—lobbies Congress to help letter carriers and the Postal Service
—coordinates NALC's grass-roots political action program, which is run by member volunteers
How you can help 'Save Saturday Delivery'
Please write to the Postal Regulatory Commission and submit a comment in support of Saturday delivery, as the PRC’s support of Saturday delivery will be key in getting congressional support to maintain Saturday delivery.
Based on your own experiences, and using your own words, please weigh in on the importance of Saturday delivery to you, to your postal customers and to the community you serve.
Please use the following "talking points" to guide your statement—don’t just copy and paste them—and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Together, we can save Saturday delivery and the future of the Postal Service.
"Talking points"
Saturday delivery is crucial for the Postal Service’s long-term survival. Without it, the USPS will be less competitive, mail demand will decline further and it will lead to a downward spiral.
Ending Saturday delivery does little to reduce costs. It saves just 4 percent of costs while cutting out 17 percent of daily deliveries.
Many people depend on Saturday delivery—seniors who need their mail-order prescription drugs, small businesses on Main Street trying to meet payroll, and major businesses like eBay whose business models depend on Saturday delivery.
Eliminating Saturday delivery should be a last, not first, resort. More time should be spent determining if mail volume declines will slow—if not reverse—as the recession ends.
Additionally, please remind the PRC that:
The Postal Service’s deficit was caused by the unfair requirement to pre-fund future retiree health benefits, and the Service has been overcharged $75 billion for its pension fund obligations. Fixing the $75 billion pension overpayment and using that money to pre-fund retiree health benefits would make the USPS profitable. The USPS budget can be stabilized without having to resort to sacrificing service.
How to comment:
By mail (preferred) to this address:
Postal Regulatory Commission
Attention: Office of Public Affairs & Government Relations
901 New York Avenue, N.W.,
Suite 200
Washington, D.C. 20268-0001
Next to Subject Area, select Mail Delivery / Postal Services in the drop-down menu.
In the Message field, type your comment, using your own words and guided by the talking points above. If you run out of room, simply submit another comment.
Your name, e-mail address, daytime phone number and address are all option.
Click the Submit button to send your comments, or the Clear button to start over.
July 23, 2010 Support H.R. 5746: United States Postal Service's CSRS Obligation Modification Act of 2010
On July 15, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) introduced H.R. 5746, the United States Postal Service’s CSRS Obligation Modification Act of 2010.
Lynch, who is chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia, is the first member of Congress to author legislation that attempts to address a decades-old accounting error that led the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to overcharge the Postal Service, by billions of dollars, for payments into the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS).
This legislation marks the first huge step toward financial solvency for the United States Postal Service and will help strengthen the case against eliminating a day of delivery. In a markup session July 21, Chairman Lynch offered a substitute amendment which simply clarified a few areas of the bill, including a section that now clearly states that this legislation will have no impact on any individual's benefit. This change was made to satisfy the concerns of the other federal employee organizations.
The bill was marked up by a voice vote and was passed 8-1 on a roll call vote
Now is the time for us to act quickly and gather co-sponsors for the bill. When asking your member of Congress to co-sponsor the legislation, please make sure to discuss with him or her the two main components of the bill and either send or leave a copy of the NALC Fact Sheet on H.R. 5746. Click here to download the Fact Sheet.
June 30, 2010 Union launches the
NALC Activist Alert blog
In an e-Activist Network message, NALC President Fred Rolando announced the launch of a legislative and political action blog: NALC Activist Alert.
For the NALC to continue to be successful in both the legislative and political arenas, it is imperative that we keep our members up-to-date with the most current information. Whether it is a legislative update or a political one, this blog is another tool we intend to use to help make sure that happens.
Please click this link to take a moment to visit the NALC Activist Alert blog: http://nalcactivistalert.com. It will provide regular updates, so make sure you check back frequently.
The NALC Activist Alert blog will serve the union in two ways—educating NALC members and highlighting letter carrier actions taking place in the field. Whether you are a congressional district liaison, a COLCPE coordinator, a shop steward, or a letter carrier activist fighting to save Saturday delivery, this blog will provide you with relevant and useful information.
Make sure that you become a follower of the blog. When you do, updates to the blog will be sent directly to your e-mail address, and you'll be among the first to hit the streets with breaking news from the NALC.
The launch of this blog could not come at a more opportune time. As we continue our campaign to let America know that "5-day is the wrong way" and with the midterm congressional elections just around the corner, publicizing the work that we are doing on both of these fronts will only strengthen NALC's message.
June 23, 2010 Rolando testifies before Congress on the USPS proposal to cut Saturday mail delivery
President Fred Rolando testified June 23 before a joint congressional committee hearing on the U.S. Postal Service's action plan for the future, which includes the possibility of cutting a day of mail delivery service each week.
"We think this would be a blunder of the first order—saving very little money and risking the loss of much more revenue over time," he said. "Cutting service is not a way to strengthen the Postal Service. At a time when the nation is suffering an acute jobs crisis, throwing another 80,000
decent jobs away in a moment of panic does not make sense."
June 21, 2010 New fact sheet: Congressional mandates and the Great
Recession have caused the Postal Service’s recent financial challenges
The U.S Postal Service (USPS) is facing long-term financial challenges due to the increased use of the Internet as a substitute for first-class mail. In order to survive the Postal Service will need to transform its business model to succeed in the 21st century.
But use of the Internet is not the principal cause of the Postal Service’s losses of nearly $12 billion over the last three years. Those losses are due to the Great Recession, which is temporary, and to a requirement mandated by Congress that the Postal Service aggressively pre-fund its future retiree health benefits.
No other government agency or company has such a requirement.
The USPS needs to change, but it should not be forced to make short-sighted decisions under duress. Near-term, fiscally responsible reforms are needed to give the Postal Service breathing room to devise a more successful long-term business plan.
February 24, 2010 White House steps up on health care reform; proposal extends coverage, mitigates excise tax
President Obama has taken the lead to finish the job on health care reform, proposing a series of amendments to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that passed the Senate in December by a 60-39 vote. The idea is to reconcile it with similar legislation passed by the House of Representatives last July. The President posted the proposal on the White House website in advance of a national health care summit on Thursday, February 25, where both Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress were invited to offer their ideas for completing comprehensive heath care legislation.
“President Obama deserves credit for his perseverance in addressing the health care crisis at a time when so many Americans are losing their employer-provided plans due to the recession,” NALC President Fred Rolando said.
“And remember,” he added, “that reform also is important for letter carriers, because restraining the skyrocketing cost of health care is vital to the long-term viability of the Postal Service.”
Although the Obama proposal would not create a new public insurance option, it would extend coverage to more than 30 million uninsured workers. It does this by expanding Medicaid for the working poor and creating state-based health care exchanges where uninsured workers could buy affordable private insurance at large-group rates in a system modeled on the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. Under the legislation, insurance plans would be strictly regulated—they would not be able to deny coverage due to pre-existing conditions or discriminate among customers, or unfairly raise rates without justification, and they would be required to cover the uninsured children of Americans (up to the age of 26) who choose family coverage.
The Obama proposal retains the 40 percent excise tax on high-cost health plans contained in the Senate bill, which NALC and other unions strongly oppose, as a means to restrain cost growth. It mitigates the potential negative impact of the tax, however, by raising the thresholds above which the tax applies from $23,000 to $27,500 for family plans and from $8,500 to $10,200 for self-only plans. It also extends the five-year grace period negotiated by the labor movement for plans covering union workers to all plans—pushing back the implementation date on the tax to 2018. Further, it provides for raising the thresholds in 2018 if health inflation exceeds expectations and, beyond 2018, to adust for gender and age factors that often increase the cost of plans. In addition, the cost of vision and dental coverage will no longer be included when applying the tax.
“These changes make it very unlikely that letter carrier plans will be hit by the tax over the next 10 to 15 years,” President Rolando observed, adding, “We can work to eliminate the tax in favor of better cost-containment strategies in the future.”
Like the House and Senate bills, the Obama plan is largely paid for by reducing the wasteful subsidies to private plans offered through Medicare Advantage and by requiring employers to buy insurance for their employees or to pay into a fund to help low-wage workers purchase affordable insurance. It is also fiscally responsible, since it would reduce the federal deficit by more than an estimated $100 billion over the next 10 years and by $1 trillion in the following 10 years. This is achieved even though the White House amendments eliminate the so-called donut hole in the Medicare Part D prescription drug program that straps the finances of many elderly patients who have very high drug bills.
Noting that letter carrier health insurance premiums have doubled over the past 10 years and will double again if reform is not undertaken, President Rolando called health care reform a “vital letter carrier issue” and urged both parties in Congress “to work constructively with the White House to get the job done.”
September 30, 2009 USPS receives financial relief from Congress
The Senate approved a continuing resolution that included the postal financial relief language from H.R. 22. With the passage, the Postal Service will be able to defer $4 billion in payments to a fund for its future retirees' health benefits, giving USPS some flexibility for dealing with the current recession.
"I want to thank all of the NALC activists who worked so hard for this passage," President Fred Rolando said at a legislative function Wednesday night. "Tonight we can celebrate, but tomorrow we must start all over to get a long-term solution."
September 15, 2009 H.R. 22 approved in House
NALC President Fredric V. Rolando today applauded the House of Representatives for passage of legislation (H.R. 22) that would ease prefunding requirements on the U.S. Postal Service for future retiree health benefits. In September, the bill was amended to deal with just the 2009 prefunding payment, reducing it from $5.4 billion to $1.4 billion.
“The one-year version of H.R. 22 passed today is a good first step toward devising a more sensible and affordable schedule for prefunding our future retiree health benefits,” Rolando said. “The National Association of Letter Carriers urges the Senate to quickly pass H.R. 22 as passed by the House so that we can continue to work on long-term solutions.”
Rolando said the House action was “a huge step towards strengthening the United States Postal Service.” The measure was passed by a 388 to 32 vote.
“I want to thank the bipartisan leadership of the House Government Reform Committee, including Chairman Ed Towns (D-NY) and Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) as well as sub-committee Chairman Stephen Lynch (D-MA) and Ranking Member Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) for fighting so long and hard for H.R. 22,” Rolando said. He said letter carriers also owe a huge debt of gratitude to Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) and Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) for sponsoring the original legislation and building such an impressive bipartisan coalition in favor of postal financial relief.
September 11, 2009 Leadership of the House Republican Conference escalates its attack on the Postal Service; spreads more misinformation about H.R. 22—a bill a majority of GOP members has co-sponsored
In anticipation of floor action on H.R. 22, leaders of the House Republican Conference (HRC) issued a one page brief entitled “What Every Member Needs to Know About the Postal Service Relief Act (H.R. 22)” that is filled with the same kind of inaccurate and misleading information about the Postal Service featured in a similar ‘One Page’ brief issued in August. The GOP organization that claims to speak for the GOP caucus in the House falsely characterized H.R. 22, a bill that a majority of Republicans (103) have co-sponsored, as a “taxpayer bailout” of the Postal Service.
“HRC Chairman Mike Pence should correct the misinformation issued in his name,” President Rolando said. “Letter carriers across the country appreciate the support the GOP has given to H.R. 22,” he added. “The tens of thousands of letter carriers who are Republicans and the GOP’s caucus in the Congress deserve better from their party than the misleading and distorted issue briefs being churned out by House Republican Conference.”
H.R. 22 does not require one dime of taxpayer money and simply allows the Postal Service to reduce (not eliminate) its prefunding of future retiree health benefits over the next three years in response to the worst recession in 80 years, a step that the virtually every private firm that prefunds such benefits is taking – although two-thirds of all large (Fortune 1000) companies don’t prefund at all and none are required by law or accounting rules to do so. Indeed, the USPS is the only enterprise in America that is legally mandated to prefund retiree health benefits.
A minority within the House Republican caucus opposes H.R. 22 and has used the HRC to propose massive post office closures and the elimination of Saturday delivery -- moves that would damage countless businesses that rely on six-day delivery and throw tens of thousands of Americans out of work at a time of mass unemployment. The out-of-step leadership of the HRC would rather risk these negative consequences than take the sensible step of reconsidering the onerous cost of a policy initiated by the Bush administration in 2006 to force the Postal Service to prefund most of its future retiree health liability, a 75-year liability, over just 10 years. This policy, which in retrospect was unaffordable and unsustainable even in the absence of the Great Recession of 2007-2009, was included in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA). Its cost, $5.4 billion in 2009, is responsible for more than 75% of the $7 billion loss the USPS expects to record this year. Reform of this policy is urgently needed, and H.R. 22 is a vitally needed first step to preserve America’s highly efficient and highly affordable universal postal service.
July 29, 2009 Mark-up of S. 1507 adds 'poison pill' amendment
In a contentious mark-up session of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on , several senators offered amendments to S. 1507, a bill that will provide short-term financial relief to the Postal Service by restructuring its payments for future retiree health benefits. Thanks to the rapid response of e-Activists in 12 states to a message sent July 28, most of the 11 amendments offered were rejected, including one mandating the Postal Service go to five-day delivery. Unfortunately, one of the four amendments adopted was one NALC strongly opposes.
That amendment, which was supported by the Committee's Republican members as well as Sens.Tom Carper (D-DE) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) was sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). If adopted into law, it would tamper with the long-established process of interest arbitration by requiring arbitration panels to "consider the financial condition of the Postal Service in making any decision."
The amendment is not necessary since arbitration boards already take postal finances into account. Worse, by not listing other factors that should be considered by boards, the new language has the effect of giving short-term financial conditions preeminence over other relevant factors.
"NALC cannot support S. 1507 with the arbitration amendment," President Fred Rolando said. "It is very disappointing that Committee members would interfere with postal collective bargaining and seek to put a thumb on the scale in favor of postal management in the next round of bargaining," he added.
NALC will seek to strike the amendment from the final bill and is committed to resisting its inclusion in any legislation that emerges from Congress.
July 28, 2009 Postal relief bill goes to Senate mark up
after White House meeting
Less than a week after President Fred Rolando and three other union presidents met with representatives of the Obama administration, including OMB officials and Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, action on financial relief legislation designed to help the Postal Service overcome the deep economic recession is moving in Congress.
NALC is aggressively working to support passage of S. 1507, a bill introduced by Sen. Tom Carper earlier this week, that will provide short-term relief to the Postal Service by restructuring its payments for future retiree health benefits. The legislation was developed by the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget and is designed to achieve virtually the same level of relief provided by H.R. 22, a bill that has advanced to the floor of the House of Representatives. In addition to reducing pre-funding payments by some $6.4 billion over the next five years, the bill also makes it easier for the Postal Service to borrow money during the current economic crisis.
S. 1507 is being marked up in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on July 29. A few Republicans on the Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), have threatened to attach several negative amendments to the bill. In response, NALC mobilized its e-Activist network in 10 states to help fight off the amendments.
“NALC supports this legislation as a vital first step to securing the long-term viability of the Postal Service,” President Rolando said in the July 28th e-Activist message. “We are encouraged that we have allies in the Obama administration and in Congress who are committed to working with us to strengthen the Postal Service for decades to come,” he added.
June 25, 2009 H.R.22 necessary to ease financial burden on USPS
The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006—better known to carriers as “postal reform”— requires the Postal Service to prefund 80 percent of its future retiree health benefit costs by the year 2016. This costs the USPS at least $5.5 billion a year—on top of the $2 billion to $3 billion it already pays annually for current retiree health benefits. The USPS built the cost into their rates in 2006, but that was before the economic meltdown hit and the volume of mail began to plummet. The punishing schedule for prefunding is simply no longer affordable and our employer needs relief, immediately. Otherwise, layoffs, service cuts and facility closings could become a reality.
In January, longtime friends of letter carriers Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) and Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) introduced H.R. 22, a bipartisan lifeline that would let USPS prefund its future health care obligations on a more realistic schedule by allowing the Service to pay its share of current retirees’ health insurance premiums out of the $32 billion it has already banked in the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund. This strategy would save USPS an average of $3.5 billion per year through 2016 while the Service continues to build up the retiree health fund on a much more reasonable and affordable schedule. Click here for a fact sheet on H.R. 22.
H.R. 22 does not require the allocation of any taxpayer funds—it is absolutely not a bailout. It also would in no way reduce current retiree health benefits or relieve the Postal Service of its future retiree health obligations. In fact, if Congress passes H.R. 22 and if President Obama signs it, the USPS would still be required to prefund its future retiree health costs at a far faster rate than any other American company.
The NALC fully supports funding future retiree health benefits—we are depending on those benefits when we retire. But given the current economic environment, prefunding on such an accelerated schedule is no longer feasible. H.R. 22 preserves the Postal Service’s obligation to prefund and protects our health benefits while helping to sustain the Postal Service through a very troubling time for our nation.
H.R. 22 won’t solve all the Postal Service’s problems—we all have a lot of work to do. But make no mistake about it: Without H.R. 22, the continued viability of the Postal Service is in serious trouble. So take a few minutes to make this important call—our jobs and our future depend on it.
UPDATE: President Young sent out this message to the e-Activist Network on June 24: "The subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia marked up H.R. 22 today and passed it by a unanimous vote. This legislation will allow the United States Postal Service to pay its share of contributions for annuitants' health benefits out of the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund." Read more here.
April 1, 2009 NALC-backed legislation to improve FERS, TSP benefits signed into law
The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation (H.R. 1804) that addressed two long-standing disparities in treatment between workers in the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) and those in the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). The bill provides service credit to employees covered by FERS for unused sick leave when determining their retirement benefits – as under CSRS. It also gives FERS employees who leave federal service and withdraw their retirement contributions the same right CSRS employees have to “buy-back” their service credit by re-depositing their contributions when they return to federal service. Both changes are strongly supported by NALC.
H.R. 1804 also includes a number of measures affecting the Thrift Savings Plan that are backed by NALC. Among these is a provision that makes enrollment of new employees in the TSP automatic with immediate matching contributions. Under this provision, agencies will automatically deduct 2 – 5 percent of pay from new workers paychecks and direct the funds into the TSP’s G Fund unless otherwise directed by the employees. This provision will ensure that no new employee misses out on the benefits of tax savings and matching contributions offered by the TSP – while retaining the worker’s right to opt out of the program and/or to invest their savings in any of the TSP investment funds. The current op-in enrollment would be replaced by an opt-out system, and the specific amount of the initial automatic contribution would be set by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board.
The new legislation also gives the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, the agency that runs the TSP, guidance on two new TSP options:
One mandates the creation of a Roth option for TSP contributions – allowing federal workers to make post-tax contributions to the TSP instead of pre-tax contributions, which may make sense in some circumstances (though probably not for most letter carriers).
The other provides the Board the authority to create a “mutual fund window,” if it determines that it’s in the best interests of the TSP’s participants to do so. If created, the option would give TSP participants the chance to invest in a wide range of mutual funds while bearing all the costs of doing so. Specific rules and regulations governing this “window” would be set by the Thrift Board -- after consultations with the Employee Thrift Advisory Council, on which the NALC sits.
H.R. 1804 was rolled into H.R. 1256, The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The Senate passed the bill on June 11, 2009 and sent it back to the House for minor changes. The bill does not include the FERS sick leave and buy back provisions (they were passed separately in October). The House quickly passed the modified bill on June 12, 2009 and cleared it to be sent to the White House. President Obama signed the bill on June 22, 2009 and it became Public-Law No. 111-31.
March 10, 2009 Employee Free Choice Act moves forward in Senate
The battle for the Employee Free Choice Act is heating up. The legislation to make it easier for workers to form unions was introduced March 10 in both the U.S. House and Senate. NALC believes the legislation is vital to pulling the nation out of the economic crisis and rebuilding the middle class. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other corporate special interests are spending millions on propaganda to defeat the bill. They are betting on a Republican-led Senate filibuster to block the act again. We need 60 Senate votes to win. When introduced, the bill had 40 Senate co-sponsors. Check the list below to see whether your senators are backing the bill. If not, contact them by phone or e-mail and urge them to give workers a free choice to form unions and bargain for better wages and benefits. For more information, see this fact sheet.
July 10, 2008 President Young testifies to the Postal Regulatory Commission on universal service
President Young testified to the Postal Regulatory Commission on the importance of maintaining universal service. NALC stressed the view that the definition of universal service should be broad and flexible and that a regulated monopoly is essential to the preservation of universal service. More
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