{"id":12147,"date":"2015-08-27T15:38:48","date_gmt":"2015-08-27T20:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=12147"},"modified":"2015-08-27T15:39:45","modified_gmt":"2015-08-27T20:39:45","slug":"apwus-statement-regarding-senator-sanders-letter-to-pmg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2015\/08\/27\/apwus-statement-regarding-senator-sanders-letter-to-pmg\/","title":{"rendered":"APWU’s Statement Regarding Senator Sanders Letter To PMG"},"content":{"rendered":"

APWU News – 08\/27\/2015<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>–\u00a0<\/span><\/span>In a sharply worded letter to Postmaster General Megan Brennan, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called the Postal Service\u2019s decision to close mail processing centers and eliminate overnight delivery \u201ca disaster\u201d and urged her to \u201cre-instate overnight delivery standards and speed up the delivery of mail as soon as possible.\u201d \"1aa-APWU-small\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is abundantly clear that the Postal Service’s decision to shut down more than 140 mail processing plants a few years ago and to eliminate overnight delivery standards this year has been a disaster that is negatively impacting Americans all over this country,\u201d he wrote on Aug. 26. \u201cWhile I was encouraged that the Postal Service announced that it would delay closing even more mail processing plants this year, we must do a lot better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Sanders vowed to re-introduce legislation that would \u201callow the Postal Service to offer more, not fewer, services that the American people want and need\u201d and that would eliminate the pre-funding mandate that is the cause of the Postal Service\u2019s financial difficulties. The Postal Service Protection Act, which he introduced in 2013 also would establish new ways to generate revenue for the agency; prevent the closing of rural post offices; protect six-day delivery; and protect mail processing facilities.<\/p>\n

Sanders took the Postal Service to task for suggesting that the service cuts are necessary because of the decline in the volume of first-class mail. The most significant reason for the financial problems at the Postal Service is due to a mandate to pre-fund 75 years of retiree health care benefits over a 10 year period, he said. \u201cIn fact, excluding this mandate, the Postal Service has made a profit of more than $2 billion since the fall of 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cImproving delivery times has broad bipartisan support in Congress, and returning to previous standards would help accomplish that goal,\u201d he said. On April 15, 85 senators voted for an amendment he offered to the Budget Resolution calling on the Postal Service to reinstate overnight delivery standards for first-class mail and impose a moratorium on the closure of mail processing plants, Sanders noted. In addition, the House Appropriations Committee passed an amendment that would return to the July 1, 2012, standards. In the House, 198 representatives are co-sponsoring\u00a0<\/span>House Resolution 54,<\/a>\u00a0which expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the USPS should \u201ctake all appropriate measures\u201d to restore the service standards that were in effect as of July 1, 2012.<\/p>\n

Sen. Sanders wrote the letter to the Postmaster General after the USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued an\u00a0<\/span>alert\u00a0<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that found that delayed mail has skyrocketed by 48 percent since the USPS eliminated overnight service standards on Jan. 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report by the OIG confirms what the APWU has been saying and what postal patrons have been enduring \u2013\u00a0<\/span>cuts to service have dramatically delayed America\u2019s mail<\/em>,\u201d said APWU President Mark Dimondstein.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn light of such broad congressional support, widespread customer dissatisfaction, and the disastrous findings from the Inspector General\u2019s office, the Postmaster General would be wise to heed Sen. Sanders\u2019s advice and restore overnight service standards to American communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Senator Sanders Letter Here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

APWU News – 08\/27\/2015\u00a0–\u00a0In a sharply worded letter to Postmaster General Megan Brennan, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) called the Postal Service\u2019s decision to close mail processing centers and eliminate overnight delivery \u201ca disaster\u201d and urged her to \u201cre-instate overnight delivery standards and speed up the delivery of mail as soon as possible.\u201d \u201cIt is abundantly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12147"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12149,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12147\/revisions\/12149"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}