{"id":4777,"date":"2012-07-18T16:34:06","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T21:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=4777"},"modified":"2012-07-18T16:34:06","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T21:34:06","slug":"guffey-blasts-house-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2012\/07\/18\/guffey-blasts-house-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Guffey Blasts House Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

APWU President Cliff Guffey is blasting House Republican leaders for their \u201cutter failure to solve the nation\u2019s problems.\u201d Guffey made the remarks in response to recent signals that the chamber won\u2019t act on postal reform legislation until after Congress\u2019s August recess \u2013 and perhaps not until after the November elections.<\/p>\n

In light of the failure, the union president is calling on APWU members to focus their attention on the upcoming elections. \u201cThe House leadership\u2019s inaction demonstrates the importance of changing the politics in our country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must wrest control of the House from elected officials who are more interested in scoring political points than in conducting the nation\u2019s business. And we must take control from extremists who would like to privatize the Postal Service,\u201d Guffey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCongress created the USPS financial crisis,\u201d he said, referring to the mandate in the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act that requires the Postal Service to pre-fund healthcare benefits for future retirees at a cost of approximately $5.5 billion a year. No other government agency or private company bears this burden, which forces the USPS to pay a 75-year liability in a 10-year period.<\/p>\n

\u201cEighty-five percent of the Postal Service\u2019s debt is the result of the pre-funding mandate,\u201d Guffey pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democratic-controlled Senate passed a bipartisan measure in April that would spread out the payments, but Republican leaders in the House have shown no interest addressing the cause of the crisis,\u201d Guffey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, when it addresses postal reform, the House plans to consider a bill that would destroy the Postal Service as a public institution,\u201d he added. H.R. 2309, introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL), would require the USPS to make $3 billion worth of cuts in post offices and mail processing facilities within two years. It also would prohibit postal unions and management from negotiating restrictions on layoffs, and it would empower an appointed board to reject negotiated labor contracts.<\/p>\n

\u201cHouse leaders have no plans to address the cause of the crisis, but when the Postal Service is unable to make the pre-funding payment in August, you can be sure those same politicians will scream about a \u2018default\u2019 and mislead people by suggesting a \u2018taxpayer bailout\u2019 is imminent unless drastic cuts are made,\u201d he predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe House should set aside H.R. 2309 and consider real reform,\u201d Guffey said. \u201cIn the meantime, postal workers should set their sights on November.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

APWU President Cliff Guffey is blasting House Republican leaders for their \u201cutter failure to solve the nation\u2019s problems.\u201d Guffey made the remarks in response to recent signals that the chamber won\u2019t act on postal reform legislation until after Congress\u2019s August recess \u2013 and perhaps not until after the November elections. In light of the failure, […]<\/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-4777","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\/4777","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=4777"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4780,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4777\/revisions\/4780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}