House leader proposes new postal reform plan

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

The chief House architect of a Postal Service overhaul that failed to gain traction in the last Congress is back with new draft legislation that would allow the financially ailing agency to move to five-day delivery and ban it from entering no-layoff agreements with employees.

In an effort to broaden support for a bill criticized by Democrats as too partisan and anti-labor, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is attempting to soften opposition with his new proposal released Thursday. It would allow the Postal Service to scrap an annual $6 billion payment to pre-fund health costs for future retirees, a major concession that is likely to help the bill’s chances in the Senate.

The pre-funding requirement and plummeting mail volume pushed the mail agency into a $15.9 billion deficit in the last year alone, and postal officials have warned they will default on a third pre-funding payment this year.

But Issa’s new draft also keeps proposals that have divided lawmakers. Democrats are likely to oppose any language allowing layoffs, and members of both parties who represent rural districts have pushed back against five-day delivery.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-leader-proposes-new-postal-reform-plan/2013/06/13/8833d452-d464-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html

[westerebus]

1. So another bite at the apple.

Mr. Issa it's not the apple that's rotten, it is you that's rotten to the core.

[SunSeeker]

2. Getting rid of that pre-funding of healthcare requirement is huge. I'd take that deal.

Once the post office is in the black again, it can put Saturdays back. And hire back laid off workers. The Post Office was planning on going to 5 days without this deal anyway. We have got to save this Post Office, and this appears to be the only way to do it at the moment.

[Occulus]

4. Not one bit of that will happen.

Watch.

[freshwest]

5. Maybe, good about getting in order. But I see privatization getting the jobs, not postal workers.

Strange. Where I live, we have 5 day service and they are hiring. Starting at $15 an hour.

[Occulus]

3. Saw this coming, quit without notice.

Seventeen years. And yes, it fucked me running. Oh well.

I will be very disappointed, but supremely unsurprised, if postal employees do not go on strike over this. Thing is, the unions completely and spectacularly abrogated their responsibility to adequately represent their members' interests in the most recent collective bargaining agreement by allowing the use of temps, officially, in their contracts, so even if they do strike, it will have very little effect.

If this is put into place, and the no-layoff clause is abolished, it will be the end of the last nationwide middle-class job with any real job security, and we will officially be a temp service nation.

It is the final fistfucking, the kill-you-off gangbang, the rape-you-dead corporate mentality brought to us all by that slimy, addled, racist, bigoted, glad-he's-dead-and-damn-his-ghost Ronald "I'm so stupid my ketchup is a vegetable" Reagan.

We. Are. Screwed.

[thelordofhell]

6. Issa is the fucker that screwed the Postal Service up in the first place

[tclambert]

8. But he wants to screw it up more. He wants to force privatization.

At every turn, he wants to hurt workers, especially public service workers. When the postal clerks' union settled on a contract with the USPS, Issa lamented that the Postmaster General had missed a good chance for cost savings. What that obviously means is he wanted concessions on benefits and cuts in pay for the postal workers.

5-day delivery is about cutting jobs. And he wants to do that when unemployment is high. Hell, we ought to go to 7-day delivery, if only as a way to create more jobs. Oh, I forgot, Republicans don't believe government can create any jobs.

[Triana]

7. Here's an idea, Issa. RESCIND the goddamned requirement...

...that the USPS pre-fund its retirement program for 75 years - because that's the ONLY reason it's "broke" - thanks to this Repig-created albatross around its neck.