Contact Your Senators Now to Oppose S 1789
Dear CA, HI, NV Branch Presidents, Officers, NBA, State Officers, CDLs, and Activists:
It is crucial we immediately act on the E-Activist below. We need everyone possible not to just call our Senators in Region 1 but also write them a letter as well. Letters written and mailed to our US Senators State District Offices will get there within a couple of days, plenty of time to get their attention if this comes up for a vote at the end of next week. It is fine to call their Capitol officers but please do not send any mail to DC since they delay the mail for screening by as much as 8 days, thank you.
I have included a sample letter to Senator Boxer. You can use this as a guideline to write to Senator Feinstein, and our Hawaii and Nevada Senators as well.
Below is a list of all our Senators local address. Also, it is very important you get this out to as many members as possible using your own email addresses. At the begining of the year the E-Activist list was updated and a portion of the membership previous on the list in all three states were purged. We need to make sure everyone gets this alert.
If you have any questions please give me a call.
In unionism,
John Beaumont, President
California State Association of Letter Carriers
California
Senator Barbara Boxer
70 Washington Street, Suite 203
Oakland, CA 94607
(202) 224-3553
Senator Dianne Feinstein
One Post Street, Suite 2450
San Francisco, CA 94104
(202) 224-3841
Hawaii
Senator Daniel Inouye
Prince Kuhio Federal Building, 300 Ala Moana Boulevard, Suite 7-212
Honolulu, HI 96850-4975
(202) 224-3934 / (808) 541-2542
Senator Daniel Akaka
Prince Kuhio Federal Building, 300 Ala Moana Boulevard, Room 3-106
Honolulu, HI 96850
(202) 224-6361 / (808) 522-8970
Nevada
Senator Harry Reid
333 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Suite 8016
Las Vegas, NV 89101
(202) 224-3542
Senator Dean Heller
Bruce Thompson Federal Building, 400 South Virginia Street, Suite 738
Reno, NV 89501
(202) 224-6244
As the Senate reconvenes in Washington today, the NALC is closely monitoring expected Senate action for this and the coming weeks. With Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announcing late last week that he would be delaying a floor vote for the controversial anti-piracy bills pending before Congress, the Senate schedule now has unexpected floor time that will need to be filled. All indications are that the leadership plans on moving S. 1789, the 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2011, as early as next week. S. 1789, in its current form, is unacceptable to the NALC and to many stakeholders and customers throughout the country.
The bill as reported out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs fell short of achieving the many needed reforms to ensure a vibrant Postal Service for the future.
The legislation:
Allows for five-day delivery in two years' time if the Postal Service is not turning a profit, but fails to give the Postal Service any flexibility to achieve that profit.
Phases out door-to-door delivery in favor of curbside and centralized delivery.
Fails to recoup the $55 billion to $75 billion in CSRS pension surplus funds.
Does not go far enough in restructuring the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund.
Includes an anti-labor provision that would direct arbitrators to take into special consideration the financial condition of the Postal Service before rendering a decision.
Unfairly attacks injured postal workers by removing them from the OWCP rolls and forcing them into retirement without implementing a formula that would make these people whole. The reduction in compensation would be severe.
Please contact your Senators today and ask them both to oppose S. 1789 in its current form. The legislation is deeply flawed and needs significant changes before the Senate should consider passage of this bill.
Changes to the bill should include provisions from S. 1853, The Postal Service Protection Act of 2011. This bill takes the necessary steps by addressing the issues laid out above to strengthen the Postal Service while maintaining the excellent level of service Americans have come to expect, preserving middle-class jobs and creating new opportunities for the Postal Service moving forward.
Again, please call both of your senators as soon as possible and urge them to delay action on S. 1789 as drafted. We expect the Senate to pass legislation that protects senior citizens, rural communities, small businesses and others and we hope to be at the table as those discussions are held.
Thank you in advance for your urgent action.
In Solidarity,
Fredric V. Rolando, President
National Association of Letter Carriers
Governor Brown Signs CSALC-Sponsored Bill
Governor Jerry Brown just signed into law AB 1343. This legislation was written and sponsored by the California State Association of Letter Carriers and introduced for us by Assemblyman Paul Fong. This bill will increase the opportunity California permanent vote by mail voters will be able to remain on the roles and receive a mail ballot from 8 years to 16 years.
AB 1343 (Fong)
Vote by mail: procedures: permanent vote by mail voters: failure to return ballot. Existing law provides for a voter to become qualified as a permanent vote by mail voter. Under existing law, a permanent vote by mail voter will be deleted from the list of qualified permanent vote by mail voters if the voter fails to return an executed vote by mail ballot in 2 consecutive statewide general elections.
This bill would, instead, require that a permanent vote by mail voter be removed from the list of qualified permanent vote by mail voters if the voter fails to return an executed vote by mail ballot in 4 consecutive statewide general elections.
H Res 137 Re-introduced!
(Bill protects 6-day Delivery Service)
NALC supported legislation, H Res 137, a bill expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Postal Service should take all appropriate measures to ensure the continuation of its 6-day mail delivery service, has been re-introduced by Congressman Sam Graves (R-MO).
While this is a great start we need to continue to push this legislation so that we have every House member in California signed on.
Currently H Res 137 has 206 co-sponsors (33 from California).
If your member is one of the remaining 20 California Congressional Representatives, listed below, that has yet to cosponsor our legislation please write them and ask them to please save 6-day delivery and co-sponsor H Res 137 (below is a sample letter to use as a guideline when mailing your member).
Members that still need to cosponsor H Res 137:
Herger, Wally CD 2Lungren, Dan CD 3
McClintock, Tom CD 4
Pelosi, Nancy CD 8
Denham, Jeff CD 19
Nunes, Devin CD 21
McCarthy, Kevin CD 22
McKeon, Buck CD 25
Dreier, David CD 26
Waxman, Henry CD 30
Becerra, Xavier CD 31
Royce, Ed CD 40
Lewis, Jerry CD 41
Miller, Gary CD 42
Bono-Mack, Mary CD 45
Rohrabacher, Dana CD 46
Campbell, John CD 48
Issa,Darrell CD 49
Bilbray, Brian CD 50
Hunter, Duncan CD 52
Sample Letter H Res 137
Honorable (Representatives Name)
United States House of Representatives
(Representatives Local District Office Address)
(Date)
Dear Congressman (or Congresswoman) ______________:
I live in (City) and I am a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch __________ and a constituent of your congressional district.
6-day mail delivery service is an essential service that the American people have relied on since 1912. Reducing mail delivery service to 5 days a week would inevitably cause not only delays in the delivery of mail, but higher postal costs, due to the many hours of additional overtime that the Postal Service would require in order to handle the resulting back-up of mail.
Also, our senior citizens rely heavily upon the steady delivery of mail service 6 days a week. Social Security is the primary or sole source of income for many senior citizens, and any delay in the delivery of their Social Security checks would make it difficult for them to purchase even essential items, such as food and medicine.
Taking into account these items and other serious consequences that would result from reducing mail delivery services I am asking you to please sign on as a cosponsor or H Res 137. This bill, sponsored by Representative Samuel Graves, expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that the United States Postal Service should take all appropriate measures to ensure the continuation of its 6-day mail delivery service. Thank you for your consideration of this request. A return response to this letter would be sincerely appreciated. Thank you.
Sincerely,
(Your Name)
(Your full Mailing Address)
HR 1351 Introduced!
Legislation would return Civil Service overpayments back to the USPS
On April 5, 2011 Representative Issa, and his anti-union colleagues on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, held a hearing attacking the collective-bargaining process between the USPS and the APWU. On this same day Representative Stephen Lynch (D-MA), who is also a member of this same committee offered a different solution to the growing financial crisis faced by the USPS by introducing H.R. 1351, the USPS Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act.
H.R. 1351 would fairly recalculate the USPS surplus in the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) & would return assets paid for by RATEPAYER and EMPLOYEE contributions to the Postal Service's sub-account in the CSRS. This bill, if passed and signed into law, would take the necessary first steps needed towards ensuring a financially sound future for the United States Postal Service.
Currently HR 1351 has 226 co-sponsors (34 from California).
If your member is one of the remaining 19 California Congressional Representatives, listed below, that has yet to cosponsor our legislation please write them and ask them to do so today (below is a sample letter to use as a guideline when mailing your member).
Members that still need to cosponsor HR 1351:
Herger, Wally CD 2Lungren, Dan CD 3
McClintock, Tom CD 4
Denham, Jeff CD 19
Nunes, Devin CD 21
McCarthy, Kevin CD 22
Gallegly, Elton CD 24
McKeon, Buck CD 25
Dreier, David CD 26
Royce, Ed CD 40
Lewis, Jerry CD 41
Miller, Gary CD 42
Calvert, Ken CD 44
Bono-Mack, Mary CD 45
Rohrabacher, Dana CD 46
Campbell, John CD 48
Issa, Darrell CD 49
Bilbray, Brian CD 50
Hunter, Duncan CD 52
HR 1351 Sample Letter
Honorable (Representatives First & Last Name)
United States House of Representatives
(Local Street Address)
(City, State, Zip)
(Date)
Dear Representative ________________:
My name is _______ and I live in (City). I work as a letter carrier for the United States Postal Service.I am writing you concerning the continuing fiscal crisis the United States Postal Service is facing due to its required obligation to prefund its future retiree health benefits for employees who have not even yet been hired.
This requirement, which stands at over 4 billion dollars annually, has dramatically saddled the Postal Service operating income which has affected service to the very patrons who rely on our delivery. It has also caused the postal service to consider closing and/or consolidating hundreds of Post Offices across the nation.H.R. 1351 has recently been introduced by Congressman Stephen Lynch to address this decades-old accounting error that led the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to overcharge the Postal Service, by billions of dollars, for payments into the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). H.R. 1351 does not repeal or in any way address the legally mandated pre-funding payments into the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefit Fund (PSRHBF), it simply fixes the massive over-funding to the Postal CSRS.
As a constituent I am asking your support to help fix the financial crisis the Postal Service is experiencing in large part as a result of these miscalculations by cosponsoring H.R. 1351.
Thank you for your consideration of this request. A return response to this letter would be sincerely appreciated.
Thank you.
Sincerely,(Your Name)
(Your full Mailing Address)