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Congress Hears from
Corporate Mailers and USPS Brass

(This article was first published in the March/April 2004 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine)

The debate in Congress over postal "reform" entered a critical phase recently when key House and Senate committees held hearings on the subject with witnesses from mailing industry associations, unions, the USPS, and other groups. The series of hearings focused on the recommendations of the President's Commission on the U.S. Postal Service and a list of principles endorsed by the Bush administration.

In the coming weeks, members of the House and Senate committees will begin to draft legislation that could have a major impact on postal workers and postal customers. What remains to be seen is which constituency groups will hold the most sway in influencing the bill Congress writes.

President Burrus and the leaders of other postal unions testified in Chicago at a Feb. 5 hearing of the House Government Reform Committee's Special Panel on Postal Reform and in Washington DC on Feb. 24 before the Senate Government Affairs Committee.

Testifying on Feb. 4 and 11, other key constituency groups spoke in support of a number of changes that the postal unions oppose.

The chief executives of the nation's largest corporate mailers told the House Panel that they support most of the Commission's recommendations.

Michael Crittelli, Chairman of the Mailing Industry CEO Council and Chairman and CEO of Pitney Bowes, said that the Postal Service must increase the use of "worksharing" discounts and allow private sector companies to handle "mail preparation, collection, sortation, or transportation." Postal jobs, he said, should be "outsourced" by "allowing the private sector to operate Postal Service processing facilities through facility management contracts."

Other witnesses urged Congress to give the Postal Service the unfettered ability to close processing facilities and post offices, and to make retail services more widely available in banks, shopping centers, and other locations. They also favored other Commission proposals the unions oppose regarding compensation, collective bargaining, and postage rate-setting.

Paramount Cards President Hamilton Davison said, "Benefits such as pension and health care plans [which are currently guaranteed under law] should be included in negotiations."

"We fully support the Commission's recommendations on revisions to the collective bargaining process," declared Time Magazine CEO Ann S. Moore.

William L. Davis, CEO of R.R. Donnelley, questioned the current cost allocation system used to set rates, suggesting that the mailing industry should not have to pay to support parts of the mail system it does not use, such as retail facilities. The APWU opposes this concept, known as "bottom-up pricing," because it would deprive the Postal Service of the ability to maintain its infrastructure - the vast network these same major mailers rely on to deliver their products.

Davis, Moore, Davison and Critelli all called for capping future rate increases at the rate of inflation. The APWU opposed this proposal in earlier drafts of postal reform legislation because the union believed it would act as a wage cap.

USPS competitors FedEx and UPS called for Congress to prevent the Postal Service from using its revenue from its letter mail monopoly to "cross subsidize" its competitive products.

USPS executives also differed with postal unions on several key issues when they were called to testify at a House panel hearing on Jan. 28.

Postmaster General John E. Potter and Board of Governors Chairman David S. Fineman told the House Panel they supported collective bargaining, but they endorsed proposals to make health care and retirement benefits negotiable. "I don't believe the Postal Regulatory Board should interfere with the collective bargaining process," Fineman said, "but benefits should be on the table."

"This is sheer hypocrisy," said APWU President William Burrus. "The top postal managers are trying to have it both ways. Either they want to tamper with collective bargaining or they don't," he said.

Representatives of postal supervisors and postmasters told the Senate Committee that they supported most of the Commission's proposals. Postmasters' representatives spoke against closing retail facilities, while the supervisors' organization supported it. The National League of Postmasters, which represents mostly rural postmasters, opposed USPS top-down "micro-management," and endorsed easing cross-craft assignment rules.

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