According to APWU President William Burrus in the Jan./Feb.2007 issue of the “American Postal Worker” Magazine:

 Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the agreement is the memorandum committing the parties to develop rules and procedures for the employment of retired postal employees to perform retail services. These employees will be hired by and paid by the American Postal Workers Union, and contracted to the Postal Service. If successful this program will present an opportunity to expand retail services to locations where it is not cost-effective to open a full-service facility.

Thousands of contract stations where postal services are treated as an afterthought could be converted to official USPS facilities; these facilities could expand our outreach into commercial venues with heavy consumer traffic.

Of course, care must be taken to ensure that these new retail opportunities do not distract from official retail sites and that our career employees are not adversely affected. But this bold move provides the union and management the opportunity to form a beneficial partnership that also expands services for the American public.
 

The Memorandum of Understanding between USPS and APWU states:

Re: Retail Associate
The parties agree to convene a national task force to establish rules and procedures for the utilization of supplemental retail sales and associates. The Task Force will include consideration of a process by which the Union may provide lists of prospective workers to perform retail duties in locations identified by the parties. Such workers will not be a part of a supplemental workforce under Article 7. The meetings will begin no later than February 1, 2007 and will be concluded by May 1, 2007.

It is interesting to note that during negotiations for the contract extension in 2005, USPS and APWU explored the creation of Retail Sales Assistants “who would work in grocery stores, malls, and other venues that are easily accessible to the public. These positions would be reserved for retired postal employees, who would continue to draw their retirement annuities.”

“But union and management representatives were notified by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that such an arrangement could not be approved.”

However, last year, OPM issued regulations to amend the criteria under which OPM may grant dual compensation (salary off-set) waivers on a case-by-case basis, or delegate waiver authority to agencies. The amemded regulations would allow retired workers to return to the federal government without a paycut. OPM Proposes Rule Change to Re-Employ Retirees Without Pay Cut