KILL BILL S-1507 PDF Print E-mail
Please Email or Call Your Senator no later than 5:00PM Wednesday, August 5, 2009 this week!  
Let them know you oppose S. 1507.
or
Call the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will
connect you directly with the Senate office you request.

WE NEED IMMEDIATE ACTION:  E-MAILS or Phone calls into your U.S. Senators’ offices as soon as possible between now and Wednesday of this week.  We are asking you to contact your senators and urge them to Oppose S-1507. Let your Senator know that we cannot support S. 1507 as amended.

Report from APWU on S. 1507 as Amended, Hurts Workers:  
During the mark-up session of The Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee on July 29, several amendments were offered on Bill S-1507, a bill to provide short-term, financial relief to the cash-strapped Postal Service by restructuring its payments for future retiree health benefits.  Unfortunately, one of the four amendments adopted has rendered the bill unacceptable to the APWU. “We
oppose on principle, legislation that interferes with the collective bargaining process,” said APWU President William Burrus.

The Bill as amended is supported by the self interested Corporations that receive Corporate Mail Discounts. Corporate America is eligible to receive significant postage discounts, but unfortunately the individual citizen does not. The corporate mailers interests are to shore up their discounts.  Corporate support is not looking out for individual citizens, small businesses, Non-profits or Postal
Workers.

The Bill will jeopardize collective bargaining.  Under current law, arbitrators must consider the “comparability” of postal wages to employees in the private sector who perform similar work. The Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Funding Reform Act of 2009 (S. 1507), as amended would require arbitrators to take the financial health of the Postal Service into account.  The Bill will provide Postal
Service negotiators to more easily reach a negotiation deadlock, throwing the process into arbitration to circumvent negotiations that have served Postal workers and the American people for close to 30 years

“…arbitrators routinely consider the Postal Service’s financial status as part of the context in which negotiations are conducted,” Burrus said. “However, to attach this specific requirement to the law leaves workers at a severe disadvantage, and makes the bargaining process more subject to manipulation.”

In Solidarity,  

Frank
Secretary, Central MA AFL‐CIO  
MA AFL‐CIO Vice President  

Frank Rigiero, National Business Agent  
New England Region, Clerk Division  
American Postal Workers Union, AFL‐CIO  
489 Whitney Ave, Suite 303  
Holyoke, MA 01040  
Tel: 413‐534‐0146  
Cell: 774‐696‐0108  
Fax: 413‐539‐9208
 
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