Dear Eric,
Tuesday, September 27th Rally
Please help get the word out as best you can, and join the rally yourself.
Representative Bachmann's office is at: 6043 Hudson Rd, Suite 330; Woodbury, MN 55125 on Tuesday, Sept 27th, 4-5:30 PM
If you care about the demise of the Middle Class and the blatant attacks on our right to Collectively bargain then please come out and show your support at these rallys. Everyone is welcome as the Post Office closings and consolidations are hurting many communities across Amercia.
This is a viscous misguided attempt to destroy the last great Union by shrinking and privatizing the Postal Service. Please read below for more info.
On Tuesday, September 27, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. (local time), members of the four employee unions of the United States Postal Service—
• American Postal Workers Union
• National Association of Letter Carriers
• National Postal Mail Handlers Union
• National Rural Letter Carriers' Association
— will join forces with members of our communities to send a message to the nation and its Congress.
We are proud to announce the participation of the National Association of Postal Supervisors (NAPS) in the effort to Save America's Postal Service. Click here to read their entire statement.
During these informational rallies, we will visit the home office of each member of the House of Representatives.
We will thank those members who have signed on as co-sponsors of H.R. 1351, a bill that addresses the financial crisis facing the Postal Service.
And we will encourage those who have not signed as co-sponsors of H.R. 1351 to do so.
Join us! For more Information read the article below.
Ten Reasons That the U.S. Postal Service is Not a Failure — and is Vital to Our Country 09/22/2011 - 11:30 am by Brigid O'Farrell
My local post office is in crisis.
Claiming that the U.S. Postal Service is in danger of financial collapse, the Postmaster General is proposing to close thousands of post offices and postal facilities, reduce services like Saturday delivery, lay off more workers, change benefit programs, and end protection against layoffs. In addition, current legislation in the House of Representatives (H.R. 2309) would create a "solvency authority" with power to unilaterally cut wages, change benefits, and end layoff protections. At the same time, it would create a board charged with delivering $2 billion worth of post office and facility closures in two years. Both efforts seriously erode the collective bargaining process that gives workers a voice on the job.
Maybe you agree with these measures.
Have you grumbled that you had to stand in line at the post office? The wrong mail got delivered to your house? You're not protected from lay-offs, so why should government workers be protected? You don't need Saturday delivery?
But have you looked at how the entire system actually works?
In 1943, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt told the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) convention delegates that union members need to tell their stories and educate the public about their problems. Well, I recently went to the convention of the Coalition of Labor Union Women and heard Cliff Guffey, president of the American Postal Workers Union, and Jane Broendel, secretary-treasurer of the National Association of Letter Carriers, explain clearly and succinctly why the Postal Service is not failing, why we should respect the people who go to work there every day, and how we can help make all of them more successful, contributing to a stronger economy. Here is what I learned.
The United States Postal Service:
1. Receives no taxpayer dollars
2. Is funded by the products and services it sells
3. Working with its unions, has already reduced its workforce by 110,000 employees, improved efficiency, and introduced new products and services
4. Handles more than 40 percent of the world's mail more efficiently and at lower cost than other services
5. Despite the growth of the digital world, continues to support a $1 trillion mailing industry with more than 8 million jobs
6. Has a workforce that is made up of 40 percent women, 40 percent minorities, and 22 percent veterans, many disabled
There is a crisis, but it is not because the Postal Service is inefficient and its workers overpaid. It is because the Postal Service:
7. Is the only federal agency or private company required to pre-fund retiree health benefits for 75 years
8. Is therefore required to pay $5.5 billion annually to the Treasury, an amount not required of any other agency or company
Without these unique requirements, it would have earned a surplus of over $600 million during the last four years. In addition, the USPS:
9. Has over-paid its obligations to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) by an estimated $50 billion (and this money should be returned)
10. Has overfunded the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) by
approximately $6.9 billion (and would be profitable if these funds were returned)
H.R. 1351, the "United States Postal Service Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011," would begin to solve part of the problem by requiring the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to transfer the billions of bollars in overpayments to the retirement funds to the retiree health benefits account.
Cliff Guffey, president of the American Postal Workers Union and a Vietnam veteran, told Congress, "As postal workers, we have been able to fulfill the American dream of holding a job that pays a living wage and provides health insurance for families with a dignified retirement when we can no longer work."
"My sister-in-law is a letter carrier in southern California. With over 20 years service on her route, in addition to delivering the mail she knows the elderly and the sick and checks when mail is left in the box. She asks about birthdays and anniversaries. For some, hers is the only friendly face they see all week, a link to the wider world. [...] The postal service is more than a job and more than products and services. It has been part of our history and our communities for over 200 years."
If you want more information about what is happening today, ask your letter carrier when he or she delivers your mail or stop and see your post master when you go into town. You can join the Save America's Postal Service Rallies on September 27. As Eleanor Roosevelt told the union delegates, "We can't just talk. We have got to act."
Thanks,
Michael Schroeder
SD48 Chair
763-213-8006
[with some text omitted - some links added where not showing in the email] Read information online here, here, and here.
Next, the CNN online reporting [excerpted without the original hot links or the additional audio coverage following this extended cut, photo from original (captioning added)]:
Is benefits law dragging down the Postal Service?
The U.S. Postal Service is in a precarious financial situation, telling Congress it faces the "equivalent of Chapter 11 bankruptcy." Losing billions of dollars a year, it is considering whether to close more than 3,600 post offices and lay off tens of thousands of workers.
The service faces many problems, including a drop in mail volume in recent years. But the service, which employs nearly 572,000 people, says some of its difficulties are inflicted by the federal government – through a law governing how the agency funds workers' retirement health benefits.
In 2006, Congress passed a law requiring the Postal Service to wholly pre-fund its retirement health package – that is, cover the health care costs of future retirees, in advance, at 100%. The Postal Service, which is a corporation owned but not funded by the federal government, is the only government-related agency required to prefund retirees' health benefits.
"No one prefunds at more than 30%," said Anthony Vegliante, the service's executive vice president.
Sally Davidow, spokeswoman for one of the unions that represents postal workers, calls it a "a ridiculous requirement."
"(The requirement is) so ridiculous, Congress doesn't do it. No other government agency does it. No private businesses do it," she said. "It's $5.5 billion a year, every year, for 10 years. That's what is causing the problem.
"The law was passed in 2006 and lo and behold, ever since 2007, the Postal Service has been suffering a tremendous debt."
The Postal Service reported a net loss of $8.5 billion last fiscal year.
The American Postal Workers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers don't want to lose the benefits. But Davidow says a solution is possible. [click the original item for what Davidow suggests]
[again, here for the full report, with links]
I wanted to finish the post, so I did not try to track down the 2006 legislation (and CNN did not link to it). However, it appears likely that in 2006 "special" legislation created a problem where none existed; and now dark forces of union haters are afoot to use that artificially created "problem" as an excuse for Koch brothers - Scott Walker union hating/busting of a kind the Pinkertons would marvel at - not a shot needing to be fired if the illusions can be successfully manipulated. They are indirect, they are ill-intentioned. Well organized, yes, but wholly nasty and ill-intentioned. Had the Postal Service been treated the same as congress in terms of benefits and pension funding, or as the TSA feelers and x-rayers, or the FBI or CIA, it appears there'd be a net positive balance on the balance sheet. Go figure. Go rally.
________________UPDATE_______________
Reader help is requested if anyone knows: Are lower rung Federal Reserve employees there under the civil service, or are those jobs "privatized?" And if "privatized" what are the pension arrangements, and how are they funded? If civil service, ditto? These, after all, are the only ones in our nation allowed to print money, they own and control the printing presses, so what's their story on how well or poorly they treat the help? Treasury certificates have been abandoned years ago and instead of saying "redeemable in legal tender" all pretenses have been dropped and the fiat money says "This is legal tender."