Senate Coalition Announces Postal Reform Proposal
(November 2, 2011) -- At a press conference today, a group of four U.S. Senators unveiled its bipartisan approach to address the ongoing financial difficulties of the United States Postal Service -- in the form of their 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2011 (“P-21”). This group is comprised of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the Ranking Member of that Committee, Susan Collins (R-ME), Federal Financial Management Subcommittee Chairman Tom Carper (D-DE), and Subcommittee Ranking Member Scott Brown (R-MA). Each of these Senators has previously been advocating various proposals directed at postal reform legislation. The NPMHU legislative representatives, along with their counterparts at the other postal unions, have been actively engaged in discussions with each of these Senators in an effort to help shape legislative language. The effort announced today is essentially a bipartisan compromise agreement which not only makes specific recommendations going forward, but which also rejects several of the major themes presented in a pending House bill (H.R. 2309), which the NPMHU vigorously opposes because it contains numerous anti-worker, and anti-union provisions.
As announced at today’s press conference, included in this Senate proposal are provisions to allow the Postal Service a measure of temporary relief on billions of dollars in annual payments to pre-fund its Retiree Health Benefits Fund (RHBF), as well as a proposal to issue a two-year moratorium on any change to five day delivery. Also included in the proposal is mandated study and public comment periods regarding decisions by the Postal Service to either close or consolidate mail processing facilities. The bill also contains provisions to allow the Postal Service to use a portion of the surplus funds in its Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) account to fund an incentive-based Voluntary Early Retirement (VER) as a way to reduce its employment rolls more quickly than through normal attrition. Other more troublesome provisions of the Act include a measure that would explicitly mandate an interest arbitrator to take into consideration the finances of the Postal Service and federal wage and benefit comparability when determining an arbitration award. It also would implement dramatic changes to current provisions of the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act (FECA), which clearly would adversely affect the income of some postal employees who were injured on the job.
The outline presented today will certainly require additional study and details to fully understand. The NPMHU leadership and legislative team will closely analyze the language of this proposal, and will make determinations regarding provisions which the NPMHU may embrace or oppose, along with provisions that we will seek to have amended as the postal reform debate continues.
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