From NAPUS:

Today, NAPUS President Bob Rapoza and League of Postmasters President Mark Strong announced that an agreement has been reached with Postal Service representatives to continue Postmaster pay talks as long as progress is being made between the two parties.

Postmaster pay talks between USPS officials and the two Postmaster organizations began in mid-July, 2011 and concluded on November 9, 2011, when the Postal Service issued a final decision on the Postmaster EAS Pay Package for 2011-2015.

On November 16, 2011, NAPUS President Bob Rapoza requested and received unanimous approval from the NAPUS Executive Board to ask the Federal Mediation and Reconciliation Service (FMCS) to convene a fact finding panel to review the Postal Service’s final decision on the Postmaster Pay Package for 2011-2015. On the same evening, the League Executive Board gave the same authorization to President Mark Strong. In a historic action on November 17, 2011, both Postmaster organization Presidents filed a joint request with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, to convene a fact finding panel to review the Postmaster Pay Package for 2011-2015.

On December 6, 2011, NAPUS President Bob Rapoza and League President Mark Strong met with Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe and agreed to re-open Postmaster pay talks. This agreement was reached in the midst of the selection of a fact-finding panel from a list of panelist received from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. If no agreement was reached by the January 27, 2012 deadline, the fact-finding process would then resume.

On January 26, 2012, an agreement was reached between the Postal Service and the two Postmaster organizations (NAPUS and the League of Postmasters) to extend Postmaster pay talks until February 29, 2012. NAPUS President Bob Rapoza said that the talks should continue as long as meaningful discussions continue to move forward. Talks continued to focus on minimum and maximum salary range improvements, health benefits contribution rates and changes to the Performance Evaluation System (PES.)

Updates on the Postmaster pay talks will be posted on the NAPUS website as soon as information becomes available.

Charlie Moser

February 29, 2011

via NAPUS.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TransPerfect, the world’s largest privately held provider of language services and translation-related technologies, today announced a new relationship with The United States Postal Service (USPS). The USPS has set the goal of providing a complete online experience and more personalized services for its customers whose language preference is Spanish or Simplified Chinese. To this end, the USPS has enlisted TransPerfect services and technologies.

“I’m honored that we have the opportunity to work with the USPS. I’d also like to specifically thank all the individual team members from the USPS, TransPerfect, and other collaborating vendors, partners, and translators who pulled together and made this historic launch possible”

To help clients manage their multilingual websites, TransPerfect offers the GlobalLink® Product Suite, a family of technology products that includes OneLink, a solution designed specifically to reduce the time, effort, and complexities associated with operating a global e-commerce site. Relying on this technology, the USPS has successfully launched multilingual options for Spanish and Chinese on USPS.com, one of the most popular and heavily trafficked websites in the world.

“I’m honored that we have the opportunity to work with the USPS. I’d also like to specifically thank all the individual team members from the USPS, TransPerfect, and other collaborating vendors, partners, and translators who pulled together and made this historic launch possible,” said Phil Shawe, co-CEO of TransPerfect. “The dedication and teamwork I witnessed was truly inspiring.”

Future plans to further enhance service levels for multicultural populations involve offering additional translated online services, including the e-commerce portions of USPS.com.

It’s hard to be surprised by anything our dysfunctional Congress gets up to these days, but this one’s pretty bizarre. As the USPS runs out of cash thanks to Congress’s last attempt at “reform”, you’d think that the committee charged with overseeing the postal service would be, well, doing something about it. But you’d be wrong. Congressman Dennis Ross’s panel will instead devote the day to investigating whether Americans are spending too much time enjoying the three day Washington’s Birthday holiday, and not enough time meditating on the legacy of our first President. I’m not making this up.

Committee member Frank Wolf (R-VA), who is leading the investigation is of the opinion that America’s young people are ignorant of their nation’s history. He’s probably right about that. But does Wolf blame shoddy textbooks or outdated teaching techniques? No- he believes the “glaring problem” is that we have a Monday holiday in February, rather than one in the middle of the week. Fix that, and we’re all set!

Wolf says that he wants to “to change the focus from celebrating sales at the mall to celebrating the significance of President Washington’s birth to the birth of our nation”. How eliminating a long weekend would do that he doesn’t exactly say.

Congressman Wolf, like many of his colleagues is probably unfamiliar with the way holidays and vacations work for ordinary Americans. After all, Congressmen pretty much work when they choose, and take off weeks at a time for their “recesses”. So we thought we’d offer a few tips to Mr. Wolf:

• When you have a long weekend, the tendency is to consider “going away”- skiing, maybe. When you have a holiday in the middle of the week, you’re more likely to perhaps ”go to the mall”, than to sit home watching a CSPAN seminar on Mount Vernon. Especially if you’re a schoolchild.
• Schools have this thing called “February Vacation”, which usually is the week that contains the Washington’s Birthday Holiday. That means that in many places, moving the holiday to the middle of the week will have no affect at all on your target population! None!
• Saddest of all, even if you pass your legislation, the holiday will still result in a three day weekend more often that not. When February 22 falls on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, four out of the seven days of the week, it’s long weekend time!

Wolf brings to mind H. L. Mencken’s definition of Puritanism: “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” And in Wolf’s particular sect of Puritans, the idea that federal workers (the only people his law would directly impact) are happy is anathema.

On second thought, maybe it’s better that Ross and his cronies are spending the day monkeying around with our holidays than our livelihoods!

2-29-2012 “Honoring George Washington’s Legacy: Does America Need a Reminder?”.

STAMFORD, Conn. & DUSSELDORF, Germany, February 28, 2012 – Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE: PBI) announced today that it has selected Adobe Systems Incorporated as a technology partner for the Volly™ secure digital delivery service. Adobe® Digital Marketing Suite technology will be a key component of the Volly™ system, both for the U.S. consumer launch by Pitney Bowes, and for partners who wish to customize Volly™ for their particular needs. The integrated enablement of the Volly™ secure digital delivery service will allow international posts and banks to readily create their own branded digital delivery solution. The integrated enablement will also allow for brand provisioning on the Volly™ digital delivery service, and consumers will be able to control how, when and where they receive their digital mail communications. Read the rest of this entry »

February 28, 2012

(U.S. SENATE) – Senator Jon Tester is taking the leaders of the U.S. Postal Service to task, demanding that executives be willing to cut their own salaries as they propose cuts to the nation’s mail service.

Tester said that if senior postal executives were willing to cut mail delivery standards and close rural post offices, they should also be willing to “forgo bonuses or reduce salary.”  

The Postal Service’s Board of Governors recently told Tester that cutting the salaries of its top employees would have a “chilling effect on the management of the organization.”  Although the Postal Service is struggling financially, the Postmaster General last year earned $800,000 in pay and benefits.

Tester responded by pointing out that the heads of both the Treasury and Defense departments – facing their own difficult challenges – earn much less than they might in the private sector.

“Civil servants, like the Postmaster General, have unique public responsibilities and sacrifices inherent to their positions,” Tester wrote the Postal Service’s Board of Governors.  “The reality is that many of our government’s senior leaders share this distinctive burden.  Public service is uniquely different [from the private sector] and the Postal Service must rise to meet that expectation.”

Tester also took issue with the Board of Governors for suggesting that the Postal Service is a “private enterprise whose operations should be dictated solely by the private marketplace.” 

‘The Postal Service is a public entity with unique service requirements that are critical to rural America,” Tester wrote.  “Yet the Service’s plans to erode service standards, close facilities and thus reduce its own effectiveness suggest that this public requirement is lost on the Board of Governors and senior executives of the Postal Service.”

The Postal Service in August announced plans to consider closing 85 Montana post offices, and more recently recommended consolidating mail processing facilities in Kalispell, Missoula, Helena, Butte, and Wolf Point.  Pressure from Tester and Montanans eventually convinced the Postal Service to keep Missoula’s facility open. 

Tester, a member of the Senate committee that oversees the U.S. Postal Service, said that he remains committed to reforming the Postal Service in a way that preserves the “public nature of the institution.”

Tester’s letter to Board of Governors’ Chairman Thurgood Marshall Jr. and Board Member Louis Giuliano is available below and online HERE.

From the American Postal Workers Union:

Mike Morris, Director
Industrial Relations

(This article first appeared in the Mar/Apr 2012 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

Under previous contracts, thousands of APWU members were involuntarily excessed outside their craft and installation, sometimes hundreds of miles away.

Although the opportunity to be excessed instead of being laid off — as would be the case in most industries — is an important right, excessing often had a devastating impact on employees who had to uproot their families and move in order to keep their jobs.

Excessing wreaked havoc on APWU members: Spouses had to quit their jobs, children were taken out of their schools, elderly parents were often left behind, and some union members ended up “upside down” on their home mortgages.

Limiting Excessing: A Top Priority

One of the chief goals of the union during last year’s contract negotiations was to alleviate the problems imposed upon our members by excessing. Given the business climate we find ourselves in today, with the Postal Service attempting to close hundreds of post offices, stations, branches and mail processing operations, this was a paramount issue.

We successfully negotiated several changes to Article 12, which governs excessing, and to related Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) that improve the rights of union members.

One of the cornerstones of our new contract is an MOU on Minimizing Excessing, which remains in force for the duration of the 2010-2015 Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The most important new right gained in the MOU is the prohibition on excessing beyond 50 miles from an employee’s home installation. The 50-mile driving-distance radius is measured from the plant, where one exists, and from the main office where there is no plant. The same rules apply to the gaining installation.

Alternatives to Excessing

The APWU also successfully negotiated several alternatives to excessing. Before employees are excessed outside the craft or installation, the Postal Service must review its operations to create more efficient duty assignments within the installation. The USPS must also look for scheduling opportunities to offer duty assignments that are consistent with local operational needs in order to reduce or eliminate the need to excess employees. For instance, management could create Non-Traditional Full-Time (NTFT) duty assignments, consider work that had previously been contracted out, or return work improperly being performed by EAS personnel, etc.

In the Clerk Craft, we negotiated changes to the Transfer Opportunities to Minimize Excessing MOU. Clerks in impacted installations are now permitted to voluntarily transfer (based on seniority) into residual Clerk Craft vacancies within their USPS district or within a 100-mile radius of their installation in order to reduce or eliminate excessing. This Clerk Craft-to-Clerk Craft transfer right, which utilizes the eReassign system, works much like a bid, with the senior applicant awarded the transfer opportunity.

Management’s obligation to separate PSEs or minimize the use of PSEs prior to excessing career employees from the craft or installation continues, as was previously required for casuals. In addition, Article 12 was amended to require the Postal Service to identify duty assignments currently held by PSEs in nearby installations within the appropriate radius.

To reduce the confusion and inequities regarding seniority that existed under the previous contract, the new Collective Bargaining Agreement stipulates that there may be only one “moving day” for excessing within any postal Area in any three calendar-month period. To facilitate the union’s ability to make certain that excessing events are limited to the appropriate number of employees, the contract now requires that management prepare and provide the union with a Comparative Work-Hour Report, showing work hours both before and after the excessing event, within 45 days of the excessing.

Another important change in Article 12 is the new language that permits an APWU-represented employee who has been excessed to another APWU-represented craft within an installation to decline to retreat to their former craft.

No Lay-off Protection

Perhaps the most important protection for our membership is the extension of the no-layoff clause in Article 6 of the contract. Members who have six years of continuous service with at least 20 pay periods in each of the six years are protected. Additionally, we negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding that provides no-layoff protection for the life of the contract to anyone hired before Nov. 21, 2010.

As is true for all of our contractual rights, the vigilance of our members is what prevented Congress from taking them away, and is what will ultimately preserve these rights.

Excessing Rules Dramatically Improved.

LOS ANGELES CBS — A man reportedly shot a post office manager, who was able to grab the gun from the suspect in the Carthay area Monday night.The shooting occurred at the post office in the 1200 block of South Alfred Street, near Pico Boulevard, at about 8:10 p.m., the Los Angeles Police Department reported.

via Possible Robber Shoots Manager At LA Post Office « CBS Los Angeles.

The US Postal Service, despite being in the midst of a supposed financial “crisis”, is still showing a fiscal year to date profit of $105 million as of January 31. USPS revenue for the first four months of the fiscal year was $23 billion, while actual operating expenses were $22.9 billion.

So in terms of actual cash, the USPS is doing pretty well. Unfortunately, as a result of the 2006 PAEA law, the USPS is required to record $4.5 billion in losses that don’t actually exist. $532 million of that is what’s identified as “non-cash adjustments; the impact of discount and inflation charges and the actuarial revaluation of existing [OWCP] cases”. The rest, just over $4 billion is the infamous “Retiree Health Benefit Trust Fund” charge. The USPS hasn’t actually paid the Treasury that much this year- the full annual payment isn’t due until September 30. But the USPS is required to show a portion of the charge on its books each month. Even at the end of the fiscal year, of course, any transaction would be a strictly paper exercise, with the Treasury loaning the USPS billions of dollars that the USPS would immediately loan back to the Treasury. Welcome to the mysterious world of Congressional accounting!

USPS Preliminary January 2012 Financials.

WASHINGTON – In a letter to the postmaster general, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., today asked for additional information about the U.S. Postal Service’s plans for the potential consolidation of mail processing facilities in Gaylord, Iron Mountain, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing and Saginaw beginning this summer.

“You have provided an estimate of the annual savings from each closure and consolidation but no data on how these figures were reached,” Levin wrote to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “In order to better understand how the Postal Service reached its conclusions, please provide me with an unredacted copy of each Area Mail Processing Study (AMP) conducted for the facilities in Michigan.”

Levin’s letter follows.

February 24, 2012

The Honorable Patrick Donahoe
Postmaster General
U.S. Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW
Washington, DC 20260-0010

Dear Postmaster General Donahoe:

I am writing regarding your correspondence dated February 23, 2012, which notified me of the potential consolidation of mail processing facilities in Michigan beginning in the summer of 2012.

The impacted facilities in Michigan are in Gaylord, Iron Mountain, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Lansing and Saginaw. You have provided an estimate of the annual savings from each closure and consolidation but no data on how these figures were reached. In order to better understand how the Postal Service reached its conclusions, please provide me with an unredacted copy of each Area Mail Processing Study (AMP) conducted for the facilities in Michigan.

During the public meetings relative to these proposals, members of the public asked questions and raised concern about these possible closures. I would appreciate knowing how the Postal Service addressed issues raised by the public and how public comment was considered during the AMP process.

As you provide this information, I am particularly interested in receiving answers to the following questions:

1. How many jobs will be eliminated at each facility?

2. Of those jobs, how many will be transferred to other facilities?

3. What is the distance of each transfer?

4. What are the additional projected savings and additional projected costs for each facility?

According to your letter, these consolidations are contingent on the issuance of a final rule revising first class mail standards. The Postal Service filed a request for an advisory opinion with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) regarding these revised standards on December 5, 2011. The PRC has opened a Docket to consider this request and is expected to issue an advisory opinion this summer. I have heard from my constituents that the Postal Service intends to proceed with these closures immediately following the expiration of the closure moratorium on May 15th. The Postal Service had agreed to this moratorium to allow Congress the time to consider postal reform legislation. I would appreciate your assurance that the Postal Service will wait until after the advisory opinion of the PRC has been issued before taking any steps relative to any mail processing facility closure.

While I fully understand the serious nature of the Postal Service’s current financial situation and the need to take action, I am concerned that the Postal Service not take action that would erode the universal service obligation and want to analyze the conclusions of the Postal Service relative to claimed savings.

Should you have any questions, please contact Harold Chase of my staff at (202) 224-9125. Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Carl Levin

via Carl Levin – United States Senator for Michigan: Newsroom – Press Releases.

WATERLOO (KWWL) – The US Postal Service is continuing to slash services nationwide. More than 200 mail processing centers will be consolidated or closed. It’s bad news for many mail centers and their employees, but there’s actually good news here in eastern Iowa. Both the Waterloo and Cedar Rapids mail processing centers will stay open. The two facilities were being studied for possible consolidation with other processing centers. While there’s a big sigh of relief, some fear the bleeding from Post Office cuts is far from over.

via Local mail centers saved, but some fear future cuts – KWWL.com – News & Weather for Waterloo, Dubuque, Cedar Rapids & Iowa City, Iowa |.