The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 12 advanced the Postal Service Reform Act of 2016 (H.R. 5714), a bipartisan bill introduced by leaders of the committee.
Below is a statement from National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando in response to the legislation:
While this legislation is not perfect and contains unacceptable reductions in door delivery, NALC appreciates the committee’s dedication to working together and with stakeholders in a bipartisan manner to restore financial stability to this vitally important agency.
Today’s committee action on this House bill is step one in a very long process for Congress. As the bill is currently drafted, we would oppose its final passage. But there will be plenty of opportunity to address the deficiencies in this bill.
In particular, we believe that stakeholders will come to see how detrimental the door delivery cuts contained in the bill would be for this agency and for businesses around the country that depend on a strong Postal Service network.
In fact, more than 200 House members agree with us, having co-sponsored a bipartisan House resolution (H. Res. 28) calling for the preservation of door delivery.
As the legislative process moves forward, we will seek other improvements in the bill as well.
NALC and the strong coalition of postal unions, industry stakeholders and the Postal Service are committed to working with committee leadership to reach consensus on legislation that we all can support.
Give me a buyout
All smoke and mirrors in an election year. Nothing has happened nor is going to with Postal Reform until our paychecks bounce when we cash them. Until then the political game continues.
The proposed Postal Service Health Benefits Program (PSHBP) is a dangerous move. It put all postal employees and retirees in a separate risk pool from the rest of the employees/retirees in FEHBP. This risk pool will have its own health plans and although actuarially equivalent to FEHBP they could be different and will certainly have a different cost structure. Most likely, over time the PSHBP will have fewer choices than FEHBP and may become more costly. It makes it much easier to target postal employees/retirees with coverage changes should the Postal Service continue to loose business and their ability to pay. Also, forcing Medicare eligible participants to enroll in Medicare (they now have a choice to enroll or not) to retain their earned health care is simply an unfair change and could be very costly for some retirees. Health care change has no place in this bill and should be stricken. Health care is a topic for negotiation at the bargaining table as the APWU has just done.
Can’t help but notice that both the House and Senate bills still insist that the Postal Service must pre pay health care costs! Why is it that the Postal Service, and only the Postal Service, must pre pay health care costs? Why not require every other organization to pre pay health care? The answer is, the people on the Right want the Postal Service sold off so business bastards can make lots and lots of money! And have their employees work for free.
Buy me out
The VA had a way of cooking the books and got caught: then the sec of the VA resigned! The postal service got ahead of the curve and changed the BONUS into Performance award after the AIG fiasco. What the post office wants to do is get skeleton crews in all districts an have nothing but temp’s or CCA’s and CCE’s (temps) to be the main work force! Nothing but a receipe for disaster! The American people need to have better quality of workers in places like the post office and the VA as well as in any government agency! I honestly think these people get up in the morning and eat a box of stupid pills before work and then act like it’s business as usual! Go figure…..
exactly right about the future workforce
It’s amazing how they the postal service will champion a fight against any legislation that will be non beneficial to them but at the same time call it a tragedy to operate like this in such a way that all American will hurt from this but out of the same mouths that say these things they will not give a fair and realistic contract to the very people that are the glue that holds the organization together-the EMPLOYEES! They would rather make-up some bogus reports and call these numbers for jacked-up reports to look good so they call it a performance award! REALLY