HOUSE GOP LEADERSHIP WANTS TO CUT YOUR RETIREMENT BENEFITS!

House GOP Leaders John Boehner - OH and Minority Whip Eric Cantor - VA have presented President Obama with a budget proposal that would see $375 billion in cuts over five years.  Several of the cuts involve federal employees and would negatively impact their retirement benefits.  Among the changes proposed by Boehner and Cantor are:

• Changing the High-3 formula used to calculate CSRS annuities to High-5.  This would lower CSRS retirement annuities by $1.2 billion over five years.

• Raise the minimum retirement age of certain federal employees from the current age of 56 years.

• Change CSRS and FERS annuity system to ensure that no federal employee receives any retirement benefits until reaching the age of 62. This would save approx $1.3 billion by taking six year of retirement benefits out of your pocket!

          This is what the Republican Leadership in the House of Representatives thinks of you!  If they had a majority, or the White House is this the type of legislation we could expect to see?  

Thankfully, proposals such as these have been considered and rejected in the past, in a bipartisan fashion.  It is unlikely that President Obama or the rest of Congress will support these proposals.

JOB POSTING CANCELLED

As reported earlier the Job Posting at the LV P&DC was going to be cancelled due to, quite frankly, too many mistakes within the posting.  The posting has now been cancelled as have all bids submitted for the jobs.  The jobs will be reposted and anyone interested must re-submit their bids.  All bids submitted from the incorrect posting have been deleted.  According to management the jobs will be posted on JULY 17, 2009, with the next "bidding cycle". 

The union can't help but wonder why the USPS is letting Shared Services dictate what will happen and when it will happen.  It seems that Shared Services has forgotten that they work for the USPS and not the other way around.  There is no doubt that if Mary Dion was still working in the Personnel Office this problem would have been corrected on the first day.  The posting would have been taken down, corrected, and reposted.  As it stands we are servants of the Gulag styled tactics of Shared Services.  

Keep an eye on the bulletin board and look for the reposted jobs.

S/L CHANGES FOR FERS EMPLOYEES SNUFFED OUT BY SENATE REPUBLICANS 

By a vote of 67-30 the US Senate passed HR 1256 giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products.  Attached to the bill were several amendments affecting postal employees.  The first brings about changes to the TSP plan including automatic enrollment and a Roth IRA option.  The second amendment, proposed by Senator Joe Lieberman - CT, would have provided a Sick Leave benefit for FERS employees similar to that enjoyed by CSRS employees.  The amendment would have allowed FERS employees to apply unused S/L towards their service time at retirement.   Republican Senator Jim Demint - SC objected to the Lieberman amendment and successfully blocked it from being added to the bill.

The House version of the bill does contain the S/L amendment but it will have to survive hearings to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions.  Supporters of the Lieberman Amendment are not hopeful of the amendment's chances to survive reconcilement.

LV P&DC CLERK JOB POSTING

You may have noticed that there is active job posting for clerk craft employees at the Lehigh Valley P&DC.  You may have also noted that those jobs are not posted here on the website.  The Local has raised several very serious concerns with regard to this posting, not least of which is the jobs were posted four days after the official "opening date" thus reducing the bid period from the required 14 days to 10.  There are other aspects of the posting that the Local believes should be corrected.  To avoid confusing potential bidders, the local has decided not to show the jobs here until they have been verified as accurate.

When the corrected job list is posted it will be made available here.

TOUR COMPRESSION - WEEK ONE

The USPS Tour Compression initiative went into effect on Saturday, June 06, 2009 with former T-2 clerks reporting to their new assignments.  There have been some minor issues that have come up, which is to be expected, but we hope to work through these problems.  There is, however, one aspect of the change over that cannot go unmentioned.  That is the attitude of the employees involved.  Despite a major shake-up to their jobs and lives, these people continue to perform their duties in a responsible and professional manner.  The local is proud to have members like this and they should be commended for their dedication.

LOCAL PREVAILS IN ARBITRATION

Arbitrator Irene Donna Thomas has ruled in the LV Locals favor in a case involving the changing of drop days on two vacant positions.  In April 2009, management posted two bid jobs which had the days off changed from weekends to weekdays.  The APWU complained that the changes had not been discussed prior to posting which is required by the LMOU.  Management argued two points.  First that the APWU had been shown a copy of the posting, with the job changes prior to posting.  Secondly, management claimed it had previously informed the union that it would be scrutinizing the days off of all future vacancies.  Management posed that since this "game plan" of desired staffing had been discussed with the union, future discussions of changes were not necessary.  The Union countered these discussions were general in nature and no specific jobs were discussed.

The Arbitrator ruled against management indicating that prior discussions of a general nature did not satisfy the requirements of the LMOU.  Arbitrator Thomas wrote, "As Mr. Friel correctly pointed out, this prior notice of a 'game plan' did not relieve management of the obligation to consult with the union before actual changes were made."  The arbitrator also found that by simply showing a copy of the job posting the union was deprived an opportunity for input before the decision to change the jobs was made.  The arbitrator ruled that the jobs must be reposted with the original days off restored. 

Good win for the Local!  Great job by Bernie and Fran in preparing the grievance and by NBA Jeff Kelhert who argued the union's case before the arbitrator!

HERSHEY PARK PICNIC - JULY 12, 2009

Join us for a day of fun, food, and fellowship at the Lehigh Valley Area Local Annual Summer Picnic on July 11, 2009 at Hershey Park.  We will, once again, be in the Tidal Grove with food service from 12:00 - 4:00 pm.  Information about the picnic will be included in the upcoming newsletter, or you can click the link (right) to download an order form.  The deadline to order tickets in Monday, June 29, 2009

The Local has also contracted with the Holiday Inn in Grantville, PA for reduced room rates for any members interested in staying overnight.  The rates are good from July 11th through the 13th.  For more information click the Hotel Info link (right)

NDC TRANSITION TESTING BEGINS FOR LEHIGH VALLEY OFFICES

After two years of trying to contract out Bulk Mail Center (BMC) work, the USPS finally decided it had no choice but to keep the work in house.  The declining volume has left many of the 21 BMCs with reduced workloads and half-empty trailers.  The USPS has made the decision to convert the BMCs into Network Distribution Centers (NDC).  The 21 BMCs would become one of three types of NDCs.  Tier 1 NDCs will only process destination mail.  All outgoing mail will be shipped to the nearest Tier 2.  Tier 2 NDCs will process both destination and outgoing mail.  They will also serve as a hub for Tier 1 NDCs combining the loads together to maximize trailer space.  Tier 3 NDCs will serve as hubs for less-than-full trailers from Tier 2 facilities to, once again, maximize trailer space.  There will be 11 Tier 1 facilities (Philadelphia BMC included), 10 Tier 2 NDCs (including New Jersey BMC) and 4 Tier 3 NDCs (Pittsburgh BMC included).

AT THE ASSOCIATE OFFICES - This change means you may have to pre-sort your bulk mail parcels into one of several containers.  Level 18 and above office must perform this pre-sorting which could result in more clerk hours.  Level 17s and below are not required to pre-sort, but management will push them to do it anyway.

AT THE PLANT - The changes brought on by the NDC conversion will mostly affect the dock operations and should not bring about changes inside the building.  On the dock, workers will unload containers from one truck and load them directly onto another (known as "cross-docking").  If containers are not full they will be combined with others to maximize container space.  Every container must be scanned as open and scanned again when closed.

The USPS is promoting this change as "The Future of the Postal Service".  It is entirely possible that a successful launch of NDC conversion could lead to similar changes in the first class mail processing network of P&DCs and P&DFs.

 "As the Republican Party has moved farther and farther to the right, I have found myself increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy and more in line with the philosophy of the Democratic Party"

- Senator Arlen Specter

MEET PENNSYLVANIA'S NEWEST DEMOCRATIC SENATOR - ARLEN SPECTER

29-year Senator Arlen Specter announced today that he will be running as a Democrat in the upcoming 2009 Senatorial Election.  Specter has recently come under intense scrutiny from the Republican party for supporting President Obama's Stimulus Package.  Since that vote Senator Specter has been called a traitor by the Republican National Committee, vilified by the media at Fox News, and was threatened with sanctions if he didn't get in line with the Republican agenda.  The GOP, seeking to oust Senator Specter from his seat, have put their support behind challenger Pat Toomey in the Republican Primary race.  It is extremely rare for a political party to campaign for a challenger when the incumbent Senator is also from that same party.  Apparently, Senator Specter the GOP has slapped Arlen Specter in the face one time too many.  It appears he has had enough of the GOP threats and intimidation and has decided to change affiliation.

Earlier this year, Senator Specter was a vocal supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and pledged his support for working men and women.  After the Stimulus vote, Specter was called on the carpet by the GOP Leadership.  After the meeting, Specter publicly denounced the EFCA and said he would do everything in his power to kill the legislation, including a Senate filibuster if necessary.  With the GOP no longer controlling his future, perhaps Sen. Specter will return to his former position and support the much needed worker reforms.

Specter has a long history of being a moderate Senator who has a respectable voting record with labor.  Senator Specter, you will recall, played an important role in the shaping and passage of the Postal Accountability Act.  Senator Spector voted on the side of labor on many key aspects of the bill.  He has brought many billions of dollars home to the state of Pennsylvania and is considered one of the Senate's most respected and effective legislators.  This change, along with the seating of Al Franken (MN) leaves the Democratic party only one vote shy of a filibuster proof majority.

AUTOMATED JOB BIDDING SYSTEM SHUT DOWN

The USPS has informed the union that the Automated Computer and Phone Bidding System will be temporarily down for maintenance later this week.  The system will be unavailable from Saturday, April 25, 2009 (3:00 am) until Sunday, April 26, 2009 (01:00 pm).  Manual bids will be accepted during the outage.  Once the automated system is up and running again manual bids will not be accepted. 

TOUR 2 COMPRESSION UPDATE

Management has informed the union that jobs will be posted on Friday, April 24, 2009.  The successful bidders of those jobs will be placed into the jobs effective Saturday, May 16, 2009.  The posting will consist of two separate bidding procedures.  The first will be a posting of jobs for the whole facility to bid on.  The second will be jobs remaining on T-2 that are subject to Closed Bidding.  For more details on the upcoming posting click HERE.

2008 COPA - LEHIGH VALLEY AREA LOCAL LEADS THE WAY. . .AGAIN!

The National APWU has released the final figures from the 2008 COPA campaign. It should come as no surprise that the Lehigh Valley Area Local was, once again, at the front of the pack. The LV Local ranked #1 in the country for locals with 500 - 999 members, #1 among all locals in the state of Pennsylvania, and #5 among all locals in the country (despite being much smaller than the top four locals). More...

LOCAL MEMBER HONORED WITH INAUGURAL AWARD

The Lehigh Valley Area Local's own Fran Friel has been named Labor Hero of the Year for 2008, by Democratic Talk Radio.  Fran's decision to move the 2008 PA State Convention due to labor disputes at the hotel shows that the PPWU believes in more than just talking about solidarity and brotherhood.  They back it up with actions.  The Lehigh Valley Area Local is proud to call Fran one of our own. [read the article]

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT FILING TIPS

Sandy Vito, Acting Secretary for the Department has provided us with valuable information and tips for members who, due to reductions in workhours, might find themselves applying for unemployment benefits. The fastest way to apply for benefits, according to Ms. Vito is on-line at www.dli.state.pa.us. In addition to this information, Ms. Vito has provided links and resources that will provide members with the most up to date information available. The Dept. of Labor & Industry has developed a "tip card" that you can print and carry with you. To learn more, visit the Unemployment Resources page on the PPWU website.