White House, Senate Budget Targets Postal Workers

On March 18th, the White House released its Fiscal Year 2020 budget plan. This non-binding proposal begins the government funding process. It also sets the tone for the budget negotiations for the fiscal year 2020 spending. The White House budget showcases the Administration’s funding priorities as the House and Senate sets their own. For postal and federal workers, this budget is largely a reintroduction of repeated, failed attacks on our pay and benefits from the last fiscal year, and it takes these attacks on workers further. The FY20 budget includes:

• Elimination of union collective bargaining over wages and benefits for postal employees;

• Reduction of mail service to the American people to achieve $39 billion dollars over 4 years in postal-specific savings;

• Increases to employee Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) contributions by l% a year for each of the next six years;

• Elimination of FERS Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA), and a reduction of (Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) COLAs by 0.5%;

• Elimination of the special retirement supplement;

• Reduction of retirement benefits by using a "high five" salary average formula, rather than the current “high three” average;

• Reduction to the G-fund interest rate to provide worse returns on Thrift Savings Plan investments;

• Increases to the share postal and federal workers pay for care under the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan (FEHBP);

• Decreases to Federal Employee Compensation Act (FECA) pay for injured workers ; and,

• Cuts to Medicare over the next l0 years, amounting to $845 billion.

Each of these proposals would be severe cuts to dedicated postal employees, both active and retired.

“We’ve been down this road before, and once again we cannot allow the budget to be balanced on the backs of working people,” said President Mark Dimondstein.

Postal and federal workers have already contributed enormously to deficit reduction - and now they want more. While budget after budget diminishes workers’ livelihoods in the name of austerity, they ask nothing of the wealthiest Americans. Instead, the budgets advanced by anti-worker politicians preserve, protect, and expand big tax cuts for America’s richest few.

“Just as we informed you when we fought against last year’s disastrous tax proposal, the White House is coming after our hard-earned pay and benefits to 'fix' the deficit they continue to grow," said Legislative and Political Director Judy Beard.

Many of the Administration’s disastrous proposals were incorporated into last year’s House and Senate budgets, as part of targeted cuts aimed at federal and postal worker pay and benefits. Postal workers, active and retired alike, rallied last year against the budget attacks. We stood arm-in-arm with our sisters and brothers in the Federal-Postal Coalition to defend our livelihoods. We flooded Congress with tens of thousands of calls on our coordinated Day of Action against the budget, and thanks to our activism, we were victorious. Members of Congress realized these cuts were unfavorable with their constituents and reductions to postal pay and benefits were not included in the ratified Fiscal Year 20l9 budget.

Contact your members of Congress and tell them to oppose 2020 budget cuts that would hurt postal workers and our families. Legislative Hotline: 844-402-1001.

As this year’s budget process begins anew, we will bring that same vigilance and action to succeed.