Washington, DC –Officially sworn in on October 8th, Postal Regulatory Commissioner Robert Taub assumed his new responsibilities, while Vice Chairman Mark Acton began his second term. They join PRC Chairman Ruth Y. Goldway and Commissioner Nanci Langley.

Currently, the Commission is engaged in crucial deliberations regarding the future of the United States Postal Service, including the number of its post offices, the level of service it will provide and its future financial stability.

Immediately prior to joining the PRC, Taub served as Special Assistant to United States Secretary of the Army John McHugh. Earlier, Taub worked in the U.S. House of Representatives, including service for a decade as Chief of Staff to then Congressman McHugh. He has extensive expertise with postal policy and was instrumental in developing the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. Taub also served for 12 years on the U.S. House of Representative’s Oversight & Government Reform Committee in a series of senior positions, including service as Staff Director of its former Postal Service Subcommittee.

Commissioner Acton was nominated to his first term by President George W. Bush in November of 2005 and subsequently nominated for a second term by President Barack Obama in May of 2011. He was elected by his fellow commissioners to serve a one-year term as Vice Chairman this past December. Prior to his appointment, Acton served as Chief of Staff at the former Postal Rate Commission, assisting in managing all aspects of agency operations since 2002.

Chairman Goldway said, “I am very pleased to welcome back Mark Acton whose diligence and sense of fairness have contributed to the widespread acceptance of Commission decisions. And I am enthusiastic in welcoming Robert Taub whose proven combination of professionalism and devotion to postal issues will add to our strength as an independent agency.”

ALEXANDRIA, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Jeanette P. Dwyer, a 30-year career postal employee, has been elected the first female national president in the 108-year history of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association (NRLCA). The election was held during the union’s 107th National Convention in Savannah, GA.

Dwyer, a native of Waccamaw, NC, leads a union with more than 106,000 members who serve as post offices on wheels. Rural letter carriers perform the same work as city letter carriers, but in their own vehicles from which they sell postal products. They also work under a different collective bargaining agreement that requires annual route examinations to ensure rural carriers deliver the maximum amount of mail each work day.

Dwyer assumes leadership as the Postal Service faces multi-billion-dollar deficits. “We all know the Postal Service must change to meet declining mail volume, but some of the proposed changes, such as eliminating six-day delivery, would deny many Americans, including those in rural areas, access to postal services they expect and deserve,” Dwyer said in her acceptance speech. “Most importantly,” she continued, “we encourage Congress to preserve six-day delivery, which ensures delivery of essential items such as prescription medications. If Saturday delivery is eliminated, customers would be left paying higher prices for other delivery options or would have to drive up to 40 miles round trip to the nearest post office.”

The NRLCA is an independent union who members include 106,551 full- and part-time rural letter carriers. Rural carriers deliver mail on 74,591 routes, serving almost 40 million customers and driving almost 3.5 million miles each delivery day in 50 states, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. The average route has more than 400 stops and 500 boxes.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will vote Oct. 13 on a bill that the APWU has denounced as “a reckless assault on postal services and postal employees.” The bill, H.R. 2309, is sponsored by Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL). The committee will Webcast its deliberations, which will begin at 9:30 a.m. The Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and Labor Policy approved the bill on Sept. 21 by a vote of 8-5.

The Legislative and Political Department has asked APWU members whose representatives serve on the committee to contact them and urge them to vote no.

“The bill would destroy the Postal Service as we know it,” President Cliff Guffey said.

The Issa-Ross bill calls for $1 billion worth of cuts in post offices in the first year and $2 billion worth of cuts in mail processing facilities in the second year.

It also would abrogate the Collective Bargaining Agreement by granting authority to a newly-established control board to carry out layoffs, despite any provisions in union contracts that might limit such actions. The bill says that employees who are eligible for retirement must be laid off before employees who are ineligible, and dictates that retirement-eligible employees with the longest service must be separated first.

“This is an outrageous assault on the fundamental principles of unionism – fairness and respect for seniority,” Guffey said.

The Postal Service has announced it wants to reduce the workforce by 220,000, and is seeking authority to lay off as many as 120,000, including tens of thousands of military veterans. H.R. 2309 would authorize the layoffs.

The bill also would empower a newly-created “solvency authority” to unilaterally cut wages and abolish benefits.

“H.R. 2309 fails to address the fundamental cause of the Postal Service’s financial difficulties,” said Legislative and Political Director Myke Reid. The bill does nothing to correct the requirement to pre-fund the healthcare benefits of future retirees, which forces the USPS to fund a 75-year liability in just 10 years, he said. No other government agency or private business is required to make these payments, which cost the Postal Service approximately $5.5 billion annually. The bill also fails to address billions of dollars in USPS overpayments to federal pension accounts, Reid noted.

“We call upon APWU members to step up their opposition to H.R. 2309 and their support for H.R. 1351,” Reid said.

H.R. 1351 would help provide the Postal Service financial stability by allowing the Postal Service to apply the pension overpayments to the pre-funding obligation. The bill, introduced by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), has 225 co-sponsors – including 26 Republicans – but Rep. Issa has refused to allow it to come up for a vote.

via House Committee to Vote on Issa Bill.

Postmaster General Pat Donahoe spoke to employees at the Morgan Processing and Distribution Center in New York City last Monday- Mailhandlers Union Local 300 has posted a summary of the PMG’s remarks- among the highlights:

Under the USPS’s proposed service cutbacks, large mailers will still be able to get next day delivery by dropping their mail at 8AM, or noon if it’s presorted. Post offices would start receiving their mail at 4PM- sorting would happen overnight, carriers would pick up their mail in the morning and go directly to the street.

Donahoe doesn’t think Congress will allow USPS to leave CSRS, but says future retiree’s pensions should be capped, with no COLA. He doesn’t see any VERAs any time soon- but in a year or so, there’s possibility of $10-20K incentive, and/or 2 or 3 years service credits. He said that if the USPS is allowed to leave FEHBP, a USPS Health Plan would be operated by a contractor, not by the USPS itself.

Donahoe thinks the Carper bill is the best deal for USPS, and says he opposes privatization, and doesn’t think it will happen. He doesn’t think Congress would pass either the Issa or Lynch bills.

Donahoe expects flexibility similar to the APWU contract in the other unions’ contracts. He says negotiations with the Mailhandlers and Letter Carriers won’t be extended after November 20, but would go straight to arbitration if there’s no agreement.

PMGinNYC

Local 300 National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

Darrell Issa has written a piece entitled “Delivering Postal Service Reform” for the National Review. Having read the article, we have edited it slightly for brevity, while preserving the spirit of the piece, as well as its complete analysis of the situation:

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The full text of the original article is available at the link below:

Delivering Postal Service Reform – By Darrell Issa – The Corner – National Review Online.