Postal unions condemn plan to end Saturday delivery
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Postmas-
ter General Patrick Donahoe’s plan to
end Saturday mail delivery beginning
Aug. 5 was met with calls for his resig-
nation by leaders of several postal
workers unions. Donahoe says the U.S.
Postal Service (USPS) can save $2 bil-
lion a year by taking the action.
“Slowing mail service and degrad-
ing our unmatchable last-mile delivery
network are not the answers to the
Postal Service’s financial problems,”
responded National Association of Let-
ter Carriers (NALC) President Fredric
Rolando. “It is a disastrous idea,” that
Arbitrators set
three of four
postal contracts
Three of four postal unions have
been forced to binding arbitration after
the Postal Service refused to come to
terms on new collective bargaining
agreements.
The most recent was last month,
when a federal interest arbitration board
set the terms of a new national labor
agreement between the National Asso-
ciation of Letter Carriers (NALC) and
the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The
contract is retroactive to Nov. 21, 2011,
and runs through May 20, 2016.
The National Rural Letter Carriers
Association received an interest arbi-
tration award last year, while the Na-
tional Postal Mail Handler Union is still
waiting for a decision (possibly in
March).
Members of the American Postal
Workers Union ratified a contract in
2011.
For the most part, the arbitrators re-
jected the Postal Service’s proposals to
freeze pay, eliminate cost-of-living ad-
justments (COLAs), contract out work,
and impose a two-tier wage schedule.
NALC’s new contract provides
three general wage increases between
now and the end of the contract: 1 per-
cent in November 2013, 1.5 percent in
will hurt “millions of customers” —
particularly businesses, rural commu-
nities, the elderly, the disabled and oth-
ers who depend on Saturday delivery.
“USPS executives cannot save the
Postal Service by tearing it apart,”
added American Postal Workers Union
(APWU) President Cliff Guffey.
“These across-the-board cutbacks will
weaken the nation’s mail system and
put it on a path to privatization.”
The root cause of the agency’s fiscal
problems, union officials say, is the
unique congressional requirement —
the Postal Accountability and Enhance-
ment Act — that USPS prefund retire-
ment benefits for decades into the fu-
ture. Guffey called for repeal of that
requirement in order to restore financial
stability to the USPS.
“No other entity — public or private
— bears this burden. Since the Postal
Accountability and Enhancement Act
took effect in 2007, the Postal Service
has been required to pre-pay some $5.5
billion per year. Yet the same law pro-
hibits the Postal Service from raising
postage rates to cover the cost,” Guffey
said.
The U.S. Postal Service is, by law,
an “independent establishment” of the
executive branch of the federal govern-
ment. It gets no tax dollars for its day-
to-day operations, but it must follow
budget mandates passed by Congress.
The union leaders noted that USPS
already has begun slashing mail serv-
ice by closing 13,000 post offices or
A protester sits outside the Vancouver Hilton Hotel in August, where
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe was speaking about cuts to USPS.
drastically reducing hours of operation,
shutting hundreds of mail processing
facilities, and downgrading standards
for mail delivery to homes and busi-
nesses.
Jim Cook, president of Portland-
based NALC Branch 82, believes cor-
porate interests, working through their
friends in Congress, created a phony fi-
nancial crisis to soften the agency up
for union busting and privatization.
USPS is a $67 billion a year business
with over $100 billion surplus in its
pension and retiree health benefit
funds, 200,000 vehicles, and over
30,000 post offices, many of which are
located on prime downtown real estate.
“The postmaster general has been
selling off assets and dismantling the
postal service right before our very
eyes,” Cook said.
Union officials insist USPS can’t
eliminate Saturday mail without con-
gressional approval. Donahoe dis-
agrees, saying the agency has the au-
tonomy to make the change.
Rolando said Donahoe’s action
“flouts the will of Congress, as ex-
pressed annually over the past 30 years
in legislation that mandates six-day de-
livery.” Rolando said as recently as the
last Congress, which ended in January,
a bi-partisan majority of representatives
co-sponsored legislation backing the
continuation of Saturday delivery.
The two sides also disagree on the
impact on jobs if the cutbacks are im-
plemented. Union officials predict a
loss of some 80,000 jobs nationally
(150 to 200 in the Portland metro area).
Donahoe says 22,500 jobs would be
eliminated.
Rolando said if Donahoe “is unwill-
ing or unable to develop a smart growth
strategy that serves the nearly 50 per-
cent of business mailers that want to
keep six-day service, and if he arro-
gantly thinks he is above the law or has
the right to decide policy matters that
should be left to Congress, it is time for
him to step down,” he said.
Save Our Postal
Service rally in
Portland March 17
A Save Our Postal Service na-
tional day of action will take place
on St. Patrick’s Day, Sunday,
March 17 — the anniversary of the
great postal strike of 1970.
In Portland, supporters will
gather at Pioneer Square starting at
2 p.m. For more information, go to
www.savethepostoffice.com.
(Turn to Page 3)
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FEBRUARY 15, 2013