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With a New Congress,
Our Struggle Continues

(This article was first published in the January/February 2005 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine)

As the 2005 congressional session gets underway, we are presented with a Senate composed of 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats, and one Independent. The 109th Congress will feature a House made up of 232 Republicans, 201 Democrats, and one Independent. Regardless of the political lineup, your Legislative Department is prepared to work with the new Congress.

In the Senate, new Democratic leadership is in place. Harry Reid of Nevada will be the new Minority Leader, replacing Tom Daschle, who was defeated in his re-election bid. Dick Durbin of Illinois will be the new Minority Whip.

On the Republican side, Bill Frist of Tennessee will continue as Majority Leader and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky will continue as Majority Whip. We hope to meet with these Senators (and their staff) in the near future to discuss our concerns and outline our objectives in our work to protect the interests of Postal Service employees.

Postal Reform

There is very little doubt that we will again be addressing postal “reform” in 2005. Susan Collins of Maine is expected to continue as the chair of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, with Tom Davis of Virginia as chair of the House Government Reform Committee. Under their guidance, both committees passed bills on postal reform in the 108th Congress and introduced them into the Senate and House of Representatives. We fully expect those bills to be revisited in the 109th Congress.

The legislation might have passed last year had it not been for impasses on two budgetary items. The first is an “escrow account” that has accrued more than $3 billion. This is money that the Postal Service has saved by ending overpayments to the Civil Service Retirement system. Although these savings should be reflected in the Postal Service bottom line, they have not been “released” but instead are being held in a special escrow account.

The second budgetary issue involves the transfer of unfunded military retirement liabilities going back to 1970. This cost of several billion dollars has been carried for years by the Treasury Department. In 2003, the Bush administration transferred responsibility for this debt to the Postal Service in order to make the deficit appear smaller. Virtually everyone involved in the postal reform debate agrees that the cost should return to the Treasury.

Both the House and Senate bills (H.R. 4341 and S. 2468, respectively) had provisions that would have released the escrow fund and returned financial responsibility for the military retirement benefits for postal workers who served in the military to the Treasury.

Enacting those two provisions, however, could increase the deficit by nearly $15 billion. Faced with the prospect of ballooning the deficit just prior to Election Day, the Bush administration scuttled action on these bills late last year.

Back to Square One?

Now that the election is behind us, perhaps opposition to these important provisions will decline. Our hope is that we will pick up where we left off last year, and not go back to Square One to start work on entirely new legislation.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what some major mailers are suggesting. The day after the election, lobbyists for advertising mailers urged lawmakers to “significantly overhaul” the bills currently before the U.S. House and Senate. “Senators, Congressmen: ‘Your babies are ugly,’” Gene A. Del Polito, president of the Association for Postal Commerce, said of the pending bills.

Sen. Collins and Rep. Davis met with White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. “to discuss strategies for getting a bill that Bush would sign,” the Washington Post reported on Nov. 8, “leaving with a list of measures the administration wants incorporated into the legislation.” (See President William Burrus’ “Viewpoint” on page 4 for a discussion of these measures.) There has been no word yet about what was on the list, but President Bush’s endorsement of the recommendations of his Commission on the U.S. Postal Service does not bode well for postal workers.

Your Legislative Department will keep a careful eye on the pending postal reform bills – or any successors – and react quickly if attempts are made to offer amendments that would adversely affect our benefits or our collective bargaining rights.

‘Labor 2004’

We would be remiss if we did not applaud the efforts of APWU’s Labor 2004 field committee during the general election. We had – national officers, local officers, stewards, and members – working all over the country to get out the labor vote. (See page 26.)

Our efforts were focused on key battleground states. Post-election numbers show that the labor vote increased by over two million. Clearly, the votes of union members and their families are continuing to grow and will become a constituency that neither party can afford to ignore.

President Bush was re-elected in a near-repeat of the 2000 election. Democrats retained all of states previously won by Al Gore except Iowa and New Mexico, and captured New Hampshire, which they previously lost. The 2004 effort fell short in Ohio, where a swing of only 70,000 votes would have changed the outcome of the Presidential election.

Legislative Teamwork

As we begin our term, the Legislative Department is exploring new ways to keep the membership informed and involved in the legislative process. We welcome any suggestions and invite you to visit our pages on the union Web site at www.apwu.org.

A Sweet Victory for Postal Workers

Postal workers took special delight in the Election Day defeat of the longest-serving GOP member in the House: Rep. Phil Crane, who lost the 8th District of Illinois to Democratic to newcomer Melissa Bean, was notorious among APWU members for his enthusiastic efforts to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. Since 1973, Crane introduced postal privatization bills 14 times.

Crane was first elected to Congress in 1969 in a special election to fill the vacancy created when Rep. Donald Rumsfield resigned to serve in the Nixon administration.

Bean brings 20 years of business experience to Capitol Hill.

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