Dear NALC e-Activist,

Last night, and in the early morning hours of today, we came within an eyelash of accomplishing our goal of enacting meaningful postal reform, at least in the Senate. In the final analysis, letter carriers could not support the bill that Senator Susan Collins was pursuing because it would have established a three-day waiting period for injured letter carriers before they could go on continuation of pay.  We worked with allies in the Senate to block its consideration.

I was on the telephone at 5 p.m. Friday with Postmaster General Jack Potter who informed me that he had communicated to both the Bush administration and to Senator Collins that the USPS did not want this bill to fail over the changes in workers’ compensation. It was also reported to me that a small group of mailers had informed Senator Collins that they agreed with the Postmaster General on this issue.  But the White House insisted on workers’ compensation cuts. Senator Collins worked mightily to minimize the negative impact of these cuts, but in the end I could not go along with them.  

It seems that, for the Bush administration, it is always easier to pick on those who are less fortunate than others. The nation's injured letter carriers and other postal employees were an easy mark. But without any real justification as to why a change in the COP rules was necessary, I was unwilling to accept it. If the mailers and the Postal Service do not feel that they need this language, why should our Union support it? I simply could not!

NALC sought to hold up the Senate bill because of the COP issue, but it is very unlikely that reform would have advanced through the House of Representatives.  No conference committee was ever established and the bill that nearly passed the Senate was essentially a new version of the bill that none of our allies in the House, Democrat or Republican, had even seen.  Indeed, few members of either the House or the Senate ever received a final version of the bill. Neither did the NALC or any of the other interested stakeholders.  Had the House leadership forced a vote on it, few members of the House would have known for sure what was actually in the bill.  Key House leaders objected to taking up the postal reform legislation in these circumstances.

Although NALC acted to halt progress in the Senate, other parties had problems with the legislation as well. The Postal Service was rebuffed in attempts to add "banding" language that would have built more flexibility into the proposed rate indexing system, and the APWU opposed the bill's work-sharing rules, among other provisions.

I want to thank Senator Susan Collins, Senator Tom Carper, Representative Tom Davis and Representative Henry Waxman for all the time and effort they have given to passage of this legislation. It is very sad that an issue like OWCP could derail this important legislation on the Senate side. Passage was made more difficult because we were working against the clock. Perhaps after the recess we can reconvene the parties and attempt to iron out the sticking points.

I also want to offer special thanks to Senator Daniel Akaka, a dear friend to the nation’s letter carriers who stood up for us in the Senate last night. His unwavering belief that injured postal employees be treated fairly demonstrates why NALC worked so hard to help him triumph in this month’s primary elections in Hawaii.  

I have maintained from the very beginning that our Union would not support just any version of postal reform. It has to be the right bill, and we will continue to work with all parties who remain interested in adopting meaningful postal reform.

Now we turn our focus to the mid-term elections. Letter carriers must realize that we have an excellent opportunity to elect worker-friendly representatives who will consider the needs of working men and women when legislation like postal reform is being debated. Please volunteer some of your free time to working with our legislative liaisons in this most important effort.