Union Encourages USPS Board of Governors To Approve Postal Regulatory Commission Ruling

The APWU is encouraging the USPS Board of Governors to approve the Feb. 26 “recommended decision” of the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). In a March 8 letter, union President William Burrus said the PRC’s decision, which rejected the Postal Service’s proposed rate structure for first-class letter mail, is “fundamentally correct.”

The postal Board of Governors must implement the PRC ruling or return it to the commission for further consideration. The Board of Governors can overrule the decision only by a unanimous vote.

Since the PRC decision was announced, lobbyists for the mailing industry have mounted a campaign in opposition, with industry trade groups calling on their members to “act en masse and quickly,” with faxes and e-mails to the Board of Governors.

In its Feb. 26 ruling, the PRC rejected the Postal Service’s proposal in three significant areas, and adopted recommendations advanced by the union:

• The commission rejected the USPS request to increase the cost of first-class stamps from 39 cents to 42 cents, and instead endorsed an APWU suggestion to increase postage for individual first-class letters to only 41 cents;
• The panel echoed the APWU assertion that discounts for presorted mail should not exceed the costs that the Postal Service avoids when large mailers engage in “worksharing";
• The commission discarded a USPS proposal — vehemently opposed by the APWU — to separate costs for business mail by “de-linking” rates for large mailers from the rates charged to single-piece mailers. The PRC concluded that de-linking fails to follow established principles of rate design.

“APWU members are proud to be part of the most efficient mail-processing system in the world. That efficiency, and the enormous investment made by the Postal Service to achieve it, can only be maintained if workshare discounts are properly priced,” Burrus wrote to the Board of Governors.

Commenting immediately following the PRC ruling, Burrus said, “This trifecta victory of the American Postal Workers Union is a win for every citizen of our country. We have denied the large mailers further subsidization of their postage by individual mailers.”

The commission’s recommendation does not eliminate excessive discounts, Burrus noted, but “it supports the principle which, under newly-enacted postal reform legislation, will require the Postal Service and PRC to justify worksharing discounts.”