Approximately 19,000 USPS employees in APWU-represented crafts will retire or separate from the Postal Service before Dec. 1 and receive a $15,000 incentive under an agreement negotiated by the union.
A Memorandum of Understanding creating the incentive program was signed on Aug. 24. “This agreement achieved a long-standing objective of the APWU,” said union President William Burrus.
The agreement applied to non-probationary career postal employees in the APWU bargaining unit; the incentive was offered to eligible employees who terminated their service through Optional (Regular) Retirement, Voluntary Early Retirement, or separation. (Eligible PTR and PTF employees received offers of proportional percentages of the incentive.)
It included employees in the Clerk Craft, Maintenance Craft, Motor Vehicle Services Craft, mail equipment shops, material distribution centers, and occupational health nurses, with some exceptions and limitations.
Not covered by the agreement were employees who were issued a notice of discharge on or before Aug. 24; MPE 9s, ET 10s, and ET 11s who could not be replaced without training; Operating Services employees; employees in the Accounting Services section of the IT/ASC bargaining unit, probationary employees, and Transitional Employees.
Depending on whether they were eligible for early or regular retirement, employees were required to apply for retirement by Sept. 25 or express interest by that date. Some employees can revoke their decisions until the effective date of retirement, so the final tally could be significantly lower than the 19,738 reported by the USPS.
According to the unofficial numbers as of Sept. 25, approximately 3,000 Mail Handlers, who received an offer virtually identical to the APWU-negotiated agreement, also took part in the USPS retirement-incentive program
Requests Optional VER Separations Total
Week ending Sept. 4 10,164 0 111 10,275
Week ending Sept. 11 3,387 1,056 38 4,481
Week ending Sept. 18 1,913 1,073 107 3,093
Week ending Sept. 25 940 667 282 1,889
TOTAL 16,404 2,796 538 19,738*
* All figures are unofficial. Because some employees can revoke their decisions until the effective date of retirement, the final tally may be lower. source: APWU