National, Local and Branch Officers engage in intense effort to press Union position on Postal Reform Legislation

Local President Robert Losi, Vice President Dave West, Treasurer Tim Dwyer, Central MA Branch President Craig Lauzon and Portsmouth NH Branch President Mike Hickson joined Local Officers from around the Country and our National Officers in Washington, DC to lobby key legislators on Capitol Hill on Postal Reform.

After day of preparation and training, with presentations from National President John Hegarty, National Treasurer Mark Gardner, National Legislative Director Roger Blacklow as well as presentations on Postal Reform Legislation from Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) and Representative John McHugh (R-NY) and a multitude of panel discussions and training from a wide array of interested parties, representatives of Locals from across the United States marched on Capitol Hill along with Regional Directors and National Staff.

Local 301 Representatives paid visits to MA Congressmen James McGovern and  John Tierney as well as Maine Senator Susan Collins, New Hampshire Senator John Sununu and Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chaffee.  Your Local 301 representatives were accompanied on many of these visits by National President John Hegarty, National Treasurer Mark Gardner, National Legislative Director Roger Blacklow, National Contract Administration Department Manager Bill Flynn, Regional Director Ray Sokolowski and Assistant Regional Director Terry Donahue.  

Key New England Congressional members of Government Reform Committees were met by your representatives and fully apprised of the NPMHU's position on several important portions of pending legislation including:  

• Our support for initiatives contained in proposed legislation regarding a correction to the Postal Service's overfunding of Civil Service Retirement Systems (CSRS) escrow fund, which if corrected woulld return over $3 billion dollars in Postal revenue to the Postal Service and potentially delay current projected rate increases.
  
• Our support for initiatives regarding returning the responsibility of funding CSRS retirement benefits for time spent in active military duty by Postal Employees to the US Department of the Treasury (where all other Federal Employees military service retirement benefits are funded, except for Postal Employees). 
  
• We informed members of Congress of our opposition to the 'Single Piece Parcel' initiative contained in the House version of the current proposed Postal Reform Legislation. The legislation as written in the House version of proposed Postal Reform Legislation would possibily force the Postal Service to stop offering parcel service to the public all together.
  
• We also notified our Legislators of our opposition to pending attempts in the Senate version of proposed Postal Reform Legislation to reduce Federal Employee Compensation Act (FECA) benefits for Postal Employees.  
  

Our Congressional Representatives were also fully appraised of the fact that the NPMHU supports an overwhelming percentage of the pending legislation regarding giving the Postal Service the flexibility it needs to compete in todays buisiness environment, while stressing that our collective bargaining rights established by the Postal Reorganization Act need not be dismantled.

We urge each and every member of the NPMHU in our Local to get active by joining our National Legislative Action Alert team by following the links to our National Office's website.  Let your elected members of the Senate and the House of Representatives know how you feel about pending Postal Reform Legislation.  It's your job and your future at stake!