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Congress Adjourns Without Passing Postal ‘Reform’
Postal Workers Avoid a Legislative Disaster
Burrus Update #14-06, Oct. 3, 2006
On the evening of Sept. 30, 2006, as Congress was poised to adjourn to campaign for the mid-term elections, postal workers avoided a legislative disaster.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Chair of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, finalized a revised version of a Senate postal “reform” bill and initiated parliamentary procedures for a vote. Only through the combined efforts of the postal craft unions (APWU, National Association of Letter Carriers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union, and National Rural Letters Carriers Association) were we able to delay final action on this bill that would have been bad for American citizens and bad for postal workers.
We are most appreciative of Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), for their support on issues that were important to us during the tense hours of negotiations.
If this legislation had passed, the winners would have been the large mailers, their congressional supporters, and the White House. The losers would have been individual postal customers, small businesses, and postal employees. The bill would have put in motion a legal framework that would have led to the erosion of service and a reduction in wages and benefits. This is a bad bill and it does not deserve to become law.
Notwithstanding the flowery rhetoric proclaiming that it would “save” the Postal Service, this legislation would have ensured its demise. Collective bargaining would have been subordinated to unrealistic and inflexible restrictions on postage rates; operational control would have been transferred to a politically-appointed board, and unjustified financial obligations would have remained — requiring the USPS to make ongoing payments to an escrow account.
Compounding this assault on workers and citizens was an 11th-hour “compromise” concerning workers rights when they are injured on the job. An earlier version of the bill would have required postal workers who are injured on the job to use annual or sick leave for the first several days of their recovery and would have required eligible injured employees to retire. This amounts to employees being forced to pay for injuries they suffer in the performance of their duties. Through compromise, supporters of the bill agreed to eliminate the retirement requirement but retain the requirement that injured employees use annual leave or sick leave for the first three days of job-related injuries. An analogy would be threatening to sever my arm and comprising to take only a finger. What a deal!
In addition, a provision the APWU had worked so hard to have included in the bill — which would have limited excessive worksharing discounts — was gutted in this final draft of postal reform. Most surprising to APWU was that our friend, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), joined with Sen. Collins in agreeing to modify the worksharing provisions in a way that would permit excessive postage discounts to continue unabated. This would have legalized discounted postage rates for large mailers far below rates that could be justified by cost savings due to worksharing. Increasingly, our work would have been contracted out to profit-seeking large mailers and consolidators, even in those circumstances where the Postal Service could perform the work more efficiently and cheaper
This is a bad bill and we are pleased that Congress has deferred final action. However, Congress is expected to return for a “lame-duck” session after the November elections, and we may once again be subject to parliamentary maneuvering designed to pass this terrible legislation.
The APWU’s position has been consistent throughout the reform process: This bill was never about saving the Postal Service; it is and was about reducing the rates for large mailers and reducing the federal budget deficit.
I want to thank Legislative Director Myke Reid for his diligent work on this issue. We will be equally vigilant following the November elections and can hopefully kill, once and for all, kill this charade of postal “reform.”
William Burrus
President
