APWU : Postal accounting requirements the result of "anti worker" Congressmen

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All Federal and Postal workers participate in either the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS - pre 1984) or the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS - Post 1984).

Last year the Post Office suffered a dramatic reduction in volume and revenue, a perfect storm the result of increasing use of email and a slowdown of the economy. The Post Office is showing dramatic losses.

What is not commonly known is that the Post Office has to 'pre fund' its retirement costs at 100% while the industry standard is 80% and 30% for health care. That is simply because actual retirement costs don't reach 100%.

For the CSRS, for example, estimates on how long pensions would have to be paid out have resulted in a $ 75 billion over payment by the Post Office to the fund.

Indeed if the over payments were returned to the Post Office then it would recover $ 142 billion.


he U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General said USPS could recover up to $142.4 billion if it is compensated for retirement fund overpayments and makes simple changes to pre-funding levels for pensions and health care.

http://www.federaldaily.com/federaldaily/archive/2010/10/FD101310.htm?s=fd_101410%23a#a


So if you hear during the campaign that the Post Office is ineffecient and losing money big time please be aware that the reason for this is purely the result of special accounting methods that the Republicans put into effect with the intention of damaging the Post Office and the unions.

http://www.federaldaily.com/federaldaily/archive/2010/10/FD101310.htm?s=fd_101410%23a#a

“The liabilities are a colossal sham seized upon by postal management and by anti-worker congressmen who wish to erode the gains made by postal employees over 40 years of collective bargaining,” Burrus said in an Oct. 8 Web posting. “In fact, the USPS should be cited as ‘Business of the Year.’ The Postal Service has survived the worst recession in 70 years, along with societal shifts in communication, and congressionally-imposed funding mandates that are not applied to any other commercial or governmental entity in the country.”