NALC President Rolando denounces PMG’s latest ‘radical’ legislative proposals

NALC President Fredric V. Rolando has issued a statement to denounce Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe’s latest “radical” legislative proposals:

Today, city letter carriers across the country received a mandatory stand-up talk from supervisors as part of a concerted campaign by top postal management to convince Congress to slash postal employees’ health and pension benefits and override lay-off protection provisions in the postal unions’ contracts.

Just days before we formally open collective bargaining negotiations, the Postal Service has sent a clear message: It intends to use the financial crisis caused by the deep recession and the crushing congressional pre-funding mandates to strip postal employees of our bargaining rights.

Although we are prepared to seriously bargain over any proposal, we will resist this blatant attempt to subvert and circumvent collective bargaining.

In addition to the stand-up talk, the Postal Service issued a press release to the media and distributed two “white papers” to congressional decision-makers. One paper, “Postal Service Health Benefits and Pension Programs,” asks Congress to allow the USPS to set up its own health plan and pension plans outside the FEHBP and FERS/CSRS systems for all other federal employees. The other paper, “Workforce Optimization,” takes the extraordinary step of asking Congress to void the lay-off protection provisions of the various postal labor contracts.

Although the stand-up talk claimed that the postal unions had been “briefed,” the reality is quite different. The USPS developed their plans without any discussion or negotiation with NALC or any of the other unions. Not surprisingly, the health and pension proposals would dramatically cut employee benefits below those earned by other federal employees. Let me be clear: We would never agree to any benefit plan unilaterally designed by postal management.

I issued the following statement to the press:

The issues of lay-off protection and health benefits are specifically covered by our contract. Each of them has historically been covered in collective bargaining between NALC and USPS. The Congress of the United States does not engage in contract negotiations with unions and we do not believe they are about to do so.

Of course, pension benefits for federal employees, including postal employees, are set by law. But rather than advocating pie-in-the-sky proposals, we believe USPS and Congress should focus on pending legislation (H.R. 1351) that would allow the USPS to recover massive surpluses in its CSRS and FERS pension accounts. Under the bill, which has 181 co-sponsors from both parties, the surpluses would be used to cover the unfair burden of pre-funding future retiree health benefits—a burden that no other company or agency bears and which accounts for 100 percent of the Postal Service’s losses over the past four years.

Contract negotiations for NALC open Thursday, August 18.

USPS is free to bring these issues to the table. If they do so, we will bargain in good faith.

These new legislative proposals constitute a transparent attempt to gut our benefits and reduce our bargaining rights without negotiations. Indeed, the USPS admits in the two white papers that if these radical proposals were to be put before an impartial interest arbitrator, the USPS would not likely prevail. It’s time for postal management to negotiate; the time for unilateral legislative end-runs is over.

source:Latest News | President Rolando Denounces PMG’s Latest ‘Radical’ Legislative Proposals

12 thoughts on “NALC President Rolando denounces PMG’s latest ‘radical’ legislative proposals

  1. How much of this is propaganda as the NALC starts negotiations on a new contract and the rural carriers head for arbitration?

  2. Abandon the no layoff? What a joke! Tell that to the thousands of career craft employees that were walked off the floor under NRP program….That was a layoff!!
    Best part …..The union, who I was a paying member, didn’t do Shit! to protect us from being LAID OFF!

  3. Goofy/Morris less respect than Rodney Dangerfield………to get along you have to go along! sorry apwu you were played for a bunch of jail house bitch’s.

    time to take a page out of jimmy hoff’a’s playbook….lead pipe in one hand, baseball bat in the other.

    well little miss pigy goofy…..your soft sell tap dance just don’t cut it-time to go rabid……going to be tough for a company union that played 3 card monty for the last 25 years with the membership! Don-a-Ho not really your friend….hope you at least understand that smuck!

  4. Get rid of more Admin….2000 was not nearly enough…..When the plants get their offer…offer to Admin again. A lot more will go…..

  5. My only hope is that management can choose which slugs to let go in craft. You want to talk about a savings.

  6. 110,000 management/support jobs and 465,000 clerk.carriers jobs. Ask the public what’s wrong with those numbers and who needs to be cut.

  7. It must be made ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that Postal management has opened DIRECT DIALOGUE WITH CERTAIN GOP/TEA PARTY CONGRESSIONAL LEADERSHIP on these RADICAL PROPOSALS.

    The CURRENT ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CLIMATE IN AMERICA is an extremely fertile backdrop for CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL for the USPS MANAGEMENT PROPOSALS.

    The USPS proposes reneging on NEGOTIATED AND APPROVED LABOR AGREEMENTS for all of the exclusive Unions. This tact is ASTOUNDING AND SHOCKING.

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