3/23/18 – The Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service (C21) has released the following press release in support of The Postal Reform Act of 2018. C21 is a coalition of businesses that have personal interests in lobbying for postal services and prices that are in their favor.
It is PEN’s opinion that The Postal Reform Act of 2018 should not be passed into law as written because, in our opinion, said law does not favorably support the careers and retirement of current and future postal employees. Specifically, this law would FORCE postal employees and annuitants into a new Postal Service Health Benefits Program (PSHBP) within FEHB (Federal Employee Health Benefits).
Postal employees are federal employees – our health insurance, both current career employees and annuitants, has always been a part of FEHB coverage…as it should be. As such, our health insurance rates, and benefits, are computed upon the larger pool of federal employees. By creating a new pool – namely the proposed PSHBP – postal employee and annuitant cost and benefits will be computed using a much smaller base or pool – in our opinion, health insurance rates will eventually rise and benefits decrease.
It is not fair to force postal employees and annuitants into a new and separate FEHB health insurance group and into Medicare coverage. When hired postal employees were guaranteed the same health insurance coverage that other federal employees and annuitants are promised – we believe it is woefully unfair to force any employee or annuitant into Medicare coverage if they choose not to sign up for Medicare coverage. We suggest you contact your Senator and Congressman and tell them NOT to support this bill.
Rick Owens
Postal Employee Network (PEN)
C21’s press release is below:
Business Community Supports The Postal Reform Act of 2018
WASHINGTON, March 22, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service (C21), an organization of the private sector mailing industry, announced support for the Postal Reform Act of 2018, introduced today.
“C21 is very pleased that a bipartisan group of Senators has introduced the Postal Reform Act of 2018,” said Art Sackler, Manager of the Coalition. “It would go a long way toward fixing the broken finances of the Postal Service, and ensure it will continue to deliver each year, as the public expects, the nearly 150 billion mail pieces that support our economy and the postal system.”
C21 has very strongly supported the similar Postal Reform Act of 2017, HR 756, and its bipartisan sponsors in the House, and plans to do everything it can to secure passage of the Senate bill before a very urgent financial problem for USPS becomes dire later this year.
The Postal Service is bleeding red ink profusely through no fault of its own; most of the red ink comes from a requirement to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of retiree health liabilities, costing $10s of billions. This bill addresses that problem without resort to taxpayer dollars, responding to a key concern in the House about H.R. 756. If legislation does not pass, the Postal Regulatory Commission is poised to permit the Postal Service to recover those $10s of billions through higher postage, including letting the price of a stamp rise to 64 cents over five years, with similar or higher increases for the businesses that contribute more than 90% of the revenues the self-sustaining (no taxpayer dollars) system generates.
The bill also addresses concerns about mail service, which is vital to rural areas throughout the country, and important everywhere else.
“Absent this or a similar fix, mailers will be driven to avoid the mail or even, in some cases, close down,” added Sackler. “For a postal system that has 30% less business than just a decade ago, further big losses would either mean a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailout or a radical shrinking of the system. Neither is good for America.”
C21 consists of business mailing associations and companies – newspapers, advertisers, catalogers, e-commerce, parcels, greeting cards, financial services, telecommunications, insurance, small businesses of every kind, paper, printing, technology, envelope manufacturing, mail services, who understand the essential role of USPS and want it sustained for the future.
SOURCE Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service (C21)
Of interest: 2017 lobbying by C21
Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service (C21) members list below:
Amazon
American Catalog Mailers Association
Association for Postal Commerce (Postcom)
Bank of America
Bell + Howell
Datamatx
Domtar
eBay
Envelope Manufacturers Association
Federal Express
Greeting Card Association
Idealliance
ING
International Paper
Kodak
LSC Communications
Major Mailers Association
Mailers Hub
National Association of Advertising Distributors
National Newspaper Association
National Postal Policy Council
National Retail Federation
News Media Alliance
NPES: The Association for Suppliers of Printing, Publishing and Converting Technologies
Parcel Shippers Association
Pitney Bowes
Printing Industries of America Quad Graphics
R.R. Donnelley
Time Inc
Verizon
This would be the 2nd main reason employees should not support The Postal Reform Act, because Large Mailers Support The Postal Reform Act of 2018! The number 1 reason employees should not support this act is because management came up with this rear-ending employee deal!
This Bill is another attempt to fix the USPS financial woes on the back of the letter carriers and annuitants. The NALC should have stood by us and said NO WAY. I can’t understand their stance on this Bill when it so clearly is not in the interest of our members.
I agree Rick, they could make changes without changing our insurance pools.