September 30, 2006 - NALC : Postal Reform Falls Short as Congress Adjourns for Election Recess -"Last night, and in the early morning hours of today, we came within an eyelash of accomplishing our goal of enacting meaningful postal reform, at least in the Senate. In the final analysis, letter carriers could not support the bill that Senator Susan Collins was pursuing because it would have established a three-day waiting period for injured letter carriers before they could go on continuation of pay.  NALC sought to hold up the Senate bill because of the COP issue... No conference committee was ever established and the bill that nearly passed the Senate was essentially a new version of the bill that none of our allies in the House, Democrat or Republican, had even seen. Indeed, few members of either the House or the Senate ever received a final version of the bill. Neither did the NALC or any of the other interested stakeholders  |   

September 30, 2006

OIG Audit: USPS Actions to Locate and Track Employees After Hurricane Katrina

Mailman saves house

Automated Postal Center Will Be Relocated
Colorado: Postal Inspectors Find More Threatening Letters
Seven Airlines Awarded USPS Contracts

Preparing for the Postal Rate Hike

September 29, 2006 - USPS Integrated Financial Plan 2007 - Workhour Reductions
"The FY 2007 plan reduces workhours by 40 million from the estimated FY 2006 total in spite of adding 1.9 million delivery points. The FY 2007 planned workhour reduction target is equal to approximately 20,000 full-time equivalent employees. The workhour reductions are a product of process improvements, capital investment programs, and a projected volume decline. The FY 2007 workhour plan follows seven consecutive years of productivity improvements." USPS Transformation Plan 2006-2010- "The Postal Service continues to use comprehensive studies of bargaining and nonbargaining unit jobs to establish and maintain wages and benefits comparable to the private sector, which is in keeping with its statutory mandate. In negotiations with unions, the Postal Service has applied the principle of moderate restraint of wage growth in seeking to address wage rates that exceed comparability standards."  |

September 29, 2006 - Jaffer Scandal Just Won’t Go Away

While much of the report is rather sensational, detailing instances of Mr. Jaffer’s alleged excessive drinking and inappropriate behavior toward female USPS employees, a far more interesting picture of USPS corporate culture emerges from between the lines. Mr. Jaffer’s reckless spending and “lack of candor” should be viewed as part of the operational culture of the USPS. Azzezaly Jaffer was just living large because he had swallowed the prevailing party line. Maybe the USPS does operate like a Fortune 100 business. Just like Enron, Fannie Mae, or Tyco.  |   

September 28, 2006 - APWU Sets Oct. 26 for Nationwide Day of Picketing

In accordance with a resolution adopted by delegates to the union’s 18th Biennial Convention, the APWU National Executive Board has selected Oct. 26 for a nationwide day of picketing to protest ill-advised postal consolidations. The coordinated informational picketing is intended to highlight the potentially damaging effects of the USPS consolidation plan, and to expose how Postal Service policy panders to major mailers. The Oct. 26 date was selected to give local unions the opportunity to seek support from elected officials and candidates prior to Election Day, Nov. 7.    |   

September 28, 2006 - NALC May Withdraw Its Support for Postal Reform Bill

Bush administration's demands could destroy Postal Reform - We learned this week that the White House is still aggressively pursuing contentious changes in the Senate version of the reform legislation. The Bush administration’s proposed changes, if adopted, would leave NALC no choice but to actively oppose passage of the pending Postal Reform. I am deeply troubled that the Bush administration appears determined to destroy the strong bipartisan consensus surrounding comprehensive postal reform. NALC has worked long and hard for reform, but we will not support a bad version of the bill. Indeed, we must be ready to do everything we can to defeat any bill that financially cripples the Postal Service or threatens our collective bargaining interests.  |   

September 28, 2006 - NALC: Critical elections may change direction of the nation (PDF) With the 2006 mid-term elections just a month away, the NALC is mobilizing its resources in an unprecedented way to help elect pro-letter carrier candidates across America. Working people—letter carriers included—know that something has gone wrong in the U.S. economy and the current leadership in Washington is not even trying to fix it. “Over the long haul, only a stronger labor movement, fighting to protect workers and get a better deal from the bosses, can turn this situation around,” NALC President Bill Young said. “But if that is going to happen, a change in political direction is essential.” Mail Handlers: Message On Voter Registration   |   

September 28, 2006 - Tampa APWU President Questions USPS Decision to Close REC  - ...the U.S. Postal Service’s recent announcement to employees that they have made a decision to close the Tampa Remote Encoding Center (REC) no later than March 2, 2007. This decision will impact almost 600 employees; including data conversion operators, maintenance technicians, and supervisors. But why Tampa? Why now? The Tampa REC site has been here since 1995, and was one of the original 55 sites nation-wide. It is one of the most productive facilities in the country, and the employees there have keystrokes-per-hour and error rates far better than Postal Service’s national standards. Why toss out a highly skilled, knowledgeable, and experienced staff in Tampa today, only to relocate and hire new untrained recruits somewhere else - and spend millions of dollars in the process?  |   

September 27, 2006 - Finally Polo Shirts for Window Clerks Beginning November 18th - The American Postal Worker Magazine -  The American Postal Worker Magazine - Vendors will be allowed to take orders on this style of shirt early in October, and they will be allowed in the workplace beginning Nov. 18. They are, of course, covered by the National Agreement, and can be purchased using the Sales and Service Associate uniform allowance. While the exact cost of each shirt has not been announced, we expect them to be in the $30-$35 range. (click picture for larger view) The article doesn't address if the issue of wearing polo shirts everyday was resolved. Also, several readers have noted:  window clerks uniform allowance has increased only $50 over the last 25 years.   |   

September 26, 2006  - Postal Service Curbs Mail Carrier's Good Works

Star Press readers showered Kathy Bland with cards, $10 checks and boxes of dog bones after a recent article revealed the 21-year mail carrier had saved close to 800 neglected and abandoned animals along her route, paying with her own money for them to be rehabilitated and placed in loving homes. The United States Postal Service had a less positive reaction. It sent one district-level and one regional official to discuss "safety issues" with Bland on Monday morning in Yorktown. The verdict of the two-hour meeting, said Bland: no more media interviews in her post-office uniform, no more candy for the neighborhood children, no more temporarily stashing needy strays in the office break room.

September 26, 2006  - Postal Worker Pleads Guilty to Searching, Reviewing Child Pornography on USPS Computer - Morris E. Hall, 58, a window clerk from Jamestown, Kentucky pled guilty on September 6, 2006 to one charge of receiving child pornography.  According to an Affidavit filed at the time of Hall’s arrest, federal agents became aware of Hall’s unlawful activities as a result of routine monitoring of USPS computers beginning in October 2005 at the Jamestown, Kentucky, Post Office. To determine if Hall was actively searching the internet for child pornography, web logs for Hall’s account number were pulled and reviewed. In addition, investigators used the web logs to determine the amount of time Hall spent using the internet through his Postal Service assigned number.   |   

September 26, 2006  -

September 25, 2006  - Commitment to injury-reduction programs paying off for USPS

The U.S. Postal Service is steadily becoming a safer place to work. Last year, slightly fewer than 64,200 injuries were reported by Postal Service workers, down from 71,433 in 2004 and 79,514 in 2003. Workers’ compensation payments for 2005 injuries also fell to about $60 million, about half the amount of payments for new injuries of the previous year, and down to a level not seen since 2003, according to Labor Department statistics. The change is due to several programs and improvements the agency has initiated in the past several years... For all their recent efforts, however, the Postal Service appears frustrated by one mail-sorting machine it introduced in the early 1990s and which, at least according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), poses a risk of injury to those operating it. The Postal Service has spent millions on the machines and it is committed to its use,” said [Loyd] Reeder, a frequent blogger on the DBCS topic. “So what should be done now is follow the recommendations that NIOSH has made for the machines’ use.”|   

September 25, 2006 - Burrus - Enough of Excessive Postage Discounts for Mailers

While mailing-industry spokesmen wage a constant propaganda tirade against the salary and benefits received by hard-working postal employees, behind closed doors these phonies demand continued excessive discounts in order to pad their own profits. This is hypocrisy at the highest level. Some of these discounts are so extreme that if postal employees were paid the same value for the work we perform, our wages would surpass $75 per hour! am disappointed that the postmaster general has joined forces with these private, for-profit entities at the expense of the American citizens who employ him. As a member of the USPS Board of Governors, he is bound by its credo, which states, “The Governors are chosen to represent the public interest and cannot be representatives of special interests.” |   

September 25, 2006  - Students fault safety of Dear Santa letter program
A student group at Brien McMahon High School says that the nationwide Dear Santa program, though well-intentioned, exposes children to danger.  |   

September 23, 2006 - New National League of Postmasters President Seeks Better Postal Pay - Barely one month on the job, the new president of the National League of Postmasters is gearing up for consultations with U.S. Postal Service headquarters about pay, benefits and budgeting. This year for the first time, the league will enter those consultations jointly with the National Association of Postal Supervisors and the National Association of Postmasters of the United States, said the new league president, Charles Mapa. The consultations — not the same as union “negotiations,” since postmasters are part of management — are mandated to begin within 30 days of completion of talks with the largest union, which are set to end no later than November  |   

September 22, 2006 - USPS Honored for its Pay-for-Performance Program - The Performance Institute, a non-partisan government research group, presented USPS its “Excellence in Human Capital Management Award” for 2006 yesterday. The annual award recognizes federal departments and agencies that use innovative approaches to harness the energy and ideas of their employees. USPS earned the award for its Pay-for-Performance program, which provides financial awards to 75,000 postal employees who attain management goals. The Performance Institute said the Pay-for-Performance program helped increase USPS net income by $11 billion, offsetting 24 years of previous losses.   | 

September 22, 2006 - Letter Carrier Celebrates 47 years of Delivering Mail

In 1956, Charles Sinclair joined the Army and was trained to be a Morse code interpreter and interceptor. He returned to his hometown in 1959 and took a job with the post office, and rest is history. Sinclair, 67, who recently marked 50 years as a federal employee with 47 of those years in the postal service delivering mail in Framingham. And he's worked plenty of long hours. In fact, one particularly long shift in 1962 is infamous in the Framingham post office. "I once spent 30 straight hours on the clock," he said.  Sinclair is not the longest serving mail carrier in the postal system. A man in Worcester has been delivering the mail for 64 years and Sinclair has no aspirations to challenge that man's mark  | 

September 21, 2006  -