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Before Congress adjourned on Dec. 16, senators and representatives approved a government spending bill that alsoweakens restrictions on the big banks that crashed the economy in 2008, allows mega-donors to make substantially bigger contributions to political candidates, and reduces pensions for some current retirees. 

But Congress fled the capital without addressing urgent postal issues, despite unrelenting efforts by the four postal unions.  The unions’ strategy ran on two tracks:

• We sought to include a one-year moratorium on a reduction in service standards and plant closings in a spending bill that Congress had to pass to avoid a government shut-down;
• We also worked to hammer out agreement on a stand-alone postal bill.

The situation is urgent because the lower service standards are scheduled to take effect on Jan. 5. In addition to disrupting the lives of thousands of postal employees whose work assignments will be changed, the reduction in service standards will slow mail throughout the country and virtually eliminate overnight delivery of first-class mail. It also will set the stage for the closure of 82 mail processing plants.

APWU Web News Article #071-14, April 16, 2014

The presidents of the four postal unions have written to leaders of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee expressing opposition to White House 2015 budget proposals regarding the Postal Service. In the letter [PDF], the presidents noted that Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) indicated at an April 8 hearing that the committee would seek to consider a new postal bill based on the administration’s proposals.  

The April 14 letter to Issa and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) was signed by National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Roland, APWU President Mark Dimondstein, National Postal Mail Handlers Union President John Hegarty and National Rural Letter Carriers Association President Jeanette Dwyer.

APWU Web News Article #139-09, Nov. 19, 2012

The APWU and a broad coalition of postal and government employee organizations is urging Congress not to extract additional budget savings from the pockets of pubic workers and retirees as it attempts to avoid an impasse over “fiscal cliff” issues.

“The federal workforce already has borne the burden of substantial budget savings over the past two years,” the Federal-Postal Coalition said in a letter to members of Congress [PDF] Nov. 19.

The new GAO report states that they have not found proof that overpayments into CSRS exists. The GAO report does not address the refund of overpayments made into the FERS retirement system. Two separate independent accounting firms, the PRC and the Postal Service Inspector General have all come to the same conclusion: overpayments have been made since 1970 into CSRS.

To read the GAO summary and full report click here.
 

To read what the Washington Post had to say about the report click here.