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House Panel Approves Postal Reform Bill

Lawmakers Reject Presidential Commission Work

The House Government Reform Committee voted unanimously May 12 to approve the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2004.

“The House committee resoundingly rejected the antiworker and anti-consumer recommendations of the President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service,” said APWU President William Burrus. “It also took an important step toward granting the Postal Service needed reforms.”

 None of the Presidential Commission’s proposals to cut workers wages and benefits were adopted by the House Committee, and a Commission recommendation to authorize large-scale post office closings was also discarded. In addition, the committee members voted to prohibit excessive “worksharing” discounts that subsidize the mailing industry; granted the USPS greater flexibility in ratesetting; approved the transfer of military retirement costs of postal veterans to the Treasury Department; approved the release of retirement funds from escrow; and embraced the principle of uniform rates.

 These were all issues the APWU had identified as crucial to meaningful postal reform. Noting that the Senate had released a “discussion draft” of a postal reform bill on May 12 as well, Burrus said: “Our fight is far from over, and we must remain vigilant.”

Commission Proposals Rejected

Among the recommendations of the President’s Commission that were excluded from the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (H.R. 4341) were:
 

•  Granting a proposed Postal Regulatory Board the power to cut wages and benefits in order to make them “comparable” to workers in the private sector; .. Making health care and retirement benefits – now guaranteed by law – “negotiable;”
• Instructing the Postal Service to “outsource” mail processing, retail, maintenance, and transportation jobs – everything but mail collection and delivery – to the lowest private-sector bidder;.
• Eliminating the union’s no-layoff clause and making new hires subject to federal reduction-in-force (RIF) procedures;
• Creating a Postal Network Optimization Commission that would have the power to close plants with virtually no input from workers, citizens, and elected officials;
• Removing the statutory barrier against closing small post offices for economic reasons;
• Undermining collective bargaining rights by changing the ground rules for contract negotiations;
• Giving a Postal Regulatory Board the authority to reduce the scope of universal service and end the USPS monopoly on letter mail;
• Continuing below-cost postage discounts for the mailing industry that are already in place, draining badly needed revenue from the Postal Service; and
• .Giving the President and Secretary of the Treasury political control over the USPS by allowing them to appoint the USPS Board of Governors without Senate confirmation or any requirement that both political parties are represented on the panel.

 “I want to publicly thank Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA), and Representatives Henry Waxman (D-CA), John McHugh (R-NY), and Danny Davis (D-IL), who led a bipartisan effort to draft the bill,” Burrus said. “These legislators and their staffs engaged in lengthy negotiations with interested parties to formulate a bill that all the groups felt they could support. This was no small task
 

Senate Governmental Affairs Committee

Releases ‘Discussion Draft’ of Reform Bill

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee released a “discussion draft” of its postal reform bill on May 12, and while it is similar to H.R. 4341 in many respects, there are some significant differences.

 “The union is withholding judgment on the Senate bill until we have analyzed it further,” APWU President William Burrus said, “but we have serious concerns about several provisions. “We are especially troubled by proposals that would reduce the rights and benefits of injured postal workers,” he said. “Postal workers have been on the front lines of the war on terrorism, and it is totally unacceptable to change the law to deny these employees appropriate compensation when they suffer job-related injuries.

 “If adopted, the new rules would apply only to postal workers – not to other federal workers, and certainly not to the members of Congress or their staffs. In fact, the Senate proposal would amend Title 5 of the U.S. Code by striking the words ‘an employee’ and inserting ‘an employee other than a Postal Service employee’,” Burrus noted. “I thought we were past the days of excluding specific groups from the protection of federal law,” he said.

The APWU is also concerned about excessive postage discounts for corporate mailers, as well as by the authority that would be granted to a new Postal Regulatory Board. “Needless to say, the mailing industry is fighting to keep the discounts that make their businesses so lucrative. “We are discussing these issues with key senators on the Governmental Affairs Committee, and hope to improve the bill before it is officially introduced. APWU members must be prepared to contact their elected officials and express their views on these important subjects.”