Retirement, Separation Incentive
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USPS ‘Incentive’ Program Results In 19,000 APWU-Craft Retirements

(This article first appeared in the November/December 2009 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

Approximately 19,000 USPS employees in APWU-represented crafts will retire or separate from the Postal Service before Dec. 1 and receive a $15,000 incentive under an agreement negotiated by the union.

A Memorandum of Understanding creating the incentive program was signed on Aug. 24. “This agreement achieved a long-standing objective of the APWU,” said union President William Burrus.

The agreement applied to non-probationary career postal employees in the APWU bargaining unit; the incentive was offered to eligible employees who terminated their service through Optional (Regular) Retirement, Voluntary Early Retirement, or separation. (Eligible PTR and PTF employees received offers of proportional percentages of the incentive.)

It included employees in the Clerk Craft, Maintenance Craft, Motor Vehicle Services Craft, mail equipment shops, material distribution centers, and occupational health nurses, with some exceptions and limitations.

Not covered by the agreement were employees who were issued a notice of discharge on or before Aug. 24; MPE 9s, ET 10s, and ET 11s who could not be replaced without training; Operating Services employees; employees in the Accounting Services section of the IT/ASC bargaining unit, probationary employees, and Transitional Employees.

Depending on whether they were eligible for early or regular retirement, employees were required to apply for retirement by Sept. 25 or express interest by that date. Some employees can revoke their decisions until the effective date of retirement, so the final tally could be significantly lower than the 19,738 reported by the USPS. See unofficial figures in chart at top right. )

Qualifying for Eligibility

To qualify for regular retirement, employees had to have at least 30 years of service and be age 55 or older; or have at least 20 years of service and be age 60 or older; or have at least five years of service and be age 62 or older. To qualify for early retirement, employees must have had at least 20 years of service and be 50 years of age or older, or have had 25 years of service (any age).

Employees who did not qualify for regular or early retirement were given the opportunity to resign in order to receive the incentive.

Employees who chose to leave and are eligible for the incentive will be paid $10,000 within two pay periods after separation, and will receive an additional $5,000 on Oct. 29, 2010.

The Negotiations

“Our goal was an incentive of 50 percent of a year’s salary,” Burrus said. “Because of the difficult economic times, however, the agreement had to be structured to avoid adding to the deficit. Nonetheless, we feel that the settlement provided a modest incentive to employees to end their service.

“The USPS financial condition is precarious,” Burrus said. “The congressionally-imposed obligation to prefund the retirees’ health insurance fund has caused tremendous deficits over the last two years.

“Management has been forced to reduce costs, but unfortunately, the cuts have been applied disproportionally to bargaining-unit employees, especially to those in mail processing,” the union president said.

“Excessing and work-hour cuts have caused severe hardships for our members,” he said, “so finding a way to make voluntary complement adjustments became an urgent matter.”

There was a moratorium on excessing from Aug. 24 to Oct. 9 to allow time to assess the vacancies created by the retirements and separations. During this period, excessing notices that had already been issued were reviewed. According to the unofficial numbers as of Sept. 25,

approximately 3,000 Mail Handlers, who received an offer virtually identical to the APWU-negotiated agreement, also took part in the USPS retirement-incentive program.

 

CHART

 

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