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 One Beltway Center |
President's MessageFebruary 8, 2010 Dear Leaguers, Our 2010 League National Legislative Forum is over and most of our attendees have headed for home, even those who stayed a couple of days extra to see sights. We had some weather challenges as Leaguers were trying to come in to the DC area at the beginning of the week, but just about everyone made it except some folks from Arkansas and Colorado. As I write, the snow is again coming down. We’ve been promised over a foot of snow which will effectively shut down DC. Our Legislative forum was tremendously successful! That success started even before the Forum officially began as Adverse Action Counselors, and Adverse Action Counselor trainees from all over the country came in two days early to receive their adverse action training. The counselors received two full days of training and from most of the feedback I received, the training was superb. Much credit goes this year to our National Board advisor to the Adverse Action Counselors, John Olson. John did much to get the ball rolling on the training. Lead Counselor and Postmaster retiree, Mike Sheely worked hard to help put the training together. Of course, our Adverse Action attorney, John Difalco did a marvelous job in his presentations. In light of the fact that the discipline, even for somewhat trivial items, is on the increase, it is good that our counselors are well prepared. It almost seems that the prevailing policy of the Postal Service is to rule by fear. Legislation This year we had some powerful issues to take to Congress. Postmasters have been treated pretty shabbily over the last few years by the Postal Service, so the enthusiasm was not as high this year as it was last year for legislation concerning relief from the almost 5 and a half billion dollar obligation for the Postal Service to prepay future retiree health benefits. However, Postmasters dutifully gave high priority to this issue this year again. Last week’s a report from the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General stated that the Postal Service had overpaid into the Civil Service Retirement system close to $75 billion dollars since 1992. Apparently, because formulas used to determine the amount the Postal Service obligation were not correct, it is thought that perhaps the Postal Service had overpaid. The League’s suggestion for a simple fix and a possibility for legislation is, once those overpayment numbers are verified, to use those funds to permanently offset the Postal Service’s obligation to prepay future retirees’ health benefits. If the overpayment is as high as the OIG’s report indicates, there should be funds available to take care of current retiree health benefits. Of course, there is never a simple fix with Congress. Even if it is determined that the Postal Service has overpaid $75 billion into Civil Service retirement, and it seems like the right thing to do is to give the money back to the Postal Service, the process is not always that simple. Somehow the Congressional Budget Office is able to show that there is a cost to the Federal Government to pay for an obligation using funds that you’ve overpaid to that same Federal Government. Another question that begs to be asked is, how much of that $75 billion overpayment came from those employees in Civil Service Retirement? If part of it came from employees, aren’t they entitled to refunds for their overpayments? That presents a very interesting scenario! No matter what we do, we do need long term relief from this obligation. What really energized Postmasters was being able to take our own Postmaster issues to Congress. We were able to share with Congress how Postmasters have been forced to work 55, 60 and 70 hour workweeks, month after month, because the Postal Service has failed to provide Postmasters the supervisors, clerks and carriers we need to get the job done every day in our post offices. While the President of the United States is finally responding to demands to find ways to create jobs, the Postal Service has gone overboard in cutting them by shifting hours to Postmasters who otherwise already have a full day. Congress listened attentively when their Postmasters told them about what was happening to the Postmasters in their home congressional districts as far as micromanagement, abusive telecons, threats to be fired, and trivial discipline are concerned. We received many commitments from Representatives and Senators who wanted to help Postmasters resolve these issues. Where our own Postal Service leaders have decided to ignore our issues, Congress is ready and willing to do something about them. All in all we had a tremendously successful Legislative Forum. Our friends at NAPS pledged their total support to our cause. We’ve got great momentum for our issues, and over the coming months we should see that momentum increase until we can claim complete success. I know that Postmasters nationwide are gearing up to do their part! Respectfully, Charley Mapa President, The LEAGUE |
League EventsJuly 18 - July 22, 2010 National League of Postmasters Convention Town and Country |
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