National Association of Postal Supervisors
Postal Legislative/Regulatory Update
January 29, 2010

The National Association of Postal Supervisors has warned key Senate and House leaders of potential abuse that may occur in the Postal Service’s administration of its pay-for-performance system covering 75,000 USPS managers, supervisors and postmasters.   Such abuse, NAPS projects, could result in a salary loss of at least $500 to $800 by each affected employee, effective February 5.
 
In letters to the chairmen of the Senate and House panels that oversee the Postal Service, NAPS President Ted Keating warned, “Based upon anecdotal information learned by our members in the field, we have reason to believe that lax enforcement by upper-level management within the Postal Service of pay-for-performance goals could arbitrarily reduce the performance assessments and salary increases of an unspecified number of management employees … Any action by the Postal Service that revises performance goals at the end of a performance period unfairly moves the goalposts and undermines confidence in the validity of pay-for-performance.”
 
The Postal Service on February 5 is slated to provide notification to each management employee of his or her 2009 increase in base salary, based upon the attainment of pre-set performance goals and objectives under the National Performance Assessment (the USPS pay-for-performance system) for the 2009 fiscal year, which ended September 30, 2009.  Those performance goals have been set through a negotiated pay agreement reached between the Postal Service, NAPS and the two other management associations. The pay agreement conditions a management employee’s receipt of any annual salary increase upon that employee’s success in achieving or exceeding the pre-set performance goals and objectives.
 
NAPS is strongly encouraging all its members and other EAS employees who believe their performance goals to have been wrongly adjusted, once they receive word of their salary adjustment on February 5, to file an appeal through eRecourse, the USPS internal appeal process. For Information on eRecourse and filing an appeal, click here.
 
“eRecourse will be our member’s first avenue of appeal,” Keating explained.  “If any improper adjustment of pre-set goals is not made right through eRecourse, we will go to Congress for correction,” he promised.
 
In recent letters to Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) and Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), Keating noted that NAPS has “received no assurance from the Postal Service that it intends to follow-through and award salary increases based upon the previously-set performance goals — goals on which management employees aligned their sights and worked hard to attain, achieving some of the highest levels of service attained by the Postal Service.” 
 
“While all postal managers and supervisors are deeply concerned about the Postal Service’s financial condition, the same concerns did not dissuade the Postal Service from awarding significant salary increases — in the tens of thousands of dollars — to many of its executive-level employees during the past year,” Keating added.