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A Look at the New Congress

(This article first appeared in the March/April 2007 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

With the new Congress in place and the 10-year battle over postal reform essentially behind us, the Legislative Department’s focus now will shift to other matters.

The postal reform measure that President Bush signed into law on Dec. 20 will have long-term effects, of course, and we will be ready to address parts of the new bill that are of concern to us. The rate cap and its impact on future negotiations is one such area, as is the three-day waiting period for workers injured on the job. Requiring injured postal workers to use their own leave or go without pay for three days following an on-the-job injury (unless it leads to an absence of more than 14 days) is burdensome and unfair. No other federal employees are treated this way.

GPO and WEP

We will continue to work to rescind the statutory penalties currently imposed by the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provisions (WEP) of Social Security law.

As written, the GPO rules reduce and can even eliminate Social Security benefits for a surviving spouse who is a Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) retiree. Under current law, the survivor’s Social Security benefits are reduced by an amount equal to two-thirds of a surviving spouse’s CSRS retirement benefit.

The WEP requirement forces most CSRS retirees to receive reduced Social Security benefits when they have less than 30 years of “substantial” Social Security earnings. This reduced formula applies to CSRS retirees who have reached age 62 or have become disabled since 1985 and have been eligible after 1985 for a pension based in whole or in part on work not covered by Social Security.

In recent years, we have seen bills prepared that would repeal the GPO and WEP provisions, but they never made it out of committee even though they were cosponsored by long lists of legislators in both chambers.

On Jan. 4, however, one of the first bills introduced in the House of Representatives was the “Social Security Fairness Act of 2007.”

Designed to eliminate the GPO and WEP provisions, the bill had 120 co-sponsors within a week. With a similar bill introduced in the Senate on Jan. 9, we are feeling even more hopeful that the new leadership on Capitol Hill will help us make progress.

FMLA

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 has been under attack and we feel that steps must be taken to protect this important law from erosion. Big business has never liked the FMLA and various lobbying interests have done everything they can to weaken it.

The most recent effort has been an attempt to redefine a “serious health condition.” Corporate interests are seeking to limit FMLA coverage to only those conditions that could be life-threatening. Such a standard would essentially gut the law. The APWU supports the FMLA, and we will continue to be vigilant.

Healthcare Reform

Healthcare, the laws that govern its costs, and attempts to reform those laws are matters of great importance to all Americans. The spiraling cost of healthcare premiums has been the 600-pound gorilla at many bargaining tables, and these costs are going to continue to be a problem unless some form of healthcare reform is implemented. Any attempt at healthcare reform must also address the stranglehold that pharmaceutical companies have on prescription-drug costs.

Committee Leadership News

With the Democrats regaining power in both chambers of Congress, new members have been assigned to committees and new chairs have been selected to lead them. The two that are the most important to APWU members are the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Rep. Henry Waxman of California chairs the House committee, and the Senate Committee is chaired by Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut .

Listed below are the members of the committees that handle most of the legislative business relating to our jobs and benefits. We look forward to productive dialog and are committed to working with all of them.

House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform:

Democrats Henry Waxman (CA), Chairman; Tom Lantos (CA); Edolphus Towns (NY); Paul E. Kanjorski (PA); Carolyn B.Maloney (NY); Elijah E. Cummings (MD); Dennis J. Kucinich (OH); Danny K. Davis (IL); John F. Tierney (MA);Wm. Lacy Clay (MO); Diane E. Watson (CA); Stephen F. Lynch (MA); Brian Higgins (NY); John A. Yarmuth (KY); Bruce L. Braley (IA); Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC); Betty McCollum (MN); Jim Cooper (TN); Chris Van Hollen (MD); Paul W. Hodes (NH); Christopher S. Murphy (CT); John P. Sarbanes (MD); Peter Welch (VT); and Republicans Tom Davis (VA), Virginia, Ranking Minority Member; Dan Burton (IN); Christopher Shays (CT); John M.McHugh (NY); John L. Mica (FL); Mark E. Souder (IN); Todd Russell Platts (PA): Chris Cannon (UT); John J. Duncan Jr. (TN); Michael Turner (OH); Darrell E. Issa (CA); Kenny Marchant (TX); Lynn A. Westmoreland (GA); Patrick T. McHenry (NC); Virginia Foxx (NC); Brian Bilbray (CA), and Bill Sali (ID).

Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:

Democrats Joseph I. Lieberman (CT), Chairman; Carl Levin (MI); Daniel K. Akaka (HI); Thomas R. Carper (D-DE); Mark Pryor (AR); Mary L. Landrieu (LA); Barack Obama (IL); Claire McCaskill (MO); Jon A. Tester (MT); and Republicans Susan M. Collins (ME), Ranking Minority Member; Ted Stevens (AL); George V. Voinovich (OH); Norm Coleman (MN); Tom Coburn (R-OK); Pete V. Domenici (NM); John W. Warner (R-VA), and John E. Sununu (NH).

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