URGENT-Postal Legislation Mark-Up tomorrow UPDATED

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Aj Janssen

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Jul 23, 2013, 10:44:37 PM7/23/13
to dis...@mngreens.org, Green Party Of Washington County

☮ Peace & ♥ Love™
Aj Janssen
Green Party State Coordinating Committee Member (At Large)





Tomorrow the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Chairman Darrell Issa, will be marking up Issa’s postal reform bill. This bill, in its current form, will be harmful to rural letter carriers, bad for the Postal Service, and a step toward privatization.
This bill includes the modified delivery proposed by Postmaster General Donahoe earlier this year, which will eliminate Saturday mail delivery. As the USPS and others have failed to consider continued transportation and labor costs for Saturday package delivery, as well as lost any revenue from potential changes, some have questioned whether this proposal saves any money at all.
The proposed bill impedes on the collective bargaining process, a process that has been mutually beneficial to both the USPS and the postal unions for over 40 years. The legislation forces all collective bargaining into a mediation-arbitration process and states that any agreement reached with the USPS could be amended to lower wages and benefits for employees like yourself. Issa’s bill would require any arbitrator to take in account pay comparability with the private sector and the financial condition of the USPS. The legislation also interferes with current collect bargaining agreements by requiring postal workers to pay the same premium contribution that other federal workers now pay for health insurance benefits and clarifies the existing compensation parity required to exist between postal and private sector workers. Issa’s bill also prospectively bans the USPS from entering into no-layoff clauses with the postal unions, subjecting Postal employees to the same Reduction-in-Force authority as the rest of the federal workforce. This language, along with language encouraging additional facility closures and delays in service, is simply unreasonable and harmful to rural letter carriers nationwide.
Listed below are the members of this committee. If there are any from your state, please contact them and encourage them to OPPOSE this bill in its current form, as it will only further hurt the Postal Service, its customers, and its employees.
 
 
 
REPUBLICANS
DEMOCRATS
 


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