APWU Supported and Opposed Legislation

Supported Legislation

H.R.6076 – Postal Reform Act

Comprehensive and bipartisan postal reform legislation which largely solves the disastrous pre-funding mandate while at the same time treating our retirees fairly. The bill would also allow the Postal Service to modestly raise postage rates immediately, generating roughly an additional one-billion dollars in annual revenue.

H.R.760 - Postal Service Financial Improvement Act

Requires the U.S. Department of Treasury to invest up to 30% of the available funds within the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund (PSRHBF). Investment of funds modeled after those established by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. Allowing USPS to invest a portion of the PSRHBF would enable the USPS to significantly reduce future liabilities.

H.R. 173 - Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act

Permanently repeals the 40% excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health benefits – which is incorrectly known as the “Cadillac tax.” This tax needlessly punishes many workers, especially union workers, for their hard earned and collectively bargained health benefits.

S.1231 and H.R.2669 – Vote by Mail Act

APWU believes that voting in every election should be as convenient, fair, and secure as possible. The Vote By Mail Act requires every state to provide registered voters the opportunity to vote by mail. By utilizing America’s most trusted government agency, voting by mail can reduce election-related expenses and provide much needed relief to thinly stretched state and local budgets. Voting by Mail encourages working people to exercise the most fundamental right of every citizen and is proven to increase voter participation.

S.1804 and H.R.676 – Medicare for All Act

Ensure that all Americans will have access to the highest quality and most cost-effective healthcare services regardless of their employment, income, or health care status. Guarantee quality healthcare for all Americans through expanded Medicare program. Fully cover primary care and hospital stays for all Americans, without co-pays or deductibles, and provides maternity, prescription drug, vision, and dental benefits. Leverage power of single-payer system to eliminate administrative waste and reduce overall cost of American healthcare spending. S.1804 would codify into law the moral truth that healthcare is a human right.

H.Res.31 - Restore Service Standards

Calls for USPS to restore 2012 mail service standards. Prompt and reliable nationwide mail service is critical to retaining business, growing business and satisfying customers. Delayed mail will continue to drive business away from USPS and to its competitors. Requiring the mail to be transported further distances, USPS’s mail slowdown plan has increased costs and actually lost the agency money.

H.Res.28 - Protect Door Delivery 
Converting existing door-delivery to centralized delivery points is wildly unpopular among small business and residential delivery customers. The USPS’ brand is its best asset, that brand is trusted by the American people at their door and inside their businesses, not at a neighborhood cluster box. Revenue is generated everyday by Letter Carriers who connect with business owners and other customers at the door.

H.Res.15 - Protect Six-Day Delivery 
The Postal Service is delivering in some places 7-days a week now and is offering same-day delivery through partnerships. Eliminating Saturday delivery is counterproductive to the thriving e-commerce business the Postal Service is part of. Eliminating Saturday delivery will drive business and revenue away. USPS provides affordable last-mile delivery for UPS, FedEx and Amazon to every delivery point in the country, partnerships that have been extremely successful. Without Saturday delivery these companies will find alternate, more expensive means of delivery.

H.R.1205 - Social Security Fairness Act 
Repeals the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), which penalizes those who meet the requirements for Social Security benefits but have previous employment under CSRS. The GPO reduces benefits to spouses or widows by two-thirds if they are currently receiving a retirement or disability pension based on prior employment, during which they did not pay into Social Security. The WEP affects those who receive a pension from employment where they did not pay into Social Security but did qualify for Social Security benefits from other employment.

H.R.1251 - CPI-E Act

Social Security COLAs are currently based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners (CPI-W). This measure of inflation does not adequately take into consideration the spending habits of seniors. CPI-E (Consumer Price Index for the Elderly) has been calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics but has never been applied. Using the CPI-E would more accurately reflect what seniors spend the bulk of their money on, such as healthcare.

S.427 - Social Security Expansion Act

Extends the solvency of the Social Security trust funds whiling providing much needed and reasonable increases to benefits. Scraps the payroll tax cap on income above $250,000. Applying a 6.2% Social Security tax, treats investment income for high-earning households the same as payroll income for working families.

(Passed into law) S.873 and H.R.3031 – Thrift Savings Plan Modernization Act

Previously, upon reaching age 59, active postal employees could only withdraw from their TSP once. Similarly, retirees could only partially withdraw from their TSP a single time. This inflexibility often lead retirees to fully withdraw their TSP funds and move them into private investment plans with pricier maintenance fees. The TSP Modernization Act provided much needed flexibility to retiring postal workers, lifting the current restrictions and allowing them to make multiple, partial post-separation withdrawals from their TSP savings. It also gave TSP contributors the choice of quarterly or annual payments.

Opposed Legislation

H.R.1364 - Official Time Reform Act 
Official time improves working conditions and protects employees from discrimination and management retaliation. H.R.1364 would devastate union stewards’ retirement security by eliminating accrual of pension credits while on official time advocating for their co-workers. This needless and reckless bill would both undermine workplace protections and negatively impact the performance of our essential federal agencies. While this specific bill does not address the Postal Service, it is one of many legislative attempts to undermine federal and postal collective bargaining rights.

S.545 and H.R.785 - National Right to Work Act

When a worker joins a unionized workplace, they benefit greatly from the wages and benefits collectively bargained for thanks to their union representation. National Right to Work seeks to devastate the union movement across the country by outlawing fare share agreements – allowing those who do not join a union to freeload without paying a fee for the representation the union nonetheless is required to provide them under the law.

H.R.1259 - VA Accountability First Act

All but eliminates critical workplace protections for civil servants at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Virtually reduces VA employees to “at-will” employment, able to be fired or demoted at management’s whim. Instilling a politically-charged culture of fear and reprisal, H.R. 1259 will only lead to worse care for our nation’s veterans.

H.R.1461 - VET Protection Act

Undermines the union representation of federal employees and limits the use of official time in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Needlessly extends “at-will” probationary period from 12 to 18 months, during which time management is able to fire new employees for any reason.

(Not adopted into law) H.Con.Res.71 - Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Resolution

This resolution had disastrous implications for postal and federal employees. It targeted our hard-earned pensions and FERS retirees’ vital annuity supplements for big cuts. More egregious was the assault on the USPS by calling for the Postal Service to be placed “on budget.” This would have made the USPS subject to federal government shutdowns and turned it into a piggy bank for non-postal related government expenses.