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Bill Would Destroy Collective Bargaining
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Bill Would Destroy Collective Bargaining 
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Burrus: Amendment Assesses ‘A Tax on Postal
Workers’
Senate
Bill Would Destroy Collective Bargaining
APWU Web News Article #090-09, Aug. 6, 2009
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In testimony [PDF] before a Senate subcommittee, APWU President William Burrus denounced a provision of Senate bill 1507, which he said would destroy the collective bargaining process. Although the postal community — including APWU — initially had high hopes for the legislation, which was intended to alleviate a severe financial crisis, an amendment to the bill made it unacceptable to postal workers, he said.
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“It is a mean-spirited amendment that is intended to shift the payment of the employer’s share of retiree healthcare liabilities to employees,” Burrus said at an Aug. 6 hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security.
Noting the severity of the Postal Service’s financial difficulties, Burrus said, “The introduction of the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Funding Reform Act gave us hope that legislation would soon be enacted that would provide substantial short-term relief to the cash-strapped agency.”
But the amendment adopted July 29 by the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs “drastically changed the focus of the committee’s efforts from assisting a troubled industry to an assault on postal workers,” he said.
The Postal Service’s $68 billion obligation over eight years to the retiree health benefits fund is a consequence of the passage of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA), Burrus said.
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“The authors of the PAEA,” which included members of the committee before which he was testifying, “did not anticipate the recession that would soon grip the nation, and failed to appreciate the impact it would have on mail volume and postal revenue.”
“One goal of the PAEA was to force postal management to reduce its network and labor force,” the union president observed. “It sought to accomplish this objective by squeezing postal finances to such an extent that management was left with no other options. The advocates of postal 'reform' imposed on the Postal Service the burden of pre-funding retiree healthcare payments, exacerbating the crisis.
“By requiring payments of $14 billion over the last two years — with more payments to come — the supporters of the PAEA share the blame for the Postal Service’s inability to ride out the economic crises.”
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The amendment adopted by the governmental affairs committee on July 29 would require arbitrators in the negotiation of labor agreements to “take the financial health of the Postal Service into account.”
The financial health of the USPS always has been a consideration during arbitration, the union president said. “But the amendment is intended to elevate this factor above all others. It would leave workers at a severe disadvantage,” he said. “Clearly, the authors of the amendment hope it will constrain wages and benefits.”
The amendment would subvert the collective bargaining process, Burrus testified. “Arbitrator Clark Kerr, a renowned economist, issued a seminal decision in 1983 that interpreted ‘comparability,’ the standard for postal wages. Since then, the parties have been guided by his decision.”
Burrus said that the committee action “would jettison this history, and require the unions and management to embark on a contentious journey aimed at applying competing standards.”
“The crisis facing the United States Postal Service is real,” Burrus said, “and this union offers positive solutions. The amendment to S. 1507 is not positive, and it will not solve the problems of the United States Postal Service.”
“By endorsing the amendment, the committee has declared war on postal workers.”
Also testifying at the Senate hearing were: John E. Potter, Postmaster General, U.S. Postal Service; Ruth Goldway, Chairman, Postal Regulatory Commission; David Williams, Inspector General, U.S. Postal Service; Nancy Kichak, Associate Director, Strategic Human Resource Policy, U.S. Office of Personnel Management; Phillip Herr, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. States Government Accountability Office; Fredric Rolando, President, National Association of Letter Carriers; Dale Goff, President, National Association of Postmasters of the United States; James West, Director of Postal and Legislative Affairs, Williams-Sonoma, Inc.; and Mark Suwyn, Executive Chairman, NewPage Corporation .
