e-Team Report, July 12, 2013

Flurry of Postal Reform Developments on Capitol Hill

In the last week, there have been several developments relating to postal reform legislation.  Next Wednesday at 1:30PM EDT, the full House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing titled “A Path Forward on Postal Reform.”  Among the topics expected to be discussed are the deeply disturbing draft bill authored by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the committee’s chairman, and a newly released draft bill by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the committee’s ranking Democrat.  It is expected that the committee will move to mark up postal reform legislation in the week after the hearing.

With the flurry of recent and upcoming postal reform activity, the APWU homepage and these weekly E-Team updates can be great ways to stay on top of legislation that can make or break the Postal Service.

To share the E-Team updates with a coworker who wants to stay informed, they can click here to sign up. To find out more about the bill authored by Rep. Cummings, please click here. As more information about the hearing becomes available, it can be found on the Committee’s website, found here.

Not a Cent!

With Postal Reform hearings once again around the corner, the APWU is renewing its television ad campaign, with ads appearing on NBC Nightly News, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. First to appear is the popular “Not a Single Cent” ad that dispels the myth of the taxpayer bailout and describes the enormous task performed by postal workers. To see the ad and to read more about our ongoing campaign to defeat detrimental legislation and win support for real reform, please click here.

Senate GOP Threaten to Shut Down NLRB with Filibuster, Reform Considered

The National Labor Relations Board, the regulatory body tasked with enforcing workers’ rights, is crucial to postal workers and tens of millions of working Americans.  Unfortunately, this essential organization will be brought to a standstill without enough members to function in August unless President Obama’s nominees to the NLRB are confirmed by the full Senate.

As Senate Republicans threaten to block these critical nominees, things have heated up as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has threatened to reform the filibuster and revise Senate rules so that a stubborn minority of Senators cannot obstruct important presidential nominations.  Filling the vacancies at the NLRB is imperative to working Americans and if Senate Republicans insist on abusing the filibuster to block nominees, the filibuster must be reformed.

To read more about the showdown over filibuster reform and the nominees to the NLRB, please click here.

U.S. Military Veteran Postal Workers Honored

A recent ceremony in Nassau County, NY honoring U.S. military veterans in the Postal Service demonstrated the dedication of many postal workers to public service.  The USPS continues to be among the nation’s largest employers of veterans.  It is estimated that over 22 percent of the career workforce is composed of preference eligible veterans of whom approximately 40,000 are categorized as disabled and nearly13,000 are rated as 30 percent or more disabled.  

Many veterans have received employment opportunities with the Postal Service due to the Veterans’ Preference Act.  For nearly seven decades the Act has provided important assistance to those who have served our nation through military service by favoring veterans within government employment, including the USPS.  Consequently, the current attempts to remedy USPS’s financial crisis through labor and service reduction will have a profound impact on those who have served our nation in the highest regard.

For more on Nassau County’s ceremony to honor U.S. military veteran postal workers, please click here.

Convenience or Corporate Greed? – The Banks Wants the First Bite!

Outrage is building as more and more workers, especially those working for low wages, are being paid with a payroll card. In 2012 wages for workers were loaded onto 4.6 million cards, a number that is expected to reach 10.8 million by 2017.   The largest issuer of these cards says that it attracts companies by offering “convenience” to employees and cost savings to employers. A contract between New York City Housing Authority and Citibank revealed that the employer would actually receive payment for every card issued.

While some employers offer a choice, others do not, removing all options for direct deposit or a paper check. Real injustice occurs when employees are not given a choice. Payroll cards are largely unregulated and can leave cardholders drowning in fees. Inactivity fees, banned for regular debit and credit cards, are as high as $7 on payroll cards and for some of these cards fees are impossible to avoid, with some charging $1.50 just to transfer wages from the card to an employee’s bank account!

This new trend seems to have nothing to do with “convenience” and is simply the newest way for banks to make money since limits were recently imposed on fees they can collect for debit and credit cards. Payroll card fees can take such a big bite out of paychecks that when these fees are taken into account, some employees end up making less than minimum wage…. hardly convenient! 

Thanks to public outcry over this issue, it was recently announced McDonald's would abandon this practice of compulsory debit cards and would offer choice. To learn more, please click here.

The U.S. Postal Service Must Remain a Public Good

At its founding, the American postal service was created as a public good; a system meant to connect every household to a national communication infrastructure.  The reliability and ubiquity of the Postal Service promoted the integration of all parts of our great nation – urban and rural – and supported the development of American commerce.  Today, however, many conservative think tanks and business groups have pushed to turn the Postal Service into an entity that puts corporate interests above the needs of the American public.  Big Business continues to push for lower mail rates and preferential treatment at the expense of the quality service everyone else relies on!  The call to turn the Postal Service into a tool only for the benefit of corporate interests disregards the history of the service as a public good that connects the country and as a source of productive employment for American workers.  

For more on Big Business’ attacks on the Postal Service, please click here.