Feb. 6, 2014—The Senate committee with Postal Service oversight, the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, finished on Feb. 6 its mark-up of the modified Carper-Coburn postal bill, S. 1486, and approved the measure by a vote of 9 to 1.
As written, S. 1486 would facilitate the end of door delivery and the elimination of Saturday delivery, thereby destroying tens of thousands of letter carrier jobs. It also would jeopardize the Postal Service’s comeback by slowing service and driving away business.
NALC President Fredric Rolando has issued the following statement on today’s Senate committee action:
If the full Senate considers postal legislation, it should be in the form of a manager’s amendment that focuses on solutions to the real issues facing the Postal Service—pre-funding, pricing, new products and pension surpluses.
Unnecessary and damaging attacks on the Postal Service’s vital networks and its employees—such as those unfortunately included in S. 1486—would only send the USPS on a downward trajectory.
In restoring financial stability to the USPS, it is critical to remember this fact: The Postal Service is now running an operating profit—$623 million last year and $1.1 billion projected by USPS for this year—and so it makes no sense to degrade the networks and employees responsible for this profit. The congressional mandate to pre-fund future retiree health benefits, required of no other business or agency, accounts for 100 percent of the red ink.
Paving the way for eliminating six-day delivery and door-to-door service would hurt millions of residents and small businesses as well as the Postal Service itself, because it would slow service, drive mail out of the system and reduce the earned revenue that funds USPS.
The postal turnaround is being driven by an improving economy and by online shopping that has sent package revenues to record highs. Lawmakers should not stop the resulting postal comeback in its tracks by needlessly degrading the networks and reducing the services that are making the USPS operationally profitable. That is the fatal flaw in S. 1486.
How the committee voted
The official vote was 9 to 1 to move S. 1486 out of committee. Proxy votes (4-2 against the measure) are “for the record” but do not count toward the official vote total.
YES
Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)
Mark Begich (D-AK)
Tom Carper (D-DE), chairman
Tom Coburn (R-OK), ranking member
Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND)
Ron Johnson (R-WI)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Mike Enzi (R-WY, proxy)
John McCain (R-AZ, proxy)NO
Jon Tester (D-MT)
Tammy Baldwin (D-WI, proxy)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA, proxy)
Rand Paul (R-KY, proxy)
Rob Portman (R-OH, proxy)
Ignorance is bliss. You have “Retired”, stating, “let the p.o. pass away”. He does not read to understand, if this bill passes his health care cost increase because the p.o. will be able to push retirees into medicare and part D will not be paid for by the p.o. any longer. Also if the p.o. starts its own health group as the bill reads, retiree costs might explode because it would not include other federal employees, just the p.o.s’. Plus he’s got his, screw you, I could care less about anyone else.
“Get Real” doesn’t remember that in the 1990s’ the APWU sold out the Transitional employees, who stuck around for 20 years and started the divide in new hire wages & benefits.
The most recent APWU contract made that divide worse and Cliff and his administration were voted out for Jamie D.
So much for one big union, when one craft negotiates a lousy contract and sets the example for the p.o. to work on the arbitator to follow the lower standard established by that first give in craft. Why should there be “one” big union??
COLCPE $$$ are not given to every Democratic senator or congressonial rep.
Yes I’m disappointed, but are you going to do anything more than just whine on line and hope someone else does the work necessary to fight this in the full senate when it comes up for consideration??
I can wait till 2017 for weekends…. Can you??? Saturday …. It’s coming !!
Rolando is a Disgrace…Open your eyes people…The unions do nothing for the worker…All they want is your money…5 day here we come and the pathetic union can do nothing about it….
Postal Employees need a new Union, one that represents all the Employees. Once that is accomplished they need to cooperate with management to ensure the survival of the Postal Service rather than the Union working for the Union. Just look at the dialog the Unions are putting forth….1. Stop the prefunding of health care benefits..2. Use excess retirement payments to shore up current costs…3. No need to prefund worker’s compensation…..4. The Unions have agreed to lower starting pay for new hires lower payments for their health insurance. These are all Union ideas to keep the Postal Service solvent.
We need a Union that is going to work toward keeping the Postal Service viable, cost effective for all the Employees not self serving trying to maintain a fat bloated workforce in order to ensure a rather large Dues base….All our contracts have gone to arbitration, why do we need such a over staffed Union at what I consider over compensated…..Time for change is upon us.
When I
I count six Democrats.
Where are the so called friends of the NALC???? They just take the COLCPE money and do anything they want. DONT GIVE TO COLCPE!!!
Support the decision of Senators, lol…….
Keep sending money to colcep, our democratic senators are really standing by us. Feel the knife in your back yet?
It’s time to stop and let the postal service pass away in peace. All the talk about new products, i.e. non banking services are far beyond the scope and intent of the postal service’s mission. Face it, without a government sanctioned monopoly on the products provided by the postal service, its not possible for it to compete with private sector businesses, nor should a government agency be allowed to compete in the private sector.
The postal service has completed its mission in good form, now its time to let go.
The Senate is going to stop home delivery and the Postal Service has a shortage of cluster boxes. Figure this out and how it is suppose to reduce operating costs. Extra charge for expediting manufacturing and installation of cluster boxes.
Unfortunately the bill does not eliminate Saturday delivery, but provides a method in which declining mail volume will trigger the elimination, only after 4 consecutive quarters of mail volume below 140 billion pieces per quarter.