NAPSHQ 2 U Newsletter-September 30, 2011

NAPSHQ 2 U

Providing NAPS Headquarters News to You

September 30, 2011

Louis Atkins

Letter from Louie

September 27, 2011 marks a watershed moment in the survival of an American institution whose very existence is woven into the creation of our republic.

The survival of the United States Postal Service will not happen overnight, it will take the dedication and engagement of every postal employee and every citizen. In this age of mass unemployment, the specter of thousands of dedicated public servants losing their jobs is frightening and unacceptable. I find it especially troubling due to the fact that this could have all been prevented if Congress had chosen to take a measured and rational approach to this problem.

Just last week, the Congressional subcommittee with oversight over the Postal Service reviewed and passed H.R. 2309, a bill that was introduced by Representatives Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Dennis Ross (R-FL). In its current form, this legislation would largely strip the USPS of its ability to conduct the business of the American People.

Two parts of this legislation are particularly troubling to me; the creation of the Solvency Authority and the movement towards five day delivery. The Solvency Authority would be empowered with the ability to realign the USPS should it default on a financial obligation. Included in these powers would be the ability to cancel and rewrite contracts negotiated in good faith and close postal facilities without any congressional or public input. The authority would be taking the fate of the USPS out of its own hands through the creation of additional bureaucracy, an interesting irony in this "smaller government" world we have entered.

The movement towards five day delivery is a slippery slope I believe none of us truly fathoms. The Postal Service's Six Day Delivery mandate was a lynchpin that all businesses, big and small, could rely on in order to ensure the reliable flow of goods. Taking away one day from that equation could have ramifications that none of us can comprehend. People relying on time sensitive goods, such as prescription drugs, that use the USPS would be forced to move to more expensive delivery options, such as UPS and FedEx. The costs of these additional services would be passed on to the consumer, many of whom are seniors living on a fixed income. With potential cuts in federal retirement and Social Security, placing an additional burden on our retirees is simply unacceptable. These are the unseen costs of moving to five day delivery, a trickledown effect that will not be realized until the bill comes into effect. NAPS has always believed that moving to Five Day Delivery should be the final option and we are not at the point yet..

Let us get one thing clear, NAPS, Mr. Issa and Mr. Ross have the same goal in mind, to save the United States Postal Service. However, NAPS believes that a more balanced and rational approach, like one that is proposed by H.R. 1351, is the best course of action.. H.R. 2309 represents a draconian approach to a problem that can be easily solved.

Before we cut off an arm to cure a bug bite, we need to examine how to fix this problem with a more nuanced approach. Inclusion of language into the governments' short term spending resolution that would delay the USPS' payment into its retiree prefunding accounts was a good first step. However, this only buys us time.

NAPS believes that H.R. 1351 is the best option to fix what ails the Postal Service. By taking the Postal Service's overpayments into the Civil Service Retirement accounts and applying them towards its prefunding obligations, we relieve the financial pressure on the USPS and give them the opportunity to engage in common sense approaches towards retuning their business model.

As current and former employees of the USPS, we all believe in the work that the Postal Service does for the American people. With everything that is at stake, we cannot allow its mandate to serve the American people to be compromised when there is no need to do so. Because my friends, it's simple: Failure Is Not an Option.

Jay's Notes

Joining Forces to Save the Postal Service

Jay Killackey

This week members of NAPS joined forces with the four major postal unions to bring attention to the Postal Service's financial plight.

At rallies designed to cover Congressional districts throughout the country, postal employees gathered to support the passage of HR 1351, the only postal bill that would relieve the financial pressures facing the Postal Service without impacting Saturday delivery and overnight service.

As members of Congress debate the poison that the Postal Service will have to swallow, among a variety of bills that will cut service and thousands of jobs, the workers who move the mail attempted to provide the push that would bring HR 1351 to the floor of the House of Representatives for deliberation and an affirmative vote.

The passage of HR 1351 will definitely be a difficult challenge as member of the majority in the House of Representatives deny the fact that the Postal Service has overpaid $ 55 to 75 billion to the CSRS funds. There are some in Congress that refuse to believe several independent audits that point to the fact that this large sum of money has been paid by the Postal Service due to miscalculations made years ago.

At the same time, the Postal Service is required to put aside funds in advance to cover the cost of future retiree's health benefits for the next seventy-five years. Imagine this; the Postal Service is the only government agency that has this requirement. The Postal Service is putting billions of dollars into a fund to cover retirees who have not even been born yet.

With the rally behind us, and more members of Congress understanding our plight, we must continue to bring the heat on the people who we elected to serve us in the United States Congress. Contact your representative and ask them what progress they are making in solving the Postal Service's problems. We need to educate and re-educate our elected officials until they understand that they are the only people who can fix the Postal Service.

Seth's Slant

NAPS Legislative Chairs and You

Seth Lennon

As a constituent, free of your role as an employee of the USPS and a legislative advocate for NAPS, you should be making regular visits to your Congressional offices. Politics is all about relationship building, constructing a trusting partnership that allows an ongoing discussion about Postal Issues. You do not need to even drop in and engage the local staff member in a conversation about the Post Office. Simply dropping in and saying hello to a staff member will keep you in their sights, because a lot of these local area field aides are often alone in their little office nestled in a quaint downtown.

While we here at Headquarters work diligently to further the NAPS legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, you as a constituent hold the ultimate power; The Vote. Any elected official who is worth their weight in sand recognizes this power and respects it, and it is one that you need to wield to the best of your ability. This power gives you the ability to have the lawmaker's undivided attention as well as the attention of their staff member. Especially in small rural communities, one bad experience can lead to negative word of mouth, which could snowball into electoral defeat in November.

Do not use this power as a hammer to beat the lawmaker into submission, instead, use it as a bargaining chip in those rare times where access might not that easy to gain. The phrase "I am a postal employee and a constituent with concerns about the future of the Post Office" can go a long way in securing you a couple of minutes to discuss the issues. You are seeking to build a partnership through cooperation and engagement, not through coercion.

Don't be afraid to call the main district office to see if you could possibly schedule some time to talk to the lawmaker; while this might not always work out, you are once again on the radar screen and you will crack the door a little bit. In addition, talk to whoever is running the local campaign office and see if there is something that your local branch can do to support the member, either through stuffing envelopes or putting yard signs up. These small, but significant measures of support can show that you mean business in building this relationship.

Whatever you do, be a presence on the local scene. Whether it be through regular office visits or taking part in local political events, you have the opportunity to engage staff and Members of Congress in a conversation about the direction and the future of the United States Postal Service. It is in the best interest of all Americans that you have this discussion; it could mean the difference between the USPS being allowed to continue to serve the American People to the best of its ability or being cannibalized beyond all recognition.

Quote of the day!

There never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious that all men believed it at once..

~ Thomas Paine

Communicate with NAPS!

There are now multiple ways to find the latest information from NAPS Headquarters.

Call the toll-free NAPS hotline:

1-877-667-NAPS
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Brian's Scoop

Get Registered, Get Involved

Brian Wagner

Those of you receiving NAPSHQ2U may or may not be registered on our new NAPS website, www.naps.org. If you are registered on naps.org, thank you for using our new website.

However, here is the scoop. If you have not registered yet on www.naps.org please do so. We don't want you to miss an opportunity to receive updated information from NAPS and the USPS.

Originally, when we developed our new on-line NAPShq newsletter - NAPSHQ2U, we took the email addresses we had in our current DCO program and from our old NAPS website, deleted any usps.gov addresses and entered the rest into the database we use for sending out NAPSHQ2U. NAPShq uses this email list to send out this bi-weekly newsletter.

What we discovered by combining these to email lists is that we are emailing NAPSHQ2U to approximately 5,898 members. This number continues to grow, but slowly. However, the number of members registered on new NAPS website is approximately 1632 members and it too is growing slowly. If you notice, our website registrants are a far cry from the 5,898 members receiving NAPSHQ2U.

Therefore, if you are receiving NAPSHQ2U, but have not yet registered for access to our new website, NAPS encourages you to do so. NAPSHQ is using many avenues to communicate to our members, such as The Postal Supervisor, Facebook, Twitter and NAPSHQ2U, but we consider our NAPS website has our primary medium for on-line communication and The Postal Supervisor for hardcopy.

Access to the website is easy. You go to www.naps.org. Then click on "Member Login". On the left-hand side of the screen you will see a box that says, "Create an Account". Click that box and then complete the screen for "Member Registration". Once you complete the screen and agree to the terms of the service, then "Submit" your registration. Your registration will be sent to NAPShq pending verification of your membership, which may take a day or two to verify, but in most cases your approval is completed the same day.

NAPShq just implemented a stricter membership verification process that closed an access portal to minimize and/or eliminate potential "spammers" from gaining access to our NAPS Forum. If you register over a weekend your verification and access may not be approved until that Monday. However, I am doing what I can over the weekends to verify new website registrants and get them approved as quickly as possible.

Getting back to "spammers", I apologize for any past spammer posts that got by our website security. However, we are confident that by working with our website design company this issue has been resolved. However, as active as our members are on the Forum, it has become very challenging for NAPShq to review each new Forum topic and posts on a daily basis. NAPS is monitoring the Forum for proper posts, but sometimes our review will take a day or two.

Therefore, we are asking our members who use the Forum to assist us in this matter. If you see any Forum post(s) that you believe is inappropriate, please notify NAPShq. We will quickly review it and take the necessary steps to delete the post and possibly ban the poster.

I would like to provide some helpful hints when registering on our NAPS website. In your membership profile, only use a personal email address. NAPS does not accept usps.gov email addresses. We definitely want to avoid any Hatch Act issues. If we see a postal email address (usps.gov) in your membership profile, we will delete the profile and you will need to re-register for website access.

NAPS verifies your full name, branch # and last 4-digits of your social security number against the information in our official DCO membership program to confirm membership. If we cannot confirm your membership with any of this information, NAPS will delete your profile from the website.

For example, we have noticed that some members have used the wrong branch # in their profile. Let me assure you that NAPShq will do its due diligence to search for you in our DCO membership program and make any corrections to your website profile before approval. However, if we cannot verify your NAPS membership, we will have no choice but to delete your profile from our website system. If you continue to have problems accessing www.naps.org contact NAPShq.

As for one final scoop, during our verification process, I have noticed that in our DCO membership program we have many members marked as not receiving the Postal Supervisor magazine because NAPS does not have the member's current mailing address on file.

If you are receiving NAPSHQ2U, but not the monthly Postal Supervisor, contact us at NAPShq so can verify your mailing address to ensure you receive your NAPS magazine.

My ice cream flavor of the week recommendation is Coffee! Who doesn't love ice cream with a little pick-me-up?

Save America's Postal Service

Naps has joined the four Postal Workers Unions in the fight to save the postal service. Please visit the link below to find announcements, background information, and important events.

www.saveamericaspostalservice.org

2011 Restructuring Documents

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