“We strongly oppose a provision in the bill that provides for an additional $10 billion in borrowing authority from the U.S. Treasury. The Postal Service does not need to incur additional debt — we need the money back that is already owed to us,” the statement said, referring to the surplus money paid into the FERS account. “We also strongly oppose sections of the bill that would create more government bureaucracy and slow our progress on streamlining our operations.”
USPS also reiterated suggestions it had made before, namely, that Congress allow it access to the surplus funds it has paid into FERS, an amount USPS estimates to be $6.9 billion, and that the Postal Service be exempted from pre-paying retiree health benefits.
“The Postal Service,” the statement warns, “is in danger of running out of cash as early as this October.”
National Association of Letter Carriers, one of the postal worker unions, had a more negative take on the bill. Attacking it for not removing the requirement of prefunding retiree health benefits, NALC expressed supreme disappointment with the bill, saying, “it proposes radical changes that would recklessly downsize the U.S. Postal Service in a way that would seriously damage the $1.3 trillion mailing industry and the entire U.S. economy.”
NALC also took exceptional issue with the idea of reducing delivery to five days, something it has adamantly spoken out against.
NALC President Frederic Rolando called the bill “a draconian downsizing plan and a misguided and unjustifiable attack on hard-working postal employees who provide the most affordable and highest-quality mail service in the world.”
“It seems the war on collective bargaining that we have seen in the states has come to Washington,” Rolando said.
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