Category: Content

What is Happening Here?

It seems that the USPS and Congress cannot agree on anything. The Postal Service advises the Board of Governors that effective August 2013 they will implement 5 day delivery. Congress says hold on you can’t do that without Congress approving it. The tug of war begins again. We the workers are once again left in limbo. Will our jobs be abolished or must we travel great distances to try to save our careers. We have the Republican House looking to privatize the Postal Service, and the Democratic Senate looking to preserve our National Treasure. We once again are caught in the middle and all we want to do is work and serve the public like we have done for many years.

Being a National officer with NAPS, I can honestly say the USPS from Headquarters down to the Districts during this latest RIF worked closely with me to make sure we found a landing spot for every EAS employee who was affected. They might have lost their comfort zone but in the end they landed on their feet. We placed everyone in a job (Thank God). If this were the private sector there would have been layoffs galore.

We just completed our most successful Northeast training seminar in Puerto Rico February 8th-9th 2013. This was by far the most informative 2 days of training that I have ever been a part of. From the USPS side we had Mr. Anthony Vegliante, and Mr. John Mularski, and from NAPS we had Mr. Louis Atkins, Mr. Jay Killackey, Mr. Brian Wagner, Mr. Ivan Butts, Mr. Neftali Rivera, Mr. Jim Warden, Mr. Cy Dumas, Mr. Hans Aglidian, and myself. This was a happening and I personally want to thank everyone who attended. A special thank you also to Sheri Davies of Conference Direct who made this all happen.

On a sad note, I along with the President and National officers of NAPS attended the Funeral of former Mideast Area V.P. Robert (Bob) Towns who passed away March 14, 2013 after a long illness. The funeral mass was March 22, 2013. I have many fond memories of Bob who I had the pleasure of sitting next to at all board meetings. He was a fighter for the people he represented in New Jersey and it certainly showed by the turnout at the Funeral Mass. My condolences go out to Cathy and Family…. Rest in Peace my friend.

In closing, let me use the term of my Friend Andy Sozzi to, “Stay Strong” with all the turmoil that surrounds the Postal Service these days and to let you know that NAPS is behind all of its members. I will fight to save any EAS job’s that may be affected in the future. Please visit my website tommyroma.org for all my articles and updates.

 Tommy Roma

House Tells Postal Service to Keep Six-Day Delivery

House Tells Postal Service to Keep Six-Day Delivery

nytimes logo

March 6, 2013
By RON NIXON

WASHINGTON – A spending measure passed by the House on Wednesday to keep the government operating through September requires that the Postal Service maintain a six-day mail delivery schedule, a potential setback for the agency, which announced last month that it planned go to five-day deliveries to cut costs.

The legislation passed the House 267 to 151, with 137 Democrats voting against it. The measure now moves to the Senate.

Faced with billions of dollars in losses, Postal Service officials said last month that beginning in August the service would stop delivering mail on Saturdays, though it would continue to deliver packages on a six-day schedule. The agency said cutting Saturday delivery would save about $2 billion a year.

The agency lost about $15.9 billion last year, partly the a result of a 2006 law requiring it to pay about $5.5 billion into a health benefits fund for its future retirees. A drop in mail volume has also hurt the agency’s finances.

The move to end Saturday mail delivery was widely condemned by some lawmakers, unions and postal customers.

After the House voted to pass the spending measure, Representative José E. Serrano, Democrat of New York, said the legislation made clear that Congress’s intent was for the Postal Service to continue to delivery mail on Saturdays.

The post office said last month that it had the authority to end mail delivery on Saturdays because the spending measure passed last year did not explicitly include the postal provision.

On Wednesday, Mr. Serrano said that issue had now been resolved.

“The continuing resolution is clear: there will be six-day delivery for the rest of the fiscal year,” Mr. Serrano said. “Earlier this year the Postal Service announced they thought they had legal authority to end Saturday delivery. That analysis was wrong, but now there is no room for misunderstanding.”

Postal Service officials did not respond directly to the House vote. But in a statement, a spokesman for the agency said the decision to end Saturday delivery was “a responsible and reasonable approach to address our urgent financial situation and America’s changing mailing habits.”

“The Postal Service continues to lose $25 million per day,” said David Partenheimer, the spokesman. “The new delivery schedule would save approximately $2 billion annually once fully implemented and would be a significant step towards improving our financial stability.”

A Holiday Story

Jay Killackey
Executive Vice President

Postal employees, supervisors, managers and postmasters go out of their way for their customers every day of the year, but especially during the holiday season. I want to share a story from my past that really shows how much postal employees care about their customers.

Before I came to serve NAPS at headquarters, I was a station manager in a large facility outside of Boston. Just before Christmas a letter carrier picked up a handwritten note out of a collection box. It was just an old tattered piece of paper, without an envelope. It was a dear Santa letter from a little boy named Carlos.

In the letter, Carlos wrote that he was seven years old and lived with his mother and had a brother and a sister. He said that his mother’s boyfriend used to hit his mother and make her cry. Carlos said that his mother told him that she didn’t have much money so Christmas wouldn’t be good for Carlos and his brother and sister.

Carlos’ letter to Santa had a simple request; Carlos asked if Santa would make his mother’s boyfriend stop hitting her. Then Carlos closed with one more request. Carlos said he didn’t want anything for himself but he did ask if Santa could give just one present for his brother and sister so they would have something for Christmas.

When the letter was turned in the carriers in the unit started asking around the neighborhood to find a seven year old boy named Carlos. It didn’t take long to identify where Carlos lived and the Santa letter was turned over to the police. The police took care of the boyfriend. But, now someone had to take care of the other request that Carlos made.

All the employees in the office were so moved by the letter and the selflessness of little Carlos that a collection garnered enough money to stuff the back of an LLV with Christmas presents. A letter carrier who regularly donned a Santa suit before Christmas drove the truck to the house. With the help of several elves wearing carrier uniforms, Santa made a special delivery of presents to children who otherwise may have had nothing for Christmas.

There is no group of employees in any business that cares more about their customers than postal employees. Perhaps you may be wiping tears from your eyes about now because you too know of stories like this in your own community and how postal employees stepped up and reached out to help customers.

Perhaps you may want to reach out and help someone less fortunate this holiday season. Happy holidays!

Health premiums: It pays to go postal

Health premiums: It pays to go postal

Wednesday – 12/5/2012, 2:00am EST
mikecausey
By Mike Causey

They say there is something about a uniform.

That’s especially true if the wearer works for the U.S. Postal Service, and especially during the health-insurance hunting season that ends next Monday.

As many people know, if you are in a mixed federal marriage — he’s a letter carrier, she’s with the IRS — it is important who buys the health insurance. While the choice of plans and the coverage are the same wherever you work, the premiums aren’t. There is a big-time difference in what most federal workers pay compared to what all postal workers pay.

If they’ve done their homework, the spouse with the USPS will purchase the family plan saving them a lot of money. They can save even more by picking the best plan for their known health needs, plus the best plan in case they have a catastrophic illness or accident in 2013.

The federal health program (FEHBP) is the ultimate group plan. Up to a point.

People in the same plans pay the same rates and get the same coverage whether they are young and healthy, middle aged with kids or older and retired. Age, sex, lifestyle and preexisting conditions are not a factor in the federal health plan. The Open Season, when people can pick their plan for the upcoming year, ends Monday.

But some people in the FEHBP pay more than others for the same coverage. Example:

Thanks to their union contracts with the U.S. Postal Service, the annual family premium for Kaiser standard, a top-rated HMO, is $1,720. For Blue Cross-Blue Shields popular basic plan, it is $2,370.

Feds who work for other agencies will pay $2,610 for the Kaiser standard option and $3,600 for the Blue Cross basic plan.

For most federal workers, the government picks up about 70 percent of the total premium. What they pay every two weeks is only a portion of the total tab. But in the USPS, the government pays a lot more for the health needs of its workers. Once retired, postal workers pay the same (higher) share of premiums as non-postal workers.

The U.S. Postal Service wants to set up its own, stand-alone health plan. It has said it could save money and provide the same good coverage as the FEHBP. But postal unions — and many experts in the health insurance field — don’t see how that would work.

And there is one group that pays even more. In many cases, these are people who never worked for the government but are eligible, via a court-ordered divorce settlement, to get coverage under the FEHBP. It’s considered the best health program in the company but if you pay the full premium it is very, very expensive.

Next year the family premium for someone who must pay the full premium will be $10,430 for Kaiser standard — the lowest cost plan in the FEHBP — and $14,390 for Blue Cross basic.