Postal Employees Should Delay Retirement Until Passage of Postal Reform Bill

All APWU represented employees who are retirement eligible should consider delaying their retirement until the Postal Reform efforts have been concluded. Each of the legislative initiatives (Issa – Carper – Obama) includes the return of the $7 billion overpayment with authorization to use it for retirement incentives. Retroactivity is probably unachievable so to secure eligibility, employees should protect themselves. If the $7 billion is returned, postal management has an incentive to replace existing employees with new hires whose wages will be significantly less.

Veterans

It is disingenuous to assert a concern for veterans returning from protecting our country after negotiating a contract reducing their salary by 40% or over $400,000 over their career and retirement in the very jobs that are reserved for veterans. I guess they should be happy to earn $16.00 per hour.

Bill Burrus

Bill Burrus
Burrus Journal

32 thoughts on “Postal Employees Should Delay Retirement Until Passage of Postal Reform Bill

  1. Next time in any union or any other elections someone promises you that he will fetch you increased benifits or pay while the bigger picture is “shaky”! look at that candidate with nothing less than the term”enemy” of the “job”

  2. If any one this inclement economic weather promises increased benifits of pay … means ..very simply …is sowing the seeds for the elimination of that job and that buisness in the future.. think about it… great books have said this..dont be too greedy! if you cant help being greedy you will end up facing the beast your greed has created! // I think this is not superstiion but likely probability or reality! very simple.

  3. I am 53 yrs old with 34 yrs of fed service (fers). I have filed for disability retirement.
    With at least 30 yrs of fed service will I still receive my social security Income (SSI)
    at my minimum retirement age (MRA)?

  4. Nick…. come’on now, out source down south and then return mail back to U.S.? Get your head out of your butthole, fool!!! By the time everything is all said and done (VER) I will guess around (Aug-Oct) 2012. They will offer incentives, (25K plus 1-3yrs) that you can take to the bank…. so everyone… plan now, those who are eligible. PMG pay attention….. you want to downsize? Offer the numbers above, you’ll get your wish!!!

  5. Occupy APWU HQ at 1300 L Street in Wash DC ! Hey Bill, just exactly how much did APWU donate to Issa’s re-election campaign while you were at the healm?

  6. You can Fool Me Once! But not twice! Anybody with over 30 years in should take the money and run! This ship is sinking fast ! Wait till the next contract in 2015.

    There will be more givebacks then ever before! Including the no-Layoff clause!
    It won’t be long before we out source the mail to an oversea’s or South American country, just like Big Business has done in the last 20 years.

    The rich get richer and the poor get poorer!

  7. A buyout is another means to get USPS in a stable financial position. Closing non needed small officies is not being done based on need for service. A small office with a PM and a clerk with no delivery within 3 miles of a large level 22 office remains open. The level 22 office provides delivery; there are no commerical or industrial customer near this former mill village office. The large level 22 officie operates with 2 window clerks with wait times up to 15 minutes. Customer get tired of standing in line and drive to a UPS store 3 miles away. The small office should be closed and window clerk and Postmaster moved to larger office to provide customer sensitive retail needs. OT pay is good but customer service poor and I need 11 years and USPS need revenue. Eliminating Sat. delivery would benefit the USPS financially and not deter service as no one would miss Sat. delivery as bulk business mail is not time sensitive.
    MPOO and District Mnagement should be confronted as non cost effective small offices should be closed and personnel used where needed to enhance customer service for repeat business.

  8. If this goes thru…I hope they pay any incentives up front, because the reports of people waiting over 6 mo for their cases to process at the OPM are scary! That is ridiculous even with the newbies hired…35 of them and the 40 more they hire that still need to be trained, the process needs to be streamlined especially with many people that may retire with the incentive, and the process needs to be fixed now and not well beyond the mess.

  9. Im working on my 35th yr mid 50’s I will tell you as it was past down to me from many who gone before.

    Work for you and yours.

    The closer you have 80% of your base pay the better off you’ll be for the rest of your life.

    Old Clerk you go now? you’ll give up around nine hundred to one thousand dollors a month for the rest of your life.

    About 22% more of your base pay you could of made if your a CSRS employee had you stayed to 41 yrs 11 months (easier said then done). also you’ll want to be in the 440 club to ca$h in those unused annual leave days.

    Now if you just cant do those 100 things before you retire? Enjoy!

    Money isn’t everything? Wow? thats Great News! Let me know how that works out when you write that on your taxs returns.

    I Like It.. wonder if uncle sam would?

  10. give us $25 k and 3 years… you will get 100,000 to go, save the postal service.
    also, end wednesday delivery. 5 days is the way to go.

  11. so when is this postal reform bill gonna pass???? i know there are several on the table and you are correct that the only thing they agree on is the return of funds for a buyout.. but when????????????? i could have gone a few months ago but waited when rumors started about this stuff.. i am still building retirement..but believe me. i want out.. after 32 years.. this place is not the same.. of course neither is anything else in this country..

  12. 1% billy boy with the big house, armani suits, first class travel & lodging in Vegas,limo’s, 2 hour lunches on K & L Streets, expense accounts, bigger raise’s than craft, Jaguar cars……………………….and all we got from this bum was a 1% raise!

    Cliff Goofy Guffy got us a “30 hour full time work week” and no raise or COLA 5 year contract when you factor in yearly inflation.

    both a bunch of cumbags….just go hang yourselves in disgrace!

    oh and don’t forget the classic comment of that evil a**hole Mike Morris “if it was up to me all the new PSE”s would get all the overtime”!

    I have been fighting both sides against the middle for over 30 years…….my form 1188 was my response to Goofy Guffy no raise contract…….let them all piss up a rope! next year I am gone from the po nazi death camp!

  13. Party is over folks…. never in my 35yrs of service have we seen anything like what we are in today. So for those of us eligible to retire with incentive$, or years of service added on or both…. take the money and run…. The climate we are in will not get any better folks…. CSRS’s employees lights out it’s time to go.
    PMG use that 7 billion to buy us out, that would get your downsizing and help the Postal Service stay alive……

  14. Bill Burrus,

    Isn’t the current regime of APWU Officers the ones you endorsed as the “Dream Team” for so many years. Students are a reflection of their teacher. Tell people to delay their retirement like you did. You couldn’t have picked a worse time to retire. You and Potter sold us out. Appears that Guffey and company learned from the “Master” on selling us out. You sure didn’t pass the baton onto Guffey. The mess we are in can be traced back to you. So why don’t you take you comments and journal and ride off into the sunset.

  15. Everybody keeps saying thay we don’t need Saturday delivery….everybody except postal mgt. They are asking for “5 day delivery” and that is going to mean Tuesday or Thursday as a non-delivery day. By law mail cannot be stopped for 2 consecutive days except by Monday federal holidays. They have done studies about which day(s) to designate as a non-delivery day. Studies have been done about a 4 day work week. My post master has joked about having every other day delivery…carrier carrying one route Mon-Wed-Fri and another route on Tue-Thur-Sat. That would get rid of more than 50% of regular city and rural carriers, plus most rural-relief carriers.

  16. Repeal the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, and we will be fine. It is since that law that we have done so poorly. Of course, our volume has shrunk, no one denies that. But it is the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act that has really hamstrung us.

    Write your senators and reps, and ask them to repeal this law.

  17. Funny until 2006 and Bush and his friends came up with the with the law to pay Health and retirement benefits the PO made money ,and now we can’t do anything right. and lose money. Get rid of the 2006 law and with people retiring over the next 3 years everything will work out. With Congress wasting so much time on the PO who would think with all those college degrees someone could get it right. They can’t work together and make over $170,000 and have done nothing for two years and still get paid . Congress watch who we vote for next time.

  18. What makes you think that they’ll offer us any kind of decent retirement incentives. After they give the FAT to management retirees we’ll be lucky to be able to lick the spoon!

  19. send the fat boys in congress with obama on a horse, that should end all wars !
    give us the VERA so we can get out before the violence begins

  20. Hi:

    Can you please respond to this one? If you think it is unfair, please let me know. I retired on a disability retirement with ALMOST 20 years of service. I finally (at this late juncture) had some experimental pain medications to help myself. I have a job offer at 59 years old (one year shy of 60) that pays exactly $2100 over my limit that I am allowed. Now, if I only receive 40 percent of my high three (and if I DO go over) they will take away ALL my earned COLAs and I have to start from square 1.

    Oh………….I forgot to mention………..When I went out on disability they wouldn’t hold my job open!! Please tell me if you think in view of the potential incentives that disability annuitants from the USPS in particular should have to be chained on income until age 60 if they only got 40 percent of their salary to begin with? If they had let us retire normally, my share would have been 37.35 percent with NO penalties for wages.

    I would really like to know. Don’t you think that they should leave us alone after age 58 at the USPS?

  21. who cares what anyone makes, we are here now, the future sucks for all, and no one is fighting for freedom in Allah land in the Middle East, we are maiming and killing our young for what?, because Islamic Fundamentalists will attack the USA on what ?, Water Skis , Row boats?, exploding turbans?, the Wars are a joke, special OPS could have done the same, and Cruise Missiles , the Military Industrial Complex is the real enemy of our USA !

  22. well done oneiota union dues is all about greed THERE SHOULD BE NO SATURDAY DELIVERY BECAUS THE UNION WILL LOSE 50000 UNION DUES PER MONTH ITS GREED HOW CAN A BUISNESS LOSE 10 BILLION A YEAR AND NOT TRY TO BETTER ITSELF BY ELIMINATING SATURDAY DELIVERY

  23. oh my, that billy burris, burrus must be one bored retired guy. he feels the need to take shots at the current union leadership every chance he gets, all the while refusing to take any blame for the mess that the apwu finds themselves in. yes, billy burrus has said that his main job as our president was to increase the pay for apwu/postal workers. fine, i think he did a reasonably good job at that. what
    burrus and others dropped the ball on was not aggressively challenging postal managements decision to award almost all new jobs, on every new piece of equipment, over the last decade to the mailhandlers. no one in the union had the foresight to see the loss of members because of the constant loss of clerk jobs that would take place. the apwu was losing members at a staggering pace because the clerk craft was losing jobs at a staggering pace. the apwu is a bureaucracy just like the postal service. the apwu is large and needs a certain amount of funds to run. when the apwu was looking at the membership numbers, and therefoere the dues money coming in, and taking those numbers out a few years the reality was sinking in. the apwu was not going to survive with the constant loss of jobs in the clerk craft.
    management knew this and knew the bad spot the apwu was in. so yes, you did ok getting clerks decent raises but you dropped the ball in preserving jobs and
    securing the unions future. so, this contract guffey conceded a hell of a lot, i admit that. he went for this crappy deal because it gave him a chance to increase the dues paying apwu membership again by unionizing the casuals. also,
    i believe guffey may feel that because the new pse clerks will cost managemnt less, all new work from here on out will be awarded to the clerks because the
    pse’s can staff it cheaper than anybody. after all, this is why the mailhandlers were awarded all the work. i’m not saying guffey was right. i think he did what he felt needed to be done. after all, most of the same people the apwu had
    in place to “bargain” this latest contract were the very same people in place when burrus was running the show. so, bill, did these people become dumb idiots who gave “away the store” overnight?

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