Postal Workers Rally To Save Jobs

Waving signs and loudly chanting, about 60 US Postal Service workers gathered in front of Congressman Joe Baca’s San Bernardino office on Tuesday to rally support for a bill that workers say will save the financially embattled postal service.

“There’s enough money to take care of the problems,” said John Beaumont, president of the California State Association of Letter Carriers. Beaumont and Harold Kelso, the organization's vice president, organized the event. The rally was one of hundreds held across the state and country.

Postal workers were rallying in favor of HR 1351 and chose their location because Baca (D-Rialto) has co-sponsored the bill that was introduced to congress by Elijah E. Cummings (D-Maryland) and Stephen Lynch (D-Massachussets) in April. Baca joined supporters at the event.

“You’re the fabric of what this country was made of,” Baca said. “It’s an honor to work as a federal employee. It’s time that we begin to keep these jobs.”

Basically, H.R. 1351 takes a look at the agency's pension funds. The Postal Service is required to pre-fund a 75-year liability in 10 years to cover healthcare benefits of future retirees. However, the agency has overpaid billions into those pension funds, postal union officials said.

The cost to the Postal Service is more than $5 billion annually, union officials said. Without the mandate, the USPS would have shown a surplus of $611 million over the past four fiscal years, they said.

The bill proposes legislators allow the agency to move the overage from individual funds and into the pre-fund system. This way, the agency does not have to continue to reach back into its own “pockets” to prefund the health care package.

“And that’s not taxpayer money,” Kelso said. The U.S. Postal Service has been self-reliant and generates its own revenue. But it must still seek federal approval for some of its changes.

Among the unions participating in the nationwide effort were the American Postal Workers Union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mailhandlers Union, the National Rural Letter Carriers Association and the National Association of Postal Supervisors.

They were also against a bill by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, who they say “is withholding action on it while advocating his own bill, H.R 2309, which would destroy the Postal Service as we know it.”

“We just need to get through this recession,” Beaumont said. “Are there going to be changes? Of course there are going to be changes. But the union and management groups can work those out together.”