Since 1996, the NPMHU’s Committee on the Future, which is comprised of all members of the National Executive Board and various Local Union Presidents, has engaged in strategic planning over long-term issues that are likely to confront the Union over the coming months and years.  The Committee usually focuses on five key issues facing the NPMHU:  privatization of the Postal Service; the NPMHU’s legislative relations program; USPS automation and other technological changes; financial planning, especially at the Local level; and membership recruitment.

The most recent semi-annual meeting of the Committee, which took place during the last week of July, continued this process.  Because of current events, the Committee focused on three particular issues:

First, the Committee analyzed and planned responses to the Postal Service’s recently announced plans to close or consolidate an additional 82 mail processing facilities in early 2015, which is being made possible by the Postal Service’s announcement that it was reducing the governing service standards for much of the nation’s one-day or overnight mail beginning on January 4, 2015.  This degradation of service is thoroughly unacceptable to the NPMHU, as it reduces service to the American mailing public precisely when better, quicker, and more responsive mail service is what is needed to ensure the future success of the Postal Service.  Various strategies for limiting or eliminating these closings and consolidations were discussed, as were strategies for dealing with the impact on mail handlers should these actions actually be implemented.

Many observers believe that the USPS announcement to resurrect these closings and consolidations, which previously were scheduled for February 2014 before being postponed indefinitely, is another effort by USPS management to convince, or some would say threaten, Congress into enacting comprehensive postal reform before the end of this year.  So it is no surprise that the Committee on the Future also focused on the Union’s legislative program during its recent meetings.  The Committee conducted a comprehensive look at currently pending legislation, as well as various alternative proposals that are being prepared, analyzed, and proposed by various stakeholders, including all of the Postal Unions and many of the major mailing groups.  Also of direct relevance to these issues, the Committee discussed the Union’s plans for involvement in the 2014 congressional elections, which are likely to be extremely important to postal issues now pending in Congress, and to whether such issues are resolved during the expected lame-duck session of this Congress that is being scheduled for late November and December of this year.  The National Union plans to provide certain activists with paid time off to participate in this year’s elections, especially in those States and congressional districts that may have extremely close elections forecast, and therefore may determine which political party has control over next year’s Congress.

Lastly, the Committee focused much of its attention on various organizing and recruitment programs aimed at newly hired Mail Handler Assistants and newly hired Full-Time Regular employees, who generally are being converted from the ranks of the MHAs.  The recent Join the Union, Join the Fight organizing campaign successfully added scores of mail handlers to the union membership rolls, and additional efforts are now being planned.  In addition, at the upcoming Semi-Annual Meeting of the Local Union, the last day of that meeting will be dedicated to a training program about the rights and benefits of MHAs throughout the country.

The Committee will be issuing a report on its recent meeting, and already has its usual two meetings scheduled for next year.