National Association of Letter Carriers

On January 5, President Biden signed the Social Security Fairness Act (H.R. 82) into law. The legislation, which had overwhelmingly passed in both the House and Senate, ensures that affected Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) retirees will no longer face unfair reductions in their Social Security benefits. The Social Security Fairness Act repeals the WEP and GPO provisions in Social Security law.

The Government Pension Offset (GPO) and Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) are federal laws that reduce Social Security benefits for individuals who receive pensions from jobs where they did not pay Social Security taxes. GPO affects spousal or survivor benefits, while WEP impacts retirement and disability benefits for those who also have a pension from non-covered employment.

This law will affect many CSRS retirees from the Postal Service. December 2023 is the last month that WEP and GPO will apply. This means that those rules no longer apply to benefits payable for January 2024 and later. Important Reminder: Social Security benefits payable for January 2024 would generally have been received in February 2024. We have already received calls from retired members asking when they can expect payments. The answer is probably later than sooner. The Social Security Administration issued the following statement on their website on January 24:

“SSA’s ability to implement the law in a timely manner and without negatively affecting day-to-day customer service relies on funding. The Act did not provide money to implement the law. The law requires SSA to adjust benefits for over 3 million people. Since the law’s effective date is retroactive, SSA must adjust people’s past benefits as well as future benefits. Though SSA is helping some affected beneficiaries now, under SSA’s current budget, SSA expects that it could take more than one year to adjust benefits and pay all retroactive benefits.

Callers to SSA’s National 800 Number hear a message about the Act. This message has helped tens of thousands of people avoid holding for a representative. However, more than 7,000 people each day still choose to wait to speak to a representative about the Act. These calls, as well as visitors and appointments in local offices, will continue to increase over the coming weeks and months.

Helping people with this new and unfunded workload is made more difficult by SSA’s ongoing staffing shortages, including operating under a hiring freeze since November 2024. This hiring freeze is likely to continue. All SSA customers, including those not affected by the Act, will face delays and increased wait times as SSA prioritizes this new workload.”

We will pass on any new information to our members as soon as we get it.

In Solidarity,

Daniel P. Wheeler

Congratulations to Lawrence’s Dan Abate who won the attendance prize at the January branch meeting!

Happy New Year to the members of Branch 25! We made it through 2024, and we are on to 2025. I will start this month by saying that I hope most active carriers have taken the time to fill out and mail in their ballots for the Tentative Agreement. The original due date to return ballots was January 13. However, they just announced that the date to get ballots returned has been extended by two weeks until January 27. So, if you have not mailed your ballot yet, there is still time. I encourage everyone to make their voice heard and cast their vote.

As we enter the new year, a couple of things are happening throughout the branch that are worth noting. The first is the new safety blitz the Postal Service implemented last month. James Metilinos has written about this in more detail on pages 4-5 of this month’s Wake Up! So, I won’t go into a lot of details here, but active carriers should be aware of this. After reading over the training material issued by management to their people, it is clear to me that this program is designed as more of a “gotcha” method to try to catch carriers doing something wrong rather than promoting safety.

Please take the time to read James’ article and be aware that management will focus on catching carriers with safety violations in the immediate future. It could be local management, people from the district, or other management making these observations, as has been the case so far. Please be safe and aware out there!

Another thing that I have noticed in our offices is the questioning in PDIs becoming increasingly predetermined and aggressive. For a while now, most, if not all, local management has been instructed that PDI questions are to come from the district level. The questions are designed more to get us to admit guilt and answer a different version of the same question multiple times rather than to actually get answers as to what happened so local management can then make their own conclusion. It seems like more and more the conclusion has been arrived at by labor, and they are looking for the PDI to confirm that for them.

Remember that a PDI is management’s obligation to complete a fair and thorough investigation, not just a formality, to get concurrence on a conclusion of guilt they have already pre-determined!

Last year, 525 total grievances were filed, an increase of almost 4% from the 508 total filed in the previous year. The breakdown by installation is listed below. Thanks to all the stewards in the branch who keep the grievance process moving promptly and properly!

In Solidarity,

Daniel P. Wheeler