{"id":5608,"date":"2013-01-06T18:59:31","date_gmt":"2013-01-06T23:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=5608"},"modified":"2013-01-09T09:19:02","modified_gmt":"2013-01-09T14:19:02","slug":"apwu-guffey-says-get-ready-the-fight-goes-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2013\/01\/06\/apwu-guffey-says-get-ready-the-fight-goes-on\/","title":{"rendered":"APWU: Guffey Says Get Ready \u2013 The Fight Goes On"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Congress\u2019 failure to enact postal reform in 2012 means the legislative fight to Save America\u2019s Postal Service goes on, APWU President Cliff Guffey is telling union members.<\/p>\n

Postal reform legislation that was introduced in the 112th Congress \u2014 but not signed into law \u2014 died on Jan. 3, when the members of the 113th Congress were sworn in.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew legislation must be introduced this year to reform USPS finances and undo the mess Congress made when it passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) in 2006,\u201d Guffey said. The, PAEA requires the USPS to pre-fund healthcare benefits for future retirees 75 years into the future and has driven the Postal Service to the edge of insolvency.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be calling on APWU members to join with their co-workers, neighbors, friends, and family members to demand that Congress preserve and protect the USPS and our nation\u2019s commitment to universal service for the American people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bills that are similar to those that were submitted in the last session of Congress may be introduced this year, but there are likely to be some changes, said Legislative and Political Director Myke Reid. \u201cWe will continue to meet with members of Congress and their staffs and fight for the interests of postal employees as new bills are being drafted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Through much of December there was talk of attaching postal legislation to bills to avoid the \u201cfiscal cliff,\u201d but hope for an agreement on postal issues evaporated in the acrimony over nation\u2019s tax policy and the deficit. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) never even brought a postal bill to the House floor for a vote, Guffey noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany politicians were willing to allow taxes to go up for 98 percent of America\u2019s citizens, in order to protect tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, Guffey said. \u201cI hope union members will take note of who they were and punish them in 2014,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congress\u2019 failure to enact postal reform in 2012 means the legislative fight to Save America\u2019s Postal Service goes on, APWU President Cliff Guffey is telling union members. Postal reform legislation that was introduced in the 112th Congress \u2014 but not signed into law \u2014 died on Jan. 3, when the members of the 113th Congress […]<\/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-5608","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\/5608","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=5608"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5615,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608\/revisions\/5615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}