Thanks for helping us ‘Stamp Out Hunger’: Saturday was the NALC’s 20th Annual National Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. Thank you to all who helped out—active and retired letter carriers, family members, friends, volunteers and sponsors. America’s hungry appreciate your hard work, dedication and muscle aches. Collection totals, photos and news accounts continue to stream into NALC Headquarters. Check back for further updates.
North Carolina Letter
Carriers: If you have photos of last Saturday's food
drive, send them to jthayer@triad.rr.com.
Memorial Day
MDA Golf Tournament
Hosted By NALC Branch
461
Winston Lake Golf Course
Winston-Salem, NC
Memorial Day, May 28, 2012
Cost to sponsor a hole: $100.00
Make checks to NALC Local 461
220 Acadia Ave.
Winston-Salem, NC 27127
All proceeds go to MDA
For additional info contact Branch President
Reggie Gentle at (336)
769-9324
Headlines
Rolando: House Votes to Cut Federal/Postal
Employees' Pay
House Action Amounts to
Federal Pay Cut
Ralph Nader Calls Postal
Plan a "Bait and Switch"
Tactic
Northrop Grumman Sues
USPS Over Contract
Korea Memorial Sculptor
Entitled to More From Postal
Service
USPS: New Strategy to
Preserve Smallest Post
Offices
Avalanche Averted: Postal Service Backs Off
Plan on Closings
Sanders: Good News, Bad
News in New Postal Plan
Sen. Rockefeller
Concerned Over Postal Service's Shifting
Plans
Senators Lobby Both
Sides of Postal Moratorium
House Members Pitch for
Senate Postal Bill
Romney Rips Unfairness
of Federal Pay, Benefits
43
Senators Call on PMG to Extend Moratorium on P.O.
Closures
USPS
Facing Challenges Due to Cost of Added Retirement
Benefits
The
Moratorium Clock is Ticking: Over 200 Post Offices Set to
Close
Federal Diary: Postal Workers Are Luke-Warm
to Senate Proposal
Fred Rolando: Postal Service Announcement on Finances Reinforces NALC Solution to the Problem
U.S. Postal Service’s announcement about the most recent fiscal quarter reinforces our view of the financial situation facing the USPS and how it can be fixed.
The Postal Service reports that 96 percent of its losses – $3.05 billion out of $3.18 billion – have nothing to do with mail delivery expenses, but rather result from an external political mandate. Since 2007, Congress has compelled the Postal Service to pre-fund future retiree health benefits for 75 years into the future, an obligation that will cost the USPS $11 billion this year. No other public agency or private company in the country is compelled to pre-fund.
Today's report follows on last quarter’s financial statement by the Postal Service, which also showed that in operational terms the Postal Service is doing quite well – in fact last quarter there was a $200 million profit delivering the mail, with pre-funding accounting for all the losses.
The Postal Service’s own data shows that the first thing Congress needs to do is address this artificial political burden that is driving almost all the red ink. For the first half of this fiscal year, the USPS reports that pre-funding accounts for $6.2 billion of the $6.5 billion in red ink.
It would be absurd to start to dismantle the universal network and degrade service to the American people and America’s businesses – when almost all of the red ink has nothing to do with the costs of those services but stems directly from a burden that Congress imposed and Congress could fix overnight.
The service reductions called for in the Senate bill, and the worse ones called for in the House bill, would not fix the actual financial drain on the Postal Service. Rather, they would worsen things by driving customers away and reducing revenue.
Read the rest of President Rolando's message
here.
"We Don’t Have to Dismantle the Postal Service to Save It"
Statement of NALC President Fredric Rolando
on the new version of S. 1789, The 21st Century Postal Service Act
April 17, 2012 -- Today, the four co-sponsors of S. 1789 introduced a new version of their bill to reform the Postal Service and the Senate has voted to debate this legislation in the days ahead.
Although the National Association of Letter Carriers deeply appreciates the hard work of Sens. Lieberman, Collins, Carper and Brown in bringing this legislation to the floor, we cannot in good conscience support S. 1789 as currently drafted. We believe it will drive the Postal Service into a death spiral.
The legislation unwisely continues a policy adopted in 2006 that requires the Postal Service —and only the Postal Service—to massively pre-fund future retiree health insurance premiums decades in advance. No other company, agency or branch of government—including UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Congress—is required to pre-fund such benefits. The USPS has already set aside nearly $45 billion for future retiree health benefits, enough for nearly 30 years’ of premiums. Although S. 1789 would reduce the burden of pre-funding somewhat, the revised legislation retains a mandate on the Postal Service to plow $3.5 billion to $5 billion per year into its massive retiree health fund.
NALC Releases White Paper on USPS Business Model, Postal Reform
White paper drafted by international financial advisory firm Lazard
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 17, 2012 — Successful revitalization of the U.S. Postal Service requires a strategic business plan that leverages the unmatched reach of its network, legislative action to relieve it of obligations no other business bears and shared sacrifice from all stakeholders, says the renowned international financial advisory firm, Lazard.
“While the Postal Service clearly faces enormous challenges, we do believe that its revitalization is achievable,” Lazard says in a white paper released on April 17. The paper, “ Delivering Change to Revitalize an American Icon,” results from a due diligence investigation of the USPS commissioned in October 2011 by the National Association of Letter Carriers and conducted by a Lazard team with extensive experience in restructuring strategy.
Lazard outlined the basic elements of a reform plan that would aim to revitalize the Postal Service, rather than the approach being advocated by the Postal Service — an approach based on massive, and ultimately counterproductive, reductions in service. Lazard indicated that based on its analysis and experience, the Postal Service’s “shrink to survive” strategy will simply facilitate the decline of this vital American institution.
President Rolando: S.1789 Lacks Vision, Won’t Solve USPS Problems
In a speech at Rutgers, NALC president calls on Congress to take time to draft comprehensive reform instead of pushing through flawed legislation
Fredric V. Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said Friday (April 6) that Postal Service legislation pending before Congress lacks any long-term vision and fails to provide for the creation of an effective business plan for a vital American institution.
“What the Postal Service needs most is a new business model,” Rolando said, “built from the bottom up, one that looks above the immediate financial and structural problems to find opportunities to meet the evolving needs of the American people in the 21st century.”
Instead, he said, Congress and Postal Service management are so focused on cutting costs — including ending Saturday delivery, closing hundreds of post offices and other facilities, delaying delivery times and eliminating 150,000 jobs — that the inevitable result will be more long-term damage.
Degrading services to residents and business will only drive customers away from the Postal Service, further reducing revenue and eventually destroying the world’s best and most-affordable delivery network, Rolando said. It also will threaten the 7.5 million private-sector mailing industry jobs that depend on a robust Postal Service.
Rolando spoke at the Advanced Workshop in Regulation and Competition sponsored by the Center for Research in Regulated Industries at Rutgers University at Newark, N.J.
A successful business plan, he said, would be “strategic” and “far-sighted” and would better leverage the Postal Service’s unique and universal last-mile delivery network; expand the range of services it can offer; and give the Postal Service more flexibility in pricing its products.
NALC members, Rolando said, are well aware that the Postal Service must adapt to a changing American economy and society that have embraced the Internet and such tools as email and online shopping. For more than two centuries, the USPS has successfully adapted to technological changes, including the telephone, telegraph and fax machine, each time emerging stronger.
Adapting to the current changes, he said, “will require difficult sacrifices for all involved, including letter carriers and other Postal Service employees. Letter carriers are not afraid to make those changes. In fact, if it were part of a comprehensive plan to save this institution, we would be the first to step up.”
This
is The North Carolina Letter Carrier, the official website
of the North Carolina State Association of Letter Carriers. If
you've come here looking for information concerning active and
retired letter carriers, you've come to the right place. We invite
you stop in and visit with us a while. If you can't find what
you're looking for or have questions, feel free to contact us via
our Contact page.
You can find us at our location below or you can
send us a message via our contact page.
Phone: 336-472-0136
