As postal management engages with the NALC in arbitration claiming that without major restructuring of the collective bargaining agreement they must be severely disappointed that Congress returned from their lengthy vacation with no plans to “save” the Postal Service. With ample opportunity to consider the Senate bill completed in the spring, the House postured and preened, but adamantly refused to schedule postal reform for a vote. This leaves postal management at the whim of the NALC arbitrator for salvation from the alleged impending disaster, fiscal insolvency.
Having achieved the one billion dollar annual savings from the APWU contract and anticipated cost reductions from service standard changes and consolidations, Congress is in no hurry to travel the political minefield of five day delivery and shredding of the 
negotiations process. They will rely instead on the benevolence of arbitrator Das to ignore the clear language in the statute governing postal wages, hoping that lightning will strike the same place twice and the Stark award will be duplicated. The strategy is to similarly “impress” Das with the APWU agreement.
Left on the table will be any serious review of the funding mechanisms for postal services; the retirement overfunding; payment for future health care costs and a source of revenue to subsidize standard mail delivery. Management advocates will argue the obligation of the unions is to rescue the troubled finances letting a do nothing Congress off the hook. They will allege that it is not necessary to change the law and adopt the amendment to attach wages to postal liquidity. If arbitrator Das likes the APWU agreement, he should duplicate its provisions for letter carriers.
This is a bizarre set of circumstances where the funding of a national service – mail delivery has been transferred to the authority of an arbitrator. I am absolutely certain that the framers of the constitution when inserting postal services in the original constitution did not intend to surrender its financing to the whims of an arbitrator. This is an absolutely ridiculous scenario to suggest that the funding of a national service would be the responsibility of one unelected individual.
Congress has abdicated its responsibility and left town again. Its members are now engaged in the selfish act of campaigning for reelection as they outsource the responsibility of funding a national service.
Bill:
Mr. Morris “crowed” in Utah that the APWU vis this contract saved the USPS over 3 Billion Dollars and the USPS took it and ran with it to multiply these savings via applications of the terms of surrender to the other postal unions and booting clerks and PSE’s out of the small town post offices through their PostIt Plan and other measures.
The APWU led the way! Led the way DOWN for not only it’s bargaining unit – but for the rest of the postal labor force.
Sadly, the dead is done and there is no going back and, probably, what might be best applied to is that we are a recovering postal union in need of grief counseling.
MPK
Mr Burrus,You Dah Man
Rome (the P.O.) burns while The Emperor ( Donahoe) fiddles. We all know this mans
1 job is to dismantle the P.O.
As a 30 year Letter Carrier who is about 70 days from retiring, I can only dream that my fellow Carriers don’t get screwed by a Labor Contract that was initiated by your Esteemed replacement, and believe me I use the word esteemed very loosely.
My friend, keep up the good work. We all can only hope Guffey will get his head out of his you know what, and Rolando does not follow his path to Hell.
One can no longer rely on the government (Republican or Democrat). I also don’t have very high regards for our existing union and it’s representatives. A dissappointment all around Mr. Burrus. Our office has a new Plant Manager so I am hoping to talk with her at least in reference to the way the mail is handled on the FSM 100s; which is my section. I hope others will take it upon themselves to do the same in their sections. We need a strong customer base; good accord with our carriers and developing better understanding with the mailing businesses that we deal with. These, Congress can’t “vote” on if we establish them ourselves.
Just wanted to make it clear that the GOP of the HOUSE left the USPS stranded. When you say “selfish”, the GOP goes hand in hand with it!
Come this november, everyone who works for the USPS should remember who did not work for them and vote accordingly.