Oversight Committee Approves Issa-Ross Postal Reform Bill
Filed under: politics, postal, postal news, postal reform, press releases, usps
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued the following press release:
WASHINGTON D.C. – The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform today approved H.R. 2309, the Oversight Committee Postal Reform Act of 2011 which will return the United States Postal Service (USPS) to sustainability and profitability without a taxpayer bailout. The Issa-Ross bill is the only postal reform proposal that has been successfully acted on this Congress.
“The United States Postal Service cannot become a taxpayer subsidized make-work program. To save the Postal Service, we must enact meaningful and immediate reform so we can maintain service to the American people and return it to financial solvency,” said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “The postal service is on the brink of collapse. Today, we have acted to pass a bill and provide an immediate and viable path forward to make the postal service more efficient, protect its workforce and ultimately return it to being a profitable enterprise. The reality is that failure to act now on the Issa-Ross bill will result in an automatic taxpayer-funded bailout.”
“We can no longer afford to postpone the Postal Service’s day of reckoning by putting our collective heads in the sand and wishing the problem away,” said Rep. Dennis A. Ross (R-FL), Chairman of the Oversight subcommittee on postal reform. “Members here today are faced with a stark choice: Are we willing to make the hard decisions necessary to save the Postal Service or will we let it crumble on our watch and potentially put this venerable institution at risk – along with the jobs of the 8 million Americans who work in the mailing industry?” Read more
Politicizing postal bargaining
“Keeping politics out of postal bargaining has served the parties, the American people and the mailing public very well for 40 years”
April 7, 2011: This week’s unprecedented congressional hearing on a negotiated agreement between the U.S. Postal Service and one of its craft unions shows just what letter carriers and the rest of the postal workforce are up against in the 112th Congress.
On Tuesday, the Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing called “Are Postal Workforce Costs Sustainable?” – aimed at scrutinizing the tentative pact recently hammered out between USPS and the American Postal Workers Union. Though the pact has yet to be voted on by the union’s members, some legislators were eager to voice their opinions of it – with several anti-labor committee members contending that it didn’t go far enough in reducing postal costs.
Such negotiations have traditionally been left to the parties involved, and the president of the APWU as well as the Postmaster General testified about their satisfaction with the agreement they had reached. That didn’t stop some legislators from offering their criticism of various aspects of the agreement and, more broadly, of a process they claimed – without offering any proof – is biased toward labor.
Three of the four witnesses spoke in clear terms about the value of the USPS to our country and its residents, about the ways that good labor-management relations have helped lead to increased productivity and customer satisfaction, and about the give-and-take that produced the tentative agreement. A good number of legislators also voiced strong support for the Postal Service and its employees.
But they did so in the context of a hearing clearly aimed at discrediting the agreement and raising doubts about the collective-bargaining process itself – an effort that will not surprise those who live in Wisconsin, Ohio or other states where local officials have sought to vilify the notion of public employees engaging in bargaining.
“What we saw in Tuesday’s hearing was nothing short of a kangaroo court,” NALC President Fredric V. Rolando said. “We thought that Congress had gotten out of the business of interfering with the collective-bargaining agreements of government workers, but it turns out that some clearly want back in.
“Keeping politics out of postal bargaining has served the parties, the American people and the mailing public very well for 40 years – we have decent jobs, the mailers get high-quality service at very affordable rates and the taxpayers don’t have to foot the bill,” Rolando said.
“This type of congressional interference,” he added, “makes the results of next year’s elections all the more important, and the need to begin preparing now for those contests all the more urgent.”
What really matters
Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) focused on the tentative contract.
“We have deep concerns that some of the provisions of the [APWU] contract may in fact be the wrong direction,” Issa said, “to less flexibility, less ability to trim the workforce and less ability to in the future make the kinds of investments we need to make.” Rep. John Mica (R-FL) repeatedly referred to the Postal Service as a dinosaur in the age of the Internet.
At the same time, the hearing was replete with positive comments about the USPS and employees who for six consecutive years have been named by the public as the country’s most-trusted federal workers. The central role the Postal Service and its employees play in America was a constant theme, as was the high proportion of veterans and other groups that form the Service’s workforce.
The real financial situation at the Postal Service also was frequently mentioned, as several representatives and witnesses pointed to the fact that the agency’s fiscal problems have nothing to do with labor costs and everything to do with the 2006 congressional mandate that the USPS pre-fund future retiree health benefits to the tune of $5.5 billion a year. Without that requirement, which no other agency or company faces, the Postal Service would have been profitable the past four years – even with the worst recession in 80 years and even with competition from the Internet.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, one of the four witnesses called to testify at the hearing, repeatedly pointed out that reforming the retiree health benefits pre-funding mandate and gaining access to USPS surpluses in the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System are key pieces of the financial puzzle.
“What we need is your help on these big issues that are beyond our control,” Donahoe told the committee. “We have excellent relations with our employee unions and management associations. Take care of those things and you’ll never see us again.”
Several committee members, including ranking member Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) and Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), praised the work of all postal employees – letter carriers as well as clerks and mail handlers – and congratulated the Postal Service and the APWU for arriving at a negotiated agreement that includes some gains and some losses for both sides. Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) called the new pact “one of the best labor-management agreements I’ve seen in a long, long time.”
The fight ahead
But for every instance where Donahoe or Democrats made their case, anti-labor members of the committee just as often returned to criticism of the APWU-USPS agreement. Many appeared to favor ideas that tipped bargaining scales in the Service’s favor and that would reduce workers’ benefits and wages.
Also called to testify were APWU President Cliff Guffey as well as Postal Board of Governors Chairman Louis Giuliano and member James Miller. Although Miller acknowledged that the Board had unanimously approved of the APWU-USPS deal, most of his comments during the hearing – which he stated were made solely on his own behalf – served largely to agree with Issa’s unfounded complaints about postal pay and benefits.
Miller, appointed by George W. Bush and a former Board of Governors chairman, has made no secret of his interest in privatizing the Postal Service and nullifying its collective bargaining agreements with its craft unions.
Rolando put the session in a broader context.
“We letter carriers are fooling ourselves if we believe that we are going to get a pass from these anti-labor forces that are unfairly targeting firefighters and police, nurses and teachers, and are doing so with little regard for the facts,” he said.
“And in this atmosphere, it won’t be impossible to get our legislative agenda passed, but it will be extremely difficult. It will take all of us standing together, and working with our allies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.”
source: National Association of Letter Carriers
Video: USPS Needs Systemic Changes to Efficiently Manage Operating Costs
Video from today’s Oversight hearing on USPS and APWU Contract Agreement
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, delivers his opening statement explaining the need for the United States Postal Service to bring its operating costs in line with its declining revenues.
Oversight Hearing Preview And Testimony: Are Postal Workforce Costs Sustainable?
Chairman Darrell Issa’s Hearing Preview Statement:
Tuesday’s hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, entitled “Are Postal Workforce Costs Sustainable,” will continue the Committee’s ongoing effort to monitor the fiscal condition of the United States Postal Service and the affordability of USPS’s workforce compensation expenses. One pressing question remains at the forefront of congressional oversight of USPS: What is needed for the postal service to bring its operating costs in line with its declining revenues?
For the past several years, USPS has been on the brink of insolvency. Immediate structural reforms and cost-cutting measures are imperative. Labor costs comprise 80 percent of USPS’s annual budget, and the current negotiations for continued labor agreements present an opportunity to implement an effective business model for USPS and place the postal service on more solid financial footing.
Congress is keenly aware that technological advances in the communications market have left USPS behind the innovative curve. The loss of volume to electronic communication and the no layoff provisions of USPS labor contracts mean that more workers are handling less mail than a decade ago. This trend will only get worse unless comprehensive reforms are implemented.
Oversight of the postal service falls within the Committee’s constitutionally-mandated responsibility. Congress will work with USPS management to ensure the permanent viability of the postal service without the need for taxpayer bailouts or the use of budget gimmicks to hide the real crisis.
Witnesses & excerpts of Prepared Testimony
The Honorable Louis J. Giuliano,Chairman, Board of Governors United States Postal Service
The Board unanimously supports the tentative agreement.
• This tentative labor agreement achieves one of our most important operational objectives – the ability to apply work hours where and when we need them rather than deal with static work shifts and significant overtime costs.
• It also calls for an immediate twoMyear real freeze on wages.
• It allows roughly 20 percent of the APWU workforce to be temporary, at a cost 50 percent lower than our permanent employees.
• It establishes a two-tiered workforce, with a lower wage tier for new employees.
• It increases the employee contribution for healthcare.
These provisions of the tentative contract constitute a cost saving of $3.8 billion. We believe that both labor and management have demonstrated their determination to right
this ship.
The Honorable James C. Miller III,Governor.United States Postal Service
Let me say that I, too, am disappointed that we did not accomplish more in the negotiations. As everyone involved will confirm, the Postal Service bargained long and hard to achieve more. The reason we did not get more, and the reason we agreed in the end to the contract now out for ratification by the rank and file is that the current law governing our labor negotiations is biased against management and in favor of labor. More steps could be considered , wilh the goal of not just restoring the Postal Service’s financial viabi lity, but increasing the efliciency of the broader postal market. The most obvious proposal is to demonopolize and privatize the Postal Service -simultaneously freeing the Postal Service from rate/product supervision by the PRC, putting additional distance between the Postal Service and the complications associated with political management (see above),” and subjecting the Postal Service to the additional pressure of having to answer to stockholders with a keen interest in the “bottom line.” A request to repeal the private express statutes as well as privatize the Postal Service was contained in President Reagan’s 1987 budget proposal to Congress. The initiative got absolutely no support — none. Congress and the President might consider directing the arbitrators more explicitly about what constitutes truly comparable pay. Or, they might even consider giving the unions the right to strike and management the right to lock out — and in either of those cases, of course, trigger an automatic suspension of the private express statutes. Finally, the Postal Service might consider increasing its use of contract employees. Besides being lower in cost than full-time employees, the work rules for contract employees are not nearly so confining — and thus pose an opportunity to increase productivity as well.
Patrick Donahoe,Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer,United States Postal Service
Our total full-time career complement today is 572,000 employees. We will continue to reduce the number of full-time career employees, thereby reducing our legacy costs. By 2020, the Postal Service workforce will be less than 400,000. This tentative agreement also provides immediate cost relief by freezing wages for the first two years, and leads to wage savings of $1.8 billion over the term of the agreement.We negotiated structural changes that resulted in a two-tier career pay schedule for new employees that is 10.2 percent below the existing schedule. We will also be able to increase the use of non-career employees from the 5.9 percent today with restrictions, to roughly 20 percent totally unrestricted. These changes provide a $1.9 billion benefit.
Cliff Guffey.President,American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO
Some postal commentators have sought to compare the Postal Service to Federal Express and UPS with regard to the percentage of costs that come from workforce-related costs. In case anyone has that comparison in mind, I want to point out that it is not a valid comparison for at least two reasons. One is that those postal competitors own their own fleets of airplanes, which makes them more capital-intensive than the Postal Service.In addition, FedEx and UPS do not deliver to every address every day as the Postal Service does. While they do some sortation of packages and expedited messages, they do not have to provide sortation of the many billions of First Class and standard mail letters the Postal Service sorts.A unique and extremely valuable feature of the Postal Service is that it provides universal service to the American public.The agreement helps the Postal Service meet its immediate need to constrain costs by freezing wages for the first two years of the agreement. This means that most postal workers will not receive any wage increase for a period of three years, from November 2009 until November 2012. It also follows the pattern set in earlier postal collective bargaining agreements of reducing the percentage contribution of the Employer toward health insurance by one percentage point for each year of the contract. The agreement also will give the Postal Service the right to employ a substantially larger percentage of temporary workers who will be paid relatively low wages. Read more
GOP Chairman Issa Announces Full List Of House Oversight Committee
Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., announced today the full list of Oversight and Government Reform Committee membership and subcommittee assignments.
Full Membership of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Republicans
Darrell Issa (CA), Chairman
Dan Burton (IN)
John L. Mica (FL)
Michael R. Turner (OH)
Patrick T. McHenry (NC)
Jim Jordan (OH)
Jason Chaffetz (UT)
Connie Mack (FL)
Tim Walberg (MI)
James Lankford (OK)
Justin Amash (MI)
Ann Marie Buerkle (NY)
Paul Gosar (AZ)
Raul Labrador (ID)
Pat Meehan (PA)
Scott DesJarlais (TN)
Jow Walsh (IL)
Trey Gowdy (SC)
Dennis Ross (FL)
Frank Guinta (NH)
Blake Farenthold (TX)
Mike Kelly (PA)
Democrats
Elijah Cummings (MD)
Edolphus Towns (NY)
Carolyn B. Maloney (NY)
Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)
Dennis J. Kucinich (OH)
John Tierney (MA)
Wm. Lacy Clay (MO)
Stephen Lynch (MA)
Jim Cooper (TN)
Gerald Connolly (VA)
Mike Quigley (IL)
Danny K. Davis (IL)
Bruce Braley (IA)
Peter Welch (VT)
John Yarmuth (KY)
Christopher Murphy (CT)
Jackie Speier (CA)
The Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and Labor Policy
* Republicans
o Chair: Rep. Dennis Ross (FL-12)
o Vice Chair: Rep. Justin Amash (MI-3)
o Jim Jordan (OH-4)
o Jason Chaffetz (UT-3)
o Connie Mack (FL-14)
o Tim Walberg (MI-7)
o Trey Gowdy (SC-4)
* Democrats
o Stephen Lynch, Ranking Member
o Eleanor Holmes Norton
o Gerald E. Connolly
o Danny Davis
GOP Chairman Issa Formally Announces House Oversight Subcommittee Structure
Filed under: Congress, GOP, politics, postal, postal news, press releases
Names Chairmen and Vice Chairmen
Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued the following press release:
WASHINGTON D.C. – Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, announced today the members who will serve as Subcommittee Chairmen and Vice Chairmen for the 112th Congress.
“The American people deserve and have a right to expect that the money Washington has taken from them is well spent and well accounted for,” said Issa. “These subcommittees are a reflection of the substantive agenda House Republicans have promised to pursue one that is focused on identifying and reforming waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement within the federal bureaucracy. The American people have a right to an efficient and effective government. They have a right to a Congress and White House that is held accountable and acts transparently. This is our committee’s mission and this is what Oversight Republicans will work tirelessly to deliver to the American people.”
The Committee will be organized into seven subcommittees with different legislative and oversight jurisdictions as follows:
• The Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and Labor Policy
◦ Chair: Rep. Dennis Ross (FL-12)
◦ Vice Chair: Rep. Justin Amash (MI-3)
• The Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency and Financial Management
◦ Chair: Rep. Todd Platts (PA-19)
◦ Vice Chair Rep. Connie Mack (FL-14)
• The Subcommittee on Health Care, District of Columbia, Census and the National Archives
◦ Chair: Rep. Trey Gowdy (SC-4)
◦ Vice Chair: Dr. Paul Gosar (AZ-1)
• The Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations
◦ Chair: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (UT-03)
◦ Vice Chair: Rep. Raul Labrador (ID-1)
• The Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending
◦ Chair: Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-04)
◦ Vice Chair: Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (NY-25)
• The Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs
◦ Chair: Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (NC-10)
◦ Vice Chair: Rep. Frank Guinta (NH-1)
• The Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and Procurement Reform.
◦ Chair: Rep. James Lankford (OK-5)
◦ Vice Chair: Rep. Mike Kelly (PA-3)
An announcement on the date that the Committee officially organizes will be pending sometime this week.
House Oversight Committee Will Hold Hearing To Examine Financial Viability of the Postal Service
The following is a press release from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:
GAO to release report at hearing on Postal Service business model
WASHINGTON – Chairman Edolphus “Ed” Towns (D-NY) today announced that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing on Thursday, April 15, 2010, to examine the status of the Postal Service and recent reports on short and long-term strategies for the financial viability and stability of the United States Postal Service (USPS). The hearing titled: “Continuing to Deliver: An Examination of the Postal Service’s Current Financial Crisis and its Future Viability”. At the hearing, the Committee will examine three recent reports on the future of the Postal Service.
A report released recently by the USPS that studied possible scenarios for the Postal Service in 2020 will be examined. According to the report, under the most likely scenario and without changes to the current system, the Postal Service would continue to experience significant declines in mail volume from its peak in 2006 resulting in a $238 Billion shortfall over ten years. The report called for legislative action to address the shortfall, including allowing a five day delivery.
The Committee will also examine a January 2010 report by the Postal Service Inspector General which concluded that in the past 30 years the Postal Service has made $75 Billion in overpayments related to its Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). The study pointed to possible shortcomings in the formulas OPM used in calculating the Postal Service’s CSRS obligations for postal employees who worked before and after July 1, 1971.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) will release a report on the Postal Service’s business model at the hearing. GAO will be asked to explain the reasoning behind the report and the impact of its recommendations in reducing the Postal Service’s projected shortfall.
The witnesses invited to testify include:
The Hon. John E. Potter
Postmaster General and CEO
United States Postal Service
Mr. David Williams
Inspector General
United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General
Mr. John Berry
Director
Office of Personnel Management
Mr. Phillip Herr
Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues
United States Government Accountability Office
Ms. Ruth Goldway
Chairman
Postal Rate Commission
Mr. Daniel P. Mulhollan
Director
Congressional Research Service