Postmasters Request A "Me Too" On USPS Retirement Incentive

NAPUS Letter sent to Postmaster General Jack Potter

August 25, 2009
Honorable John E. Potter
Postmaster General, Chief Executive Officer
United States Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW Room 10022
Washington, DC 20260-0010

Re: Your Letter of August 25, 2009

Dear Jack:

Earlier today, I was advised that the U.S. Postal Service will extend to employees represented by the American Postal Workers Union and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union a $15,000 retirement incentive. The USPS projects that the offer will reduce operating costs by $500 million.

I urge you to make a similar offer to Postmasters. Equity demands that Postmasters be offered the same retirement incentive as the individuals whom they manage. In fact, at NAPUS’ May consultative with the USPS, I asked for such a Postmaster retirement incentive, but was advised by your representative that there were no funds available for my request. Apparently, funds are now available for clerks and mail handlers. Jack, NAPUS’ request must be revisited in light of to day’s news. Failure to provide Postmasters with a meaningful retirement incentive will further degrade Postmaster morale, and will confirm an incalculable level of disrespect.

At the same time, I am alarmed about the operational implications of the clerk and mail handler retirement incentive. Currently, postal operations are compromised by grave staffing inadequacies. These complement deficiencies yield late-arriving mail at destination Post Offices, and letter carrier scarcity that results in Postmasters performing after-hour delivery functions. Managers cannot safeguard quality customer service, while also filling processing, window and carrier vacancies. Among the situations that confront my members are: too many Postmasters work ten and twelve hour work days, six and seven days a week; and an increasing number are forced to violate the Fair Labor Standards Act. Consequently, the clerk/mail handler retirement incentives, as rolled-out, will intensify staffing problems – not increase operational efficiencies. Please recall the misguided reductions implemented by your predecessor, Marvin Runyon.

In sum, simple fairness requires that Postmasters be extended a financial retirement incentive, and the clerks and mail handler incentive may degrade postal service, rather than improve it.

Sincerely,
O Dale Goff, Jr.
National President

source: President Goff’s Request For Incentive Package, 8/26/09

14 thoughts on “Postmasters Request A "Me Too" On USPS Retirement Incentive

  1. Who cares. They steal packages…and they MYSTERIOUSLY never arrive at the destination and are lost. Then you are made to feel like a liar if you complain. Basically you’re out of luck if someone decides to have sticky fingers. I work retail, it sucks doesn’t pay enough and I work my tail off….I never see any real customer service at the usps. So suck it.

  2. get them the hell out!! and then maybe things will change for the better, starting with PMG POTTER

  3. After working at headquarters and seeing EAS employees getting each year 4-12 percent pay raises for pay for performance and/or bonus’s when as a clerk we only got 1.2 percent a year, you dont deserve 15,000. Besides you don’t pay apwu dues, so you are not entitled to anything Burrus does.
    Everything is better being an EAS employee.
    At HQ I witnessed EAS employees coming in late, especially managers, taking longer lunches 2-4 hours, whick clerks could not do because we had to clock in), or going to the gym. No kidding, this happened at Headquarters. Discrimination abounded EAS verses Craft, with the craft getting shafted at every turn.
    So cry me a river when you get the short end for once, and the clerk craft finally get a break.

  4. We need money but the supervisors keep paying people who are not at work. People come to work for 3 and 4 hours and the supervisors, 204B’s, Managers, pay them for 8 hours of work.

  5. I was on the other side ( letter carrier , clerk ), and the same scheming I see now from craft I witnessed first hand as a craft employee. Craft people are funny, you get pre-established pay increases as well as COLA’s. PM’s do not. The company ask you for and honest days work , and you whine about mistreatment. I’ve always said it . ” Thank god the postal service exists , because if not a good percentage of our super employees would be unemployable.

  6. Pleassssse extend the offer to upper management. There is no other craft as over worked as they are; Imagine being responsible for clerks, letter carriers, maintenance and still have to do clerk work after the facility is closed so that your numbers fall in the range of acceptable? Imagine having to hide letter carrier hours in other crafts so that your station doesn’t fail audits? Imaging having to change time card rings so that no one in the facility gets a single click of overtime? Please offere them a early out. Quickly. And after you guys have some free time on your hands read POSTAL BLUES by Nikki Coe to see what kind of trama you inflict on your employees with your underhanded actions.
    http://WWW.NIKKICOE.COM

  7. Hey people….
    let’s NOT forget that management DOES NOT RECEIVE ANY BONUSES!!!
    Indeed they are “PAY FOR PERFORMANCE”!!!

    After all…
    If NOT for the “capable” management that we have,we would not have the terrible moral problems,seriously delayed mail,change of addresses that take 7-10 days to begin,outsourced mail processing,temp carriers that are delivering the mail dressed up in “uniforms” consisting of jeans/cut-offs and a t-shirt,etc….
    AND with their leadership we are talking a $7 BILLION loss this year! In our office many days there are more people in managemnt than there are clerks!
    Good going…USPS!!!

  8. Yes, Fairness, after all its not like PM’s were getting bonuses for all these years that the workers didn’t share in. Or that for decades PTF’s and casuals have been working 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week. PM’s can take time off with no loss of AL or SL while we have to bring in death certificates and medical certification provided by God himself. Don’t get me wrong….the USPS would be better off by cutting loose about half of our bloated management compliment….I just don’t want to listen to them whine while it happens. And finally we have some acknowledgment that respect in the PO is based on how much money you receive rather than what you bring to the service.

  9. No one forced these people to become postrmasters?and if they cant do or dont want to do the job they bid for then they should quit?i know many many postmasters that dont even come to work half the time and when they do they only make thing tense and more trouble for the clerks and carriers that are there every day making them look good .and a large portion of them are not even in there offices working they are detailed out doing something else while the peoplem in there office do there jobs and get no thanks for it ,maybe they should remember what it was like to do our jobs and let us do them without all the micro managing that we dont need i know how to deliver my route i need no help from management to do it ..i to could be a postmaster but i choose to do my route and stay there they could have made the same choice

  10. Some things never change. I wish craft would take the time to talk to your PM’s. Do you people realize the sacrifices most PM’s make. The time and effort they put into their jobs. They are subjet to impossible job requirements, and on top of that they have to deal with nonsense from the crafts. At one time these PM’s were working right next to you as craft. But because they wanted to improve on their work situation , they are know vermon. No wonder this great company is where it’s at.

  11. maybe for all you supervisors and postmasters would have saved your previous bonus money you would not cry so much. And your respect issue is not worth addressing at this time.

  12. Are you kidding me? First complain about “fairness” then claim that cannot afford to lose clerks and mailhandlers? You have to be kidding me…

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