APWU President Cliff Guffey will testify before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on Feb. 13 about “Solutions to the Crisis Facing the U.S. Postal Service.”
“I will tell members of the Senate Committee that they have a solemn duty to save the nation’s mail system,” the union president said. “The future of the Postal Service is in their hands.
“The Postal Service is in danger of financial collapse,” the union president noted, “but the cause of its financial difficulties are often misunderstood.”
“Congress must get to the root of the problem — the 2006 law that is pushing the Postal Service to the brink of bankruptcy,” he said. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act imposes a burden on the USPS that no other government agency or private company bears. It requires the Postal Service to “pre-fund” the healthcare benefits of future retirees and forces the USPS to pay for a 75-year obligation in just 10 years — at a cost of more than $5 billion annually.
The same law prohibits the USPS from raising postal rates to cover these exorbitant costs, Guffey noted.
“The demise of the Postal Service is not inevitable, as some people suggest,” Guffey said. “Congress can fix this.
“The Postal Service needs financial stability in order to provide service to all of America’s citizens and adapt to the nation’s communication needs in the digital age,” he said.
Other witnesses scheduled to testify are:
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) – Chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform
Rep. Elijah Cummings – Ranking Minority Member of the House Committee
Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe
Comptroller General Eugene L. Dodaro – Government Accountability Office
Jeanette P. Dwyer – President of the National Rural Letter Carriers Association
Robert J. Rapoza – President of the National Association of Postmasters of the U.S.
Joe Quadracci – Chairman, President and CEO of Quad/Graphics, Inc.
R. Richard Geddes – Associate Professor at Cornell University, who advocates postal privatization.
Is he eligible for the APWU Officer Only Retirement fund?
postal2, what post office do you work in you moron? I am a supervisor and I bust my ass in a plant for 10 hours a day side by side with clerks and mailhandlers because we are so understaffed and I don’t get any extra for it so let me know where they are getting that extra 1000 a week and maybe I can transfer there and get it also. Idiots like you haven’t a clue and make shit up as you go. What do you have 6 months in?
R.Richard Geddes a Professor of what? What knowledge of the Postal System does he have?
Just what company pay’s out in 10 years instead of the 75years it should and stay in business ? [for health/retirement] Where do they get these bone heads?
Is it Congress who wants to sell the Postal Service to pay off the debt ? If they do what cash cow is next? The Postal Service is the only government that can make a profit if Congress would leave us alone.Common sense say’s stop the large pay out on Postal Reform,start advertising on trucks, cut the number of lease car’s,cut the vice presidents in D,C, and many other supervisors that are not needed. and make shippers stop using rubber band and string to wrap bulk mail after all it’s the 21st century.
Jackie, Please refrain from comments. Your lack of intelliegence is glaring through the stupid window. When the 10 years pass most of the eligible employees who will ever retire will be gone.No more career employees. A total part-time workforce is what USPS wants and they will never retire. So the $75 Billion dollars go where? Case rested;
They ought to look into the EAS pay package. Supervisors don’t work a full day because they think they don’t have to. And the per diem!! Pocketing an extra $1,000 per week for per diem is disgraceful.
President Guffey,
We have your back!
Not the problem of prefunding, but it is the problems of corruption of those bloated management.