APWU News Bulletin #04-2007, Feb. 26, 2007 | PDF

The APWU — along with individual customers and small businesses — achieved a significant victory Feb. 26, when the Postal Regulatory Commission announced its recommended decision on a USPS request to increase rates: The PRC rejected the Postal Service’s proposed rate structure, and instead endorsed an APWU suggestion to increase postage for individual first-class letters to only 41 cents, instead of 42 cents as the Postal Service requested.
 
The commission also echoed the APWU assertion that discounts for presorted mail should not exceed the costs that the Postal Service avoids when large mailers engage in “worksharing.”

Rejecting a USPS proposal to disconnect rates for single pieces from rates for presorted mail, the panel concluded, “de-linking” would abandon “the principle that worksharing discounts should be based on the costs avoided by worksharing activities.” The USPS proposal would have expanded discounts beyond that, and would have unfairly shifted the burden of this rate increase on to single-piece mailers, the panel found.

“This trifecta victory of the American Postal Workers Union is a win for every citizen of our country,” said APWU President William Burrus. “We have denied the large mailers further subsidization of their postage by individual mailers.”

“For more than a decade,” Burrus added, “the APWU has argued that excessive worksharing discounts rob the Postal Service of needed revenue, and undermine the fundamental mission of the USPS — to provide universal service at uniform rates.

The APWU has been the lone voice of opposition to efforts by the mailing industry to keep their postage costs low, at the expense of the rest of the mailing public,” Burrus said. The APWU has long sought to reduce excessive discounts and was the only union to actively oppose the USPS rate proposal.

 Full article from APWU