News Story Dec. 30,2009 Home stretch for health care: In the next few weeks, congressional negotiators will merge the House and Senate health care reform bills into one package for final passage. NALC continues to follow the process closely and is lobbying aggressively on behalf of letter carriers’ interests. For a better understanding of what is in the bills and what our priorities are, see the AFL-CIO’s fact sheet comparing the two bills.
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News Story Dec. 30,2009 Postal Service to Deliver Medicine in Case of Anthrax Attack,
Obama Orders President Barack Obama today ordered federal agencies to establish a national system for dispensing medical countermeasures in the event of a large-scale biological attack, "with anthrax as the primary threat consideration." The U.S. Postal Service would be responsible for delivering the medical countermeasures, such as antibiotics, to residents for self administration across all communities in the United States, according to the President's Executive Order issued today.
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News Story Dec. 23,2009 New legislation may enable the USPS to deploy electric vehicles The bill-H.R. 4399, The American Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Act or "e-Drive" is led by Representative Jose E. Serrano. According to Serrano's office, the main objective of the bill is to begin a process of testing and deploying 20,000 electric-drive delivery vehicles for the USPS. The office said that not only would this effort provide the USPS with significant environmental benefits and fuel savings, it would position the USPS fleet as a "key energy storage asset for the nation's power grid" through vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology.
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Top News Story Agencies have cut $19 billion in "private contracting" costs Federal agencies are almost halfway toward reaching a two-year goal set by President Obama this year with plans to save roughly $19 billion in government contracting costs during the fiscal year that began in October, according to an Office of Management and Budget report set for release Monday.More Here

News Story Department of Labor to Reconsider
Bush’s Last-Minute FMLA Changes Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announced [PDF] Dec. 7 that she is reviewing changes made early this year to regulations governing the Family and Medical Leave Act. The announcement has set off speculation that the Department of Labor will overturn revisions implemented at the very end of the Bush administration.More Here

News Story USPS goal: Reduce petroleum use by 2% a year Additionally, the Postal Service has included reducing fuel consumption as a performance goal for managers. Those who don't meet the annual goal receive smaller pay raises, while those who exceed the goal are rewarded with higher increases. Get ready for discipline if you drive too far....More Here

News Story USPS bars NIOSH from investigating FSM 100 flat sorting machines FSM 100 flat sorting machine have recently had an "extremely" high rate of injuries. The machines are poorly designed and ergonomically unsafe. There has been severe understaffing of the machines causing stress and overwork. Employees are pushed to work too fast. Machines are set to overload mail containers, causing excessive strain on workers. Repetitive motion injuries are prevalent due to doing the same tasks thousands of times each day. Workers were not supplied sharp cutting knives daily, causing excessive hand and wrist strain. Injured workers are harassed. There is a culture of intimidation. Workers have been required to work involuntary overtime. The flats sorting unit has less than 8% of the building’s workers but the USPS reported that these flats machine workers had nearly half (47%) of all Musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) injuries in the two-thousand-employee facility.
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News Story How Does Labor Law Matter for the USPS? Currently the Postal Service operates under a unique labor law that is contained in the Postal Reorganization Act. This is in contrast to its competitors that operate under provisions of the Railway Labor Act (RLA) (e.g., Federal Express) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (e.g., UPS, printers, pre-sorters, etc.). More Here

News Story Rep. Connolly comments on five-day mail delivery business model In his role as a member of the Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on the federal workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia, Connolly has an opportunity to act on the often difficult issues facing the many federal workers and contractors who reside in his district. More Here

News Story USPS Testimony to House Subcommittee "The second prong encompasses the two most critical changes necessary to close the gap: a change to a five-day delivery schedule and a restructuring of the retiree health benefits prefunding schedule. These changes would enable the Postal Service to reestablish a firm foundation for strong and profitable growth. Without these two changes, we do not anticipate the possibility of closing the earnings gap even with aggressive revenue generation initiatives."More Here

News Story New Benefits: Good News, Bad News Here's the rundown: The change that will permit FERS employees to credit unused sick leave toward retirement was effective upon enactment. FERS employees retiring between now and January 1, 2014 will get credit for 50 percent of their unused sick leave. Those retiring after will get credit for all their unused sick leave. More Here

News Story Smith to develop electric postal delivery vehicle SEV US Corp, together with AM General, a leading manufacturer of military and commercial vehicles, headquartered in South Bend, Indiana, USA, is developing a prototype electric version of the gasoline-powered Long Life Vehicle for the United States Postal Service ("USPS"). There are currently approximately 178,000 Long Life Vehicles in service with the USPS. AM General will manufacture the chassis and SEV US Corp will supply the electric drive train, including the motor, battery pack, electronics and ancillary systems.More Here

News Story FERS Sick Leave PASSED... Under a phase-in plan okayed by Congress, FERS employees who want to get full credit for unused sick leave will have to wait until January 1, 2014 to retire. They can leave earlier than that, but if they do, they will get only partial credit toward retirement under the phase-in rules.
Story Here News Story National League of Postmasters Vote
Not to Support "THEIR" VOE Survey Recently your National Board met and decided that the League would no longer support the VOE survey. While the intent behind the survey may be good, the fact of the matter is that the work situation for Postmasters continues to deteriorate. In so many districts dignity and respect for PMs have ceased to exist. The Postal Service deliberately does not staff in order to pile workhours on to Postmasters.
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News Story USPS receives financial relief from Congress Wednesday night, the Senate approved a continuing resolution that included the postal financial relief language from H.R. 22. With the passage, the Postal Service will be able to defer $4 billion in payments to a fund for its future retirees' health benefits, giving USPS some flexibility for dealing with the current recession.
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News Story USPS OIG Audit Report: Management of DPS Percentage Increases for City Delivery (PDF) Conclusion: The Postal Service areas’ national DPS percentage on average increased from 82 percent in fiscal year (FY) 2007 to 87 percent in FY 2008 and 90.7 percent as of the third quarter of FY 2009. However, management has not always implemented processes or oversight controls to further increase its DPS percentage and reduce operating costs. As a result of these conditions, some clerks and carriers will continue to unnecessarily spend time manually sorting and casing letter mail.
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News Story FSS continues to fail at meeting Performance Parameters Although the FSS did not meet some key performance parameters, management concluded that the system’s progress from the first FAT test warranted continuing with the next phase of installations and acceptance tests for production systems. However, until a system outside of the Dulles Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) demonstrates operational stability and achieves the minimum performance requirements under field acceptance test conditions, we (OIG) believe deploying FSS machines to additional sites is premature.
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News Story House approves H.R. 22 The House of Representatives finally voted to approve H.R. 22, 388-32, more than eight months after it was introduced.
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News Story September 15, 2009
Retirement counseling settlement allows counseling on the clock The settlement provides that employee’s may request counseling on the clock, and that the local management will arrange reasonably private space for this purpose. The employee’s spouse and/or advisor may be with the employee during this process. In addition, employees who cannot begin or complete the process of obtaining counseling from HRSSC without assistance will be offered assistance by local management.
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News Story Labor Day 2009 Message From President Rolando Labor Day is a special date for us both to celebrate and to remember our brothers and sisters who struggled to win a decent standard of living for all working people in America.
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News Story July 4th Message From President Rolando Message Here

News Story NRP guide in left column

News Story Postal Employees Rights During Surprise Investigations By USPS OIG Employees Rights During “Surprise” Investigations. Visits by Postal Inspectors Or OIG Agents- which are usually unannounced – often catch employees by surprise, and sometimes cause them to panic. Our stewards, officers and arbitration advocates are doing an excellent job of defending union members, but this article should remind employees of their rights. After all, when you exercise your rights to the fullest, you help protect yourself the most.
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News Story Draft of Obama Labor Relations Order "Federal employees and their union representatives are an essential source of front-line ideas and information about the realities of delivering government services to the American people. A nonadversarial forum for managers, employees, and employees' union representatives to proactively discuss government operations will compliment the existing collective bargaining process and facilitate the design and implementation of the comprehensive changes necessary to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of Government
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News Story The House Republican Conference attacks Post Office "The NALC issued a point-by-point rebuttal of a grossly inaccurate, partisan attack on the Postal Service and its 700,000 employees, perpetrated by by the House Republican Conference in an underhanded bid to derail health care reform. "This smear cannot go unanswered," NALC President Fredric V. Rolando said.
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News Story U.S. Postal Service Briefing on financial state Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Financial Management Subcommittee, wanted Senate leaders to bring to the floor this week legislation that would tweak the timing of those payments and give USPS more flexibility to borrow funds to cover costs
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News Story Obama Nominates Two to Serve on the Merit Systems Protection Board The President has nominated Ms. Susan Tsui Grundmann to be Chairman, Merit Systems Protection Board. The President also nominated Ms. Anne M. Wagner as a Member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, with the Designation of Vice Chair.
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Subcommittee Oversight Panel Holds Hearing on U.S. Postal Service Consolidation Initiatives
WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Thursday, July 30, 2009, at 10:00AM in Room 2154 of the Rayburn House Office Building, the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia will hold an oversight hearing entitled, “Making Sense of It All: An Examination of USPS’s Station and Branch Optimization Initiative and Delivery Route Adjustments.”
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News Story New Developments in Federal Disability Retirement A recent case, decided on July 15, 2009, reflects a rational, reasoned approach, and benefits all Federal and Postal employees who become disabled while employed by the Federal Government, and who find a need to file for Federal Disability Retirement Benefits under FERS or CSRS.
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News Story From the National League of Postmasters Strategies for FY 2010 include Network Distribution Centers, increased usage of Flat Sequencing, continued reduction in delivery routes, the consolidation of stations and branches, and further administrative reductions. The Postal Service hopes to implement 5-day delivery by FY 2011. If all of these strategies are implemented, the Postal Service projects a move back into black ink in FY 2012. This projection assumes the passage of HR 22 through Congress, and the implementation of 5-day delivery.....We would not deliver to rural or city routes and we would deliver Express Mail as normal, and we could certainly come up with an intelligent way to deal with Priority Mail. We would continue to present a retail presence in our post offices as needed.We also suggested the creation of a utility employee, one who, with the blessings of the unions, would perform just about any craft function.
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News Story Five-Day Delivery Starting in FY 11? The following information is unverified...."Subject: Donahoe telecom" Importance: HIGH
Sr. Staff attended a telecom this morning given by Pat Donahoe DPMG, the following information was shared with us /(cut off page) ... wanted to share it with you to share with your employees. We will go to five day delivery in FY 11. No Saturday delivery, no processing operations,retail will stay open if open now. By going to give day delivery plants will lose 8000 positions, EAS 1000 nation wide, CS numbers are unknown at this / (page cut off)... If you aren't using stand by time you need to start. Make sure you are up to date in Art. 7 & 12. WebCCM will go from 11 months to 90 days. The whole telecom will be posted Monday on the Blue page.

Julio Garcia III Manager, Post Office Operations Portland District Area III
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News Story National's stance on 5 day delivery On June 10, 2009, USPS informed NALC that it was conducting a study of the impact of switching to five-day delivery and developing an implementation plan. The study was to be completed in 60 days. USPS sought our “input” and our views on the issues such a change would raise and the “impact” it would have. And they wanted that input and those views -- for one of the most momentous decisions in postal history -- by June 19, 2009, just seven business days later.
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News Story President Young retires, hands reins to Rolando Rolando, 56, said he anticipates few problems making the transition to the office of president, thanks to many hours he and Young have spent together over the past year discussing the issues facing letter carriers and the NALC and strategies for dealing with them.
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News Story National Payroll Hours Pay Period 12 - FY 2009
Summary Report for May 23 -June 5, 2009
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News Story National interpretive dispute on VER filed:
Letter carriers who have applied for voluntary early retirement (VER), requested retirement counseling and were not provided with counseling prior to the irrevocable date of June 19 should contact their National Business Agents.
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News Story NRP settlement clears path for hundreds of held grievances
The NALC and Postal Service have settled a national level grievance filed on the Postal Service’s application of their National Reassessment Process (NRP). NRP is a management program that was devised to reassess all current limited duty job offers and to reassess how future limited duty job offers are made. The NALC, from the outset, has maintained that NRP cannot compromise injured employees’ rights under 546 of the ELM.
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News Story U.S. Postal Service officials say 300 outlets closures nationwide likely
The plan, however, drew strong reaction from other elected representatives, including U.S. Rep. Albio Sires. "This is unacceptable," the congressman said in an e-mail."The United States Postal Service continues to blindside the public with decisions that intimately affect our communities and that have harmful effects on their ability to access necessary services. Due to USPS' continued disregard for transparency, I have introduced H.R. 658, the Access to Postal Services Act, which gives communities more of a say in the post office closing process. It's time we give communities the ability to fight back against these closings."
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From today's House postal oversight hearing
A member of Congress has acknowledged that the time may have come for Congress to consider permitting the Postal Service to depart from the current six-day mail delivery requirement...
Phillip Herr, Director of Physical Infrastructure Issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office said GAO may have to consider adding the USPS once again to its High Risk list...
Rep. Brian Bilbray said that there is nothing in the Constitution that requires that mail service be provided by government employees working for a government agency.
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News Story OIG agents believe carriers waste lots of time...
Special Agents reviewed Overtime Usage Reports and Managed Service Points (MSP) Exception Reports to identify excessive early, late, or missing scans that recurred over time for the same letter carriers and compared workload and resource usage."
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News Story House Panel to Examine Postal Operation Downsizing
The Postal Service is expected to announce its latest thinking on plans to cut operations and network costs on Wednesday, May 20, when the House postal oversight subcommittee holds a hearing on the hard choices and tradeoffs that underlie the preservation of the nation's mail system. The hearing, "Nip and Tuck: The Impact of Current Cost Cutting Efforts on Postal Service Operations and Network," will be held by the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia, chaired by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA). According to the Subcommittee, the hearing will focus on: "What are the hard choices and tradeoffs that need to be considered as mail volume declines significantly? What options should be considered to overcome barriers and facilitate the Postal Service in making significant progress in "rightsizing its networks?" How much cost does the Service need to take out of its network and operations to remain solvent and how will it be achieved? What impact, if any, will cuts have on service?" William P. Galligan, USPS Senior Vice President, Operations, is expected to testify, along with witnesses from GAO, mailers, and postal employee organizations.


News Story FMLA Restoration Act Introduced
A bill intended to reverse changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act regulations that were implemented just before President Obama took office has been introduced in the U.S. House.
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News Story Jointly issued details of MIARAP agreement now available:
A training document jointly developed by the NALC and the Postal Service (M-01703), which details the parties' mutual understanding of the provisions of the Memorandum of Agreement, Re: Modified Interim Alternate Route Adjustment Process - 2009
M-01703 Here

News Story Rap Session draws 1,600 union leaders:
The Modified Interim Alternate Route Adjustment Process (MIARAP) was among the hot topics during the National Training Conference and Rap Session held in Las Vegas over the April 25-26 weekend.During the Sunday morning Rap Session, President Bill Young told participants that MIARAP "is the future and we all need to support it."
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News Story Senate to Consider Legislation Giving Sick Leave Credit to FERS Retirees
"The legislation would credit postal and federal workers with unused sick leave when determining the amount of their FERS annuity. Currently, only employees covered by the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) receive credit for unused sick leave. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has found that FERS employees approaching retirement use significantly more sick leave than CSRS employees."
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News Story NALC Bulletin: NALC and Postal Service Reach Accord For Interim Route Adjustment Process
" The parties agree that in a stable and consistent mail volume environment, a historical review of data over a longer period would be preferred and the parties will continue to pursue a permanent process which encompasses the regular carrier's office and street time."
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News Story Flats Sequencing Hits Some Bumps
"Declining mail volume, budget cuts, and equipment problems are forcing the U.S. Postal Service to rework its plans for the Flats Sequencing System. The deployment schedule for Phase I of the system has been pushed back a couple of months, while the coverage area for the 100 machines has been expanded. Those machines will go instead to about a dozen locations that will be added to Phase I, according to one source."

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News Story House Approves Bill To Give Sick-Leave Credit to FERS Retirees
The House of Representatives approved legislation on April 1 that would give employees covered by the Federal Employees? Retirement System (FERS) credit for unused sick leave when calculating their retirement benefits. The Federal Retirement Reform Act of 2009 (H.R. 1804), introduced by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-NY), was approved by a voice vote.
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News Story Judge: Unions-Privacy Lawsuit May Proceed
Postal workers won an important legal victory March 30, when a district court judge upheld the right of the APWU and the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) to pursue a lawsuit against the Postal Service and the USPS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for "widespread and systematic intrusions" into the medical records of their members.
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News Story USPS OIG Finds More Millions Wasted on FedEx Contract
The OIG found that USPS incurred over $50 million in unnecessary costs by the use of expensive FedEx transportation to move mail that could have been moved on low-priced surface transportation or on less costly passenger airlines in three USPS areas (Southwest, Pacific and Western). Story Here

News Story Arbitrator Rescinds ELM 546
Changes Agreed to in APWU-USPS 2006 MOU
(03/26/09) Arbitrator Das, ruling in an NALC grievance in which the APWU intervened, ordered the Postal Service to rescind changes agreed to by the APWU and the USPS in a 2006 MOU "Re: Limited Duty and Rehabilitation Assignments Within APWU Crafts Involving Workers from Other Crafts." The MOU provided that the reassignment or reemployment of an employee injured on duty was required to be "accomplished through Article 13 of the National Agreement applicable to the craft to which the employee is being reassigned." The NALC objected that the change would adversely affect language in Article 13 of the NALC agreement, and that the Postal Service could not make these changes without negotiating with the NALC.
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News Story USPS is Closing Six Districts, Eliminating 1,400 EAS Positions And Offering Early Retirement
The Postal Service is closing 6 of the 80 district offices, eliminating 521 positions across the country and offering early retirement to nearly 150,000 employees nationwide (excluding Electronic Technicians, MPE Maintenance Mechanics, Part-time Postmasters)
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News Story USPS Seeking Supplier for COA Program
Added: Mar 19, 2009 2:08 pm The United States Postal Service ("USPS") is seeking information from parties interested in engaging in a long-term relationship as Supplier and/or alliance partner with the USPS to implement innovative solutions to enable USPS to efficiently and effectively manage its change-of-address (COA) program, while capturing the significant commercial opportunities presented when a postal patron submits change of address forms in connection with a move. Although the USPS desires at this time that interested parties be willing to fund all costs associated with the program, your response should address how the operating costs and potential future investments could be financed as well as your interest in taking on this role.

News Story Confessions of a Former Station Manager
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

News Story A South Carolina home belonging to Ronald Hopson, the "former" postmaster in Lexington, South Carolina, and his wife Evelyn, was bought by the Post Office for $1.2 million
Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has been a critic of the Postal Service relocation policy, has asked Postal Service Inspector-General David Williams to investigate the deal
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News Story NLRB Guilty of an Unfair Labor Practice Says FLRA
Eating Crow Ain't No Fun, So Will the Board Appeal?
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News Story USPS Monday Morning Management Meeting somewhere...
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News Story State By-laws-minutes, convention call
2005 BY-LAWS Here 2009 Convention call branch 709 Here Minutes 2007 NSALC Convention Here

News Story OIG Audit Report – Data Quality Issues with the City Carrier Street Time Study
The OIG office states - "The sample design for the CCSTS (City Carrier Street Time Study) appears to be reasonable. Although numerous data quality issues remained in the 1.317 million data records even after a "rigorous" data cleansing effort."

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News Story A vote of confidence
This Youtube video shows the bipartisan support the Postal Service and the nation's letter carriers are seeking from the new Congress. Story Here

News Story Postal service hits back at criticism of postmaster's pay
Postmaster General John E. Potter has come under criticism for his total 2008 compensation of nearly $800,000, but the agency's board of governors says the pay is less than what leaders of several other independent government agencies receive. Story Here

News Story House may consider resolution on USPS
The House of Representatives may soon send a message to the United States Postal Service — You'd better deliver the mail six days a week. Story Here

News Story Senators blast PMG statement about cutting delivery days....
Five-day delivery not the best economic solution: President William H. Young has released a statement in response to media reports that Postmaster General Jack Potter is seeking to curtail the Postal Service to five-day delivery. "The continued appearance of letter carriers delivering the mail to the doorstep of every home and business and bank and credit card company six days a week is absolutely essential to economic recovery." In his statement, Young makes the case for an alternative economic solution: H.R. 22.

President Young's statement Story Here

News Story PMG Potter speaks to Subcommittee.... Asked Congress remove the annual appropriation bill rider, first added in 1983, that requires the Postal Service to deliver mail six days each week. A study done by George Mason University last year for the independent Postal Regulatory Commission estimated that going from six-day to five-day delivery would save the post office more than $1.9 billion annually, while a Postal Service study estimated the saving at $3.5 billion. (Must be that Postal math....)

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News Story From the USPS website...

DELIVERY POINT SEQUENCING. More than 99 percent of all city delivery routes and 86.5 percent of all rural routes receive delivery point sequence (DPS) letters. On average, these routes receive 87.6 percent of their letters in DPS. The goal is to raise the DPS percentage to 95 percent by 2010.
Wasn't that suppose to happen 20 years ago????

News Story USPS: Changes to the Rehabilitation Act..
Effective January 1, 2009, the definition of an individual with a "disability" as defined under both the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) will be significantly expanded.
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Congress ask the postmaster General what back up plan would be needed if the Retiree health benefits funding proposal is not enacted?(Jan,09)

USPS Announces Freeze on All Area and Districts Job Postings...again???(Jan,09)

PRC Report: Keep Postal Monopoly In Place(Jan,09)