National Association of Letter Carriers

'Tis the season for ... the Penalty Overtime Exclusion. As per Article 8, Sections 4 and 5, of the USPS-NALC and USPS-APWU National Agreements, the 2014 December period during which penalty overtime regulations are not applicable will begin on Pay Period 26-14, Week 2 (Dec. 6, 2014), and end on Pay Period 02-15, Week 1 (Jan. 2, 2015).

"The Postal Service is the nation's second-largest employer, and an agency virtually all Americans interact with to some extent in their daily lives."

... and those interactions are often with their Letter Carriers. Keep up your good work. A story on the Gallup Website can be found here.

The United States Postal Service has reported a loss of $5.5 billion for fiscal year 2014, despite definite growth in operating revenue. Click here for more details. In related news, PMG Patrick Donahoe has announced his retirement. Click here to read about his successor, Megan Brennan.

The United States Postal Service has recently been the victim of a "cyber-intrusion" into some of it's information systems. There have been indications that some of the data that has been breached includes personal information of active employees; such as names, social security numbers, addresses, etc. You may click here to access LiteBlue or here to access PostalEASE should you wish to change your passwords. Click here to read the offical USPS statement on the matter. Any further information forthcoming will be posted on this site.

The four postal unions are calling for a national day of action on November 14 to send a message to PMG Donahoe and the USPS Board of Governors ... "Stop delaying America's mail!". Use this link to read more.

The United States Postal Service will be adding Sunday deliveries in anticipation of a surge in Holiday packages. Read the Wall Street Journal piece here.

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
Translated from Herodotus - c. 500 B.C.

Apparently they didn't have to contend with Global Warming back in those days. Here is a story of interest from the Huffington Post.

As this issue of the "WAKE UP!" goes to press, it seems that there is an impending agreement on a new alternative route adjustment process. Although I have no details at this point, there is some general advice that will prove helpful to you no matter what method is used to adjust routes.

First, a few facts. A route is seldom if ever credited with more office time than standard office time. What does that mean to you? It means that DPS mail and FSS mail are not included when DOIS calculates your office time. So, even if you case that mail at 50 pieces/minute instead of the 18 and 8 for letters and flats that makes standard, YOU WILL GET NO OFFICE TIME FOR IT!

Why do you case DPS and FSS? I'm guessing you case it because it makes your job easier on the street (and perhaps easier means faster?). Well, management walks with you to determine your street time. Chances are, you're not casing DPS and FSS when they walk with you. Big deal, right? Well, it is a big deal because if you've been casing DPS and FSS and whipping through your route and then it takes longer all of a sudden because you're doing it right, what do you think happens? What happens is that we have a battle to get you the proper time for your route. So, you've already lost the time in the office that you've spent casing the automated mail, and there's a chance that you'll lose some of the time that is necessary to deliver your route on the street.

Is it really worth it? We're approaching the colder weather, you don't want to be on the road a minute longer than you have to, but don't cut corners and case mail that isn't supposed to be cased. That decision will haunt you for years to come when you are given an unrealistic evaluation for your route.

Whether there is a joint route adjustment process, or a full-blown inspection, any letter carrier that cases mail that shouldn't be cased and cuts corners on the street is contributing to their own misery and that of their brothers and sisters. Make the investment in your future, do your route professionally each and every day.

On this Labor Day, here is a story from the ABC News Website explaining why automation (in this case drones) may not be the answer to every problem. Somethings just don't need a 21st Century solution ...

The 69th Biennial NALC Convention starts today in Philadelphia. Here is a quick link to get you to the main NALC Website coverage of the event.

This is a reprint of President Rolando's monthly message in the July 2014 Postal Record

A few years ago, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe did something that really shocked me. He testified before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives and said that he supported "practically everything" in a truly putrid piece of legislation introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa, the committee's chairman. That bill, H.R. 2309 (the Postal Reform Act of 2011), which never gained more than one other co-sponsor during the 112th Congress, would have destroyed the Postal Service.

It offered no relief from the crushing pre-funding mandate that has devastated the Postal Service's finances over the past seven years, and it called for massive service and job cuts while subjecting the USPS Board of Governors to a humiliating financial control board. It was a betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of postal employees - managers and craft employees alike - who have made the United States Postal Service the best post office in the world.

Apparently, the only thing that mattered to Donahoe was that the Issa bill got rid of six-day delivery service. Killing Saturday delivery is for the PMG what Moby Dick was for Capt. Ahab - it is all that matters.

I didn't think he could sink much lower. I was wrong. Over the past seven months, time and again, he has proven that he is so obsessed with cutting Saturday delivery that he can no longer think straight.

First, at the end of December, the four postal unions and other allies in the industry developed a reform plan that focused on resolving the pre-funding mandate and implementing a series of consensus reforms on pensions, pricing and products. The plan was designed to restore the Postal Service to long-term financial viability. Asked to publicly support the plan, the PMG refused - like Capt. Queeg (the Humphrey Bogart character in The Caine Mutiny), he has let his obsession warp his mind. Without five-day delivery, he would not support the plan. (If you haven't seen the movie, you should; for the PMG, five-day delivery has become Capt. Queeg's frozen strawberries.)

Then in February, he proudly bragged to one of my fellow postal union presidents that he was the author of one of the more bizarre proposals included in S. 1486, the Carper-Coburn postal reform bill that was marked up by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee earlier this year. The proposal was to require the Postal Service to pre-fund $15 billion in future workers' compensation benefits decades in advance. No other agency, department or company in America, private or public, faces such a ridiculous burden. Given that the similarly unique but larger and even more unfair burden to pre-fund future retiree health benefits nearly destroyed the Postal Service during the Great Recession, I thought the PMG had lost his mind. But he didn't stop there.

In early June, Donahoe may have done the most irresponsible thing any Postmaster General has done since the creation of the Postal Service in 1970. He publicly endorsed a transparently phony budget plan from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to "offset" deficit spending to keep the Highway Trust Fund solvent by mandating the end of Saturday delivery. The short-term (eight to 10 month) extension of the trust fund was to be offset by 10 years of savings due to "avoiding a future taxpayer bailout of the Postal Service." The proposal to book a hypothetical bailout of an agency that receives no tax money, to pay for a few months of highway maintenance, is embarrassingly bush-league and unworthy of a great country. But the PMG's endorsement was worse - it was truly outrageous.

If allowed to happen, this budget gimmick would set a terrible precedent for the Postal Service. Why raise taxes or reduce spending at taxpayer-funded agencies, when you can pay for pet projects with legislated service cuts at the Postal Service? Need a new aircraft carrier? Slash post office hours. Want a new fleet of planes to fight forest fires? Raise postage rates.

I can just imagine how Vince Sombrotto would react to this. He worked so hard with then-PMG Tony Frank in the late 1980's to get the Postal Service off-budget, to shield the Postal Service and ratepayers from scheming politicians like Rep. Cantor, who fortunately lost his seat in a primary election the week after he announced his ridiculous highway bill.

Apparently, there is no limit to how low the Postmaster General will stoop to achieve his beloved five-day delivery plan. That's shameful.

Pat Donahoe owes every postal employee and postal ratepayer an apology. Better yet, he could redeem himself by working with us to achieve real reform and end his alliance with politicians who want to dismantle the Postal Service. Otherwise, it might be best for him to join Congressman Cantor in "retirement" from public life.

Our trucks are getting older and our financial problems aren't getting much better. Click here to read all about it on the Federal News Radio Website.

"This is a clear victory for letter carriers and other supporters of a strong Postal Service."
NALC President Fred Rolando

Click here for the story from the 21st Century Postal Worker Website.

"Legislators should address the factor that is causing 100 percent of the 'losses' - the Congressional mandate that the Postal Service, alone among all public agencies and private companies, be required to pre-fund future retiree health benefits."
NALC President Fred Rolando

Click here to read the Wall Street Journal story.

Click here to read an opinion piece from the Roll Call.com Website. This article was posted by Rafe Morrissey, the vice president of postal affairs for the Greeting Card Association.

"It is time for Congress to save the Postal Service, not dismantle it."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

"The idea Congress would use a supposedly self-funding agency that cannot pay its bills as a piggy bank to fund another bankrupt, self-funding fund is absurd."
Dan Holler, spokesman for Heritage Action for America

Click here for the National Journal story.

Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee has approved H.R. 4670, the Secure Delivery for America Act of 2014, which promises to make door-to-door delivery a thing of the past. Click here to read more.

The United States Postal Service has reported a net loss of $1.9 billion for the second quarter of 2014. Calls for Congressional relief will begin anew.

Click here for more of the story.

On Thursday the 24th, postal workers all over the country protested the Staples/USPS program to open in-store retail counters staffed by Staples employees. Read about it here.

"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

"The truth is out there."
The X-Files

The truth may be out there, but you can't always make a politician recognize it. Please click here to access Fred Rolando's response to the Darrell Issa story.

Representative Darrell Issa (R - CA) is taking a new tack in his quest to overhaul the United States Postal Service. Click here to read the Washington Post story.

"Americans value and deserve postal services provided by highly trained, uniformed and accountable employees who work directly for the Postal Service, not for an office-supplies retail chain."

Fredric Rolando, NALC President

Click here for the Huffington Post story on the subject.

"We stand for a public Postal Service, enhancement and expansion of service, and protection of good union jobs in our communities. We stand with the people of our country in defense of their right to a universal postal service operated in the public interest."

Please click here to read more.

Senate bill S. 1486, the damaging "Carper-Coburn" bill, has passed through committee and now awaits action from the entire Senate. Read the full story in the March issue of the Postal Record or click here for a summary on the NALC website. Be ready to contact Senator Warren and Senator Markey when the time comes.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), sponsor of the NALC-supported S. 316, has a pro-Postal Service column in the Huffington Post that's worth a look. Click here to do so.

Washington continues to consider the end of Saturday delivery ... both in Congress and at the White House. The Government Executive website has this story on the issue. You may click here to read all about it.

"The Postal Service could ensure that all routes are completed before nightfall by requiring employees to start work earlier and hiring more personnel to literally help carry the load."
National Association of Postal Supervisors president Louis Atkins

Is common sense beginning to find it's way? ... here is a small item from our nation's capital.

"Seven-day delivery is now a reality for us, and that's our future."
David Martin, district manager, Gateway District, Missouri

Hey, wait just a damn minute !!! Has someone gone way, way off script? You'll have to be the judge ... click here to read. Warning: circular logic like this may induce headaches.

"That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain ..."
(Hamlet - Act 1, Scene 5)

For your information ... please click here. With this level of contempt for the Postal Service, you have to wonder who pissed this guy off ...

A small item on the Daily Kos website for those of us who thought we had heard it all. Please click here for a look.