The bipartisan budget agreement, approved by the House of Representatives on Thursday and expected to be considered by the Senate this coming week, will affect postal employees in at least four ways.
First, it will require new (and only new) federal and postal employees to contribute more toward their retirement benefits. Current employees will not be required to contribute more.
Federal employees hired after December 31, 2013 will be required to pay an additional 4.4 percent of their salary. This is the result of an additional 1.3 percent added by the budget agreement, on top of the 3.1 percent added by the 2011 budget law.
Second, the deal will essentially create a three-tiered system for pension contributions among federal and postal employees. Current employees hired any time before 2013 will continue to pay 0.8 percent of their salary. Employees hired in 2013 will pay 3.1 percent of their salary. And those hired after December 31, 2013 will pay the largest amount of their salary — 4.4 percent.
Third, the deal could heighten expectations among postal employees for a pay increase in 2014. While the budget agreement does not clear the way for a postal pay raise as it does to federal employees, there is a rough, corresponding relationship between federal and postal pay raises. The President earlier proposed a 1 percent raise for January 2014, and the budget agreement does not intervene to stop it, although Republicans pressed to continue the freeze during the budget negotiations. As a result, federal workers will get their first salary adjustment in four years, after three consecutive years of pay freezes. President Obama has announced that he plans to enact the pay raise for federal workers with a presidential order by the end of December.
And fourth, the budget agreement will allow the Office of Personnel Management to permit health insurance carriers participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to offer “self plus one” coverage to federal employees and retirees, in addition to “self” and “family coverage.” This is expected to lower premiums for some federal and postal employees and retirees in the future.
Overall, the additional retirement contributions by new federal and postal employees will save the government an estimated $6 billion over the next 10 years. While these changes will be painful for newly hired employees and depress federal and postal workforce compensation levels generally over the long term, they are markedly less than what some Congressional lawmakers — and the White House — originally proposed.
NAPS’ lobbying efforts (for example,see here), the of a broader coalition of federal, postal employee and retiree groups, and the strong support of Democratic budget negotiators were instrumental in reducing the magnitude of the budget cuts inflicted on the federal and postal workforce. Democratic lawmakers said retirement contributions were the last remaining issue of contention during the budget negotiations.
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Bruce Moyer
Legislative Counsel to NAPS
We recently got a new weekly piece of shit to deliver because the guy that used to deliver it wanted .10 a copy to deliver. The head guy said that the postal people would do it for .06 a copy so now we are stuck with it.It is time consuming, ratty and it falls apart all the time.
5 Day all the way
@JOHHNY BOY LONG SHITLAND,
WEll the GOP never gave my snausages/sadnwiches away , NOW did they.???
You look like an unwiped butt head..
Kralph did you read the budget…The no votes on the bill came from republicans….The republicans are the ones who gave the store away…Open your eyes…Read newspaper, Watch some Political TV shows….Typical winning Dem….
Can anyone tell me what the Republicans gave up in the budget deal? I know the Dems gave the store away!
I saw this coming……started to accumulate UPS & FDX stock in 1999(trading stocks since 1969). worked out just fine. saw the corrupt po mismanagement, stupid diversity for sake of diversity and not talent based mismanagement, 3rd class junk mail that is costing the po money, not making money. po needs john taffer from bar rescue to come in and kick ass. the morons in mismgt who ran it into the dirt are not the bureaucrats who are going to fix it. low cost PSE labor will not be mismgt’s holy grail……..its all dry rot and termite infested mess. ps just judy is most likely a lite duty slug looking for a free obammy phone.
@CTPN KACK, SHUT UP and eat my sandwicthches….NO?
eliminate saturday delivery and cut management in half .problem solved
If only employees would produce 5 or 6 hours of every 8 instead of getting paid 10 hours for 6 – 7 hours productivity. If that were true there would be no deficit in the PO.
THIS will be a huge hedaches for my loyals employees that contuies to grind out my saddnwiches on a dailey basis.
What if I mades my’s emplyees start having’s to pay for their own toilet paper when they go number 2 (too) ? This retirment benfit I had to add in, because of my immoral sadnnwcihe union, cost me lotts of extra money.
Yes, my sdnwiche makers (employee’s) use allot of toiets paper when they pooh, and they takes many rolls home, thus costing me some swgcwichs profits and thus making me think about raizing my prices (on my sdwansdcihes), thus making me me have to lay off my russian cohorts.
We need to send to Congress, and by fax, or texkts, or by FED-EX, mt sandwiches, and the only’s problems with this is, I will haves great difficulties in getting my smghcndwiches through those fiber optic lines that go true the ground.
Maybe hand deilvered sjftandwcihes would be better, and less mold on them to (two)..
The only explanation I can come up with concerning the ridiculous rates for junk mail is bribes by the direct marketers to those who approve the sales. Management has demonstrated again and again they can be bought, influenced, or otherwise persuaded to do what any outside interest wants if the price is right. So it’s not much of a stretch to at least suspect that there are hands being heavily greased concerning bulk mail rates, because nothing else would make sense. Of course, that’s standard for USPS management, too. I won’t rule out the possibility they are short changing themselves just because they’re fucking stupid, either.
Oh Iggy!
Yeah. The amount of OT its costing the USPS to deliver all this dirt cheap bulk mail and 3rd bundles is astronomical. They’ve turned the PO into a glorified paperboy service and all these big mailing companies are making a fortune off of us.
If the Postal Service charged a REASONABLE rate for junk mail, they would have a gigantic budget surplus instead of sinking further into bankruptcy and robbing the employees to SUBSIDIZE the corporate world which has become the pathetic norm due to the organized system of BRIBERY known as “lobbying”.
So is the social security supplement still safe