{"id":8809,"date":"2014-10-27T08:23:05","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T13:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=8809"},"modified":"2014-10-27T08:23:47","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T13:23:47","slug":"apwu-members-retirees-attend-michigans-soar-coalition-congressional-breakfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2014\/10\/27\/apwu-members-retirees-attend-michigans-soar-coalition-congressional-breakfast\/","title":{"rendered":"APWU Members, Retirees Attend Michigan\u2019s SOAR Coalition Congressional Breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than 700 APWU members and retirees attended the 32<sup>nd<\/sup><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>congressional breakfast sponsored by the SOAR Coalition of Michigan on Oct. 19.\u00a0 The coalition was formed in 1982 to unite active and retired federal and postal employees and their spouses to protect benefits and achieve a secure retirement. <a href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/1aa-APWU-small.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-7249\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/1aa-APWU-small.gif\" alt=\"1aa-APWU-small\" width=\"295\" height=\"182\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Former U.S. Rep. David Bonior, who served as Democratic Whip from 1991-2002, was the keynote speaker. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R) of Michigan\u2019s 11<sup>th<\/sup><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>District and Rep. Dan Kildee (D) of Michigan\u2019s 5<sup>th<\/sup><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>District also attended, along with Timothy O\u2019Malley, executive vice president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, and APWU Retirees Director Judy Beard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the SOAR coalition started, I was nowhere near retirement age,\u201d Beard told the group, \u201cbut I thought this was an excellent initiative to bring Congressional representatives together to let them know how we felt about our retirement and how legislative issues before state and federal represenatives impacted our lives if voted into law.\u201d\u00a0 Postal and federal workers and retirees must let candidates and our congressional representatives know that we keep a watchful eye on their positions and how they vote, she said.<\/p>\n<p>The breakfast is also a great way to thank congressional representatives who continue to be on the right side of workers and retirees, Beard added. She has attended all SOAR events since its founding breakfast.<\/p>\n<p>Beard also urged attendees to participate in the Nov. 14 National Day of Action, which will demand that the Postmaster General and USPS Board of Governors<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><em>Stop Delaying America\u2019s Mail.<\/em><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0The event is being sponsored by the four postal unions. She also thanked them for their participation in our ongoing<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><em>Stop Staples<\/em><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span>campaign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last\">SOAR\u2019s founding officers, Doug Holbrook and Peter Romanelli, expressed pride in the work the coalition has done over the years to protect retiree benefits. Holbrook was president t of APWU\u2019s Detroit District Area Local and later served as the union\u2019s national Secretary-Treasurer. Romanelli served as president of Branch 1 of the National Association of Letter Carriers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than 700 APWU members and retirees attended the 32nd\u00a0congressional breakfast sponsored by the SOAR Coalition of Michigan on Oct. 19.\u00a0 The coalition was formed in 1982 to unite active and retired federal and postal employees and their spouses to protect benefits and achieve a secure retirement. Former U.S. Rep. David Bonior, who served as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8809","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\/8809","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=8809"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8811,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8809\/revisions\/8811"}],"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=8809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}