Coalition
We take so much for granted in America today. From clean water, to consistent electric power to a safe food supply; we go about our daily lives without a care about these everyday services. Sure, we are concerned about gun violence, problems in the Middle East, having enough money to retire or pay for our children’s education and a myriad of other global or personal concerns.
When the recent Boston Marathon was struck by terrorists, law enforcement, the medical community and just regular people all stepped up to help the victims. Swiftly and efficiently, members of federal, state and local law enforcement did their work to apprehend the perpetrators and they are still continuing their investigation. As we travel through life in America, whether it be in a car, a train or a plane, there is someone whose job it is to make sure you get their safely. When you sit at a restaurant, ride in an elevator or go to a dentist or a doctor, there is someone who is making sure that the food is safe, the elevator is inspected and that the doctor or dentist is qualified; that person is a government employee. Right now government employees are one of the most beleaguered groups in the country. As the effects of sequestration are being felt in more places around the country, federal employees are bearing the brunt of the inability of the U.S. Congress to resolve the federal budget problems. We saw the effect on air travel recently when flight delays and cancellation starting mounting. Because the Congress uses air travel to come and go from their frequent recesses, as well as caters to those who fly the skies frequently, that certainly got fixed quickly.
But, in other agencies, things won’t get fixed so fast. In the federal court system, up to 2,000 employees could be furloughed for 15 days as a result of sequestration. Support for vital resources for our young and elderly with Head-Start programs and Meals-on-Wheels are also impacted. I saw a news report of a man who gave up his daily delivery of a hot meal as he thought someone else might be more in need. Besides the effects of the sequestration, federal and postal employees have endured consecutive years of pay freezes, some for up to three years. While all this is happening, those of us who are federal and postal employees get up every day and go to do our jobs the only way we know how – with our best effort. We have seen the power of outreach to legislators by other organizations and groups recently. Members of Congress do react to the calls of their constituents when their voices are heard loudly and frequently. Federal and postal employees could be the 800 gorilla in the room if we set our minds to it.
The Federal-Postal Coalition, of which our organization is a proud member, consists of over 30 federal and postal unions and associations that represent 5 million active and retired federal employees. Just imagine the impact that these employees could have if they lobbied in their own behalf. There wouldn’t be enough paper in fax machines or enough staff to open emails if we could just get every employee to contact their Member of Congress. As you get in your car, or get on a train to go to work today, don’t think about how lucky you are that you may be safe right now from the effects of sequestration. Instead, think about your fellow federal employees who are on a furlough today, or the young child who can’t go to pre-school today, the cancer patient who won’t get treatment or the senior citizen who won’t hear the knock on their door for their only contact with a living person from the outside world who is delivering the only hot food they will have for the day. As federal and postal employees, we have to more than just give our best effort at work every day.
We also have to become citizen activists and communicate with our elected official to let them know we are tired of waiting for them to do their job and fix the budget. If you have now read up until this point, I’m almost done. The question is; after you finish reading this, what are you going to do? If you are just going to continue what you were doing, and get up tomorrow morning for the daily grind, then I have failed in my effort. Instead, you need to get on your computer or pick up your phone or maybe even write a letter to your Member of Congress and tell them that you want them to stop the sequestration and pass a budget now! Let them know that you aren’t happy and that you vote too!
James F. Killackey III
Executive Vice President
National Association of Postal Supervisors
Nevermind you need to open your eyes and look at the wasted hours from a lot of your coworkers and probably yourself also. There may be some as what you like to call brown nosers but there are supervisors who are hard workers and have to pick up the slack of a lot of employee waste. We have supervisors busting their asses to make sure the mail is out every day to the carriers because all the hard workers are out sick every day, probably 12 to 15% every day and that may be low numbers. They are running machines and sorting manual mail but thanks to them and some hard working employees the carriers get their mail and are on the streets on time for the most part daily. Now when you talk about waste from upper management I will agree there is a lot of waste because all they know how to do is look at a computer screen and make decisions that way. They need to bring their sorry asses out on the workroom floors and see all the people working by themselves on machines and supervisors working machines because lack of help or more because of all the call outs. I could give a rats ass about any of those people up stairs and will keep doing my job because I do care about the people we promised a service to when we signed on at the Post Office and will not let upper management incompetence or some sorry ass coworkers from doing that service to the best of my ability. Everyone wants to piss and moan about mismanagement and whatever but if you know how to do your job do it and hopefully our customers will be satisfied and keep buying our products and the person you see in the mirror every day is proud of what you have done to make that happen. If you are still not happy then there are lines of people out there who would love to have your job, money and benefits give it to them and go to work somewhere else.
Glad I took the money and ran. Run Forrest run.
The security in a federal job is not there anymore and the benefits are slowly declining. It not worth the trouble to try to hang on to a job for thirty years to get a small pension.
Federal jobs pay more and have better benefits than the private sector. Federal jobs do not depend on the bottom
line as corporations that reduce employees to reduce expense. Federal jobs serve a need and will be funded.
Security is guaranteed in the Federal system as need is the driving force and not dollar cost.
Would not recommend working for the federal government to anybody. Federal employees are slowly seeing all their benefits being taking away. Now they want to take away our federal health benefits. If they get away with this it will be our pensions next. I strongly advise anybody who does not have much time invested in working for the federal government to start looking for another job.
100% PRIVATIZATION,100% GUARRANTY POST OFFICE EARN PROFIT AND PAY TAX. SO WE DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM ANYMORE.
I’m a member of the nlrca lost OVER $10,000 in pay from the last b.s. mail count, always rigged by upper managment They need to get rid of top heavy managment getting paid over 90,000 a year and they don’t want to work 6 days a week what a joke but I have too. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, jack ASS
how about quit giving handouts to people who have be on the governments tit for years and take care of the ones who actually work.This administration has done nothing to help government employees except get them killed in Bengahzi. this clown whom NALC endorsed could give a rats ass about our jobs. His goal is to get as many people on the government tit as possible . handouts equal votes. welcome to the new socialist states of America.
Taken for a ‘ride’ sometimes and for chumps at other times ! Just consider Part time Flexies and a Supreme Court decision – – just like installing a President , was THEIR call !
Dear Nevermind
Either your caps key is broken, or you need to go back to second grade. Dope.
Just give me my saturdays off…. Enough said!!!
dear james killackey III,
you obviously don’t have a clue. you say in your ‘fluff’ piece, “..get up every day and go to do our jobs the only way we know how — with our best effort.”….lol, who the heck are you trying to kid? this malarkey
might go over big when you are speaking with your fellow incompetent supervisors at your annual pep rally, but it just doesn’t pass the smell test for those of us that know about postal management. the fact of the matter is that a large percentage of postal supervisors are incompetent slugs that are lazy and clueless and would not last 1 week
as an employee of a ‘real company’ that had some standards for its managers. the truth of the matter is that postal supervisors are for the most part a bunch of brown-nosing
incompetents that help upper postal management hide from the public the true amount of waste, fraud, corruption, and incompetence that
exists within the postal service. team up with postal supervisors you suggest? i think not! while my standards may be very low regarding human decency, i do have some standards and postal supervisors certainly fall below the cut off level.
You hit the nail on the head. It’s up to the Unions and it’s members to get active and protect what has been hard earned thru all the years. It seems that everyone is just willing to forgo all their benefits. If we all wait for results than it’s going to be too late to do anything.
We need millions of Federal workers to start getting involved and not wait for someone else to do what needs to be done.