{"id":2539,"date":"2011-08-02T22:42:23","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T03:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=2539"},"modified":"2011-08-02T22:42:23","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T03:42:23","slug":"apwu-to-washington-post-destroying-unions-won%e2%80%99t-fix-usps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2011\/08\/02\/apwu-to-washington-post-destroying-unions-won%e2%80%99t-fix-usps\/","title":{"rendered":"APWU to Washington Post Destroying Unions Won\u2019t Fix USPS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

APWU President Cliff Guffey has a simple message for the Washington Post: Destroying unions and attacking workers\u2019 rights won\u2019t solve the Postal Service\u2019s financial problems.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the editor<\/a> published Aug. 1, the union president disputed a July 28 Washington Post editorial<\/a> that endorsed H.R. 2309 \u2014 a bill introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) that would mandate massive service cuts and give an unelected \u201csolvency authority\u201d the right to unilaterally renegotiate labor contracts.<\/p>\n

The editorial \u201cendorsed the strategy that is being employed by Republican governors who use budget deficits to attack collective-bargaining rights while ignoring other methods of closing budget gaps,\u201d Guffey wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cNearly every analysis of the Postal Service recognizes that the cause of its financial \u2018crisis\u2019 is a misguided 2006 congressional mandate requiring the service to pre-fund 75 years\u2019 worth of retiree health benefits over 10 years,\u201d he said, noting that no other government agency or private business is required to make such payments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe editorial said the mandate is a hedge against a future bailout, but it is the pre-funding requirement that has driven the Postal Service to insolvency,\u201d Guffey continued. \u201cWithout it, the service would have had a surplus of $611 million over the past four years. Congress created this mess, and Congress can fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guffey also noted that many independent reports have shown that the USPS has overfunded its two pension accounts by billions of dollars \u2014 a fact the Washington Post dismissed as a \u201ccache that has given those unwilling to change the status quo an argument for postponing structural reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently, those \u2018unwilling to change the status quo\u2019 include the postmaster general, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the USPS Office of the Inspector General, the Congressional Research Service, and Democratic and Republican members of Congress, all of whom have said the Office of Personnel Management should be able to credit the service\u2019s pension overpayments to the health benefits\u2019 liability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe policy that the editorial promoted, including \u2018renegotiating collective bargaining agreements,\u2019 puts the Post squarely in the camp of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and the Tea Party,\u201d Guffey concluded.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post has published at least seven editorials about the USPS over the last two years, and has taken an anti-labor stance in each one \u2014 either criticizing USPS labor contracts as too generous; attacking the no layoff clause or the level of health care and retirement benefits employees receive, or claiming that the collective bargaining system is tilted toward unions. Endorsing legislation that would allow a commission to void labor contracts is only the latest example of the Post\u2019s hostility toward workers and unions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

APWU President Cliff Guffey has a simple message for the Washington Post: Destroying unions and attacking workers\u2019 rights won\u2019t solve the Postal Service\u2019s financial problems. In a letter to the editor published Aug. 1, the union president disputed a July 28 Washington Post editorial that endorsed H.R. 2309 \u2014 a bill introduced by Rep. Darrell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539","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=2539"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2542,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2539\/revisions\/2542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}