NALC News – 5/16/18 – On May 4, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Jeff Pon sent a letter to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan making four legislative recommendations that, if enacted, would require current and future federal employees to make larger pension contributions, and also would scale back retirement benefits for current retirees. The proposals would mainly affect Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) employees; Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) participants would be affected to a lesser extent.
OPM’s proposals reflect the White House’s last two budget requests, which called for:
- Increasing FERS federal employee pension contributions to 7.25 percent. Currently, there are three tiers of FERS pensions, with newly hired postal and federal workers in 2013 and 2014 paying more of the contributions (3.1 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively) into the FERS retirement system with no corresponding benefit increase. This proposal would call for all current and future FERS participants to contribute 1 percent more toward their annuities each year until they are contributing 7.25 percent of their basic pay into the pension. This increase comes without any corresponding pension increase, representing a significant pay cut for postal and federal employees.
- Replacing the high-3 with the high-5. This would significantly cut the retirement annuity of postal and federal employees.
- Eliminating and reducing the federal retiree COLA. This would eliminate the COLA for FERS participants and cut the COLA for CSRS participants, preventing postal and federal retiree pensions from keeping pace with inflation.
- Eliminating the FERS annuity supplement. This proposal would take away the possibility for many postal and federal workers to retire before the age of 62. It also needlessly harms firefighters, law enforcement officers and others who must retire before age 62.
The White House has called on Congress to adopt these changes and while it has yet to do so, these proposals can come up throughout the remainder of the 115th Congress, so letter carriers should be prepared.
“These proposals are nothing but a blatant attack on postal and federal workers,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said. “We will do everything in our power to prevent Congress from putting the burden of paying for federal spending on the backs of letter carriers, other federal employees and retirees.”
Don’t cut older postal people’s annuity. Need every cent to survive, interest no good on savings. Cut the benefits to those who don’t want to work, those who rather go on food stamps than look for a job
JEFF PON THE USPS SHULD CUT YOUR PENSION 50% FOR MAKING TOO MUCH MONEY DOING NOTHING AT YOUR WORK DAY ONLY KILLING TIME LIKE ALL THE DO NOTHING MANAGERS AT THE USPS.
Not happening..IN JESUS CHRIST NAME111111
What about a carrier who started early in life? You expect them to carry these routes until they are 62? By the time I hit 56 I had so many surgery scars and anti-pain injections throughout my body from being stupid enough to bust my rear end for this company that I feel like a truck ran me over. It is easy to see here in 2018 that the union and management are the same people.
Even “better” Concerned, he wants to screw current over too, as the reform act supports putting non-retired into a postal run health plan.
That would mean less coverage, for more employee costs.
Besides being a liar, I see you’re also a hypocrite Rolando. You want to change our retirements too, and also not for the better with your support of the postal act.
Why don’t you just do it, and become pmg; you speak and work more for them than us already anyway.
How about rolando acting on what his mouth is saying, last line says
“These proposals are nothing but a blatant attack on postal and federal workers,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said. “We will do everything in our power to prevent Congress from putting the burden of paying for federal spending on the backs of letter carriers, other federal employees and retirees.”
How about your agreeing to screw the retiree on his/her health benefits by going along with
the latest proposals in da do nutin congress, both houses to force retirees into medicare
part B & D if they want to keep their earned FEHBP benefit when they retired.
Yeah little rolando sure is looking out for the current carriers and says screw the retiree,
they don’t really count.