Spring 2023 - Committee of Presidents

Medicare integration – Messaging starting 2023.

This is through the 2022 passing of the Postal reform/repeal of pre-funding of retiree health care legislation.

Here is how it is:

Medicare comes in multiple parts. Medicare starts at 65 years old.

A - Hospital – no pay/already paid during your career in each paycheck.

B – Medical - Doctors - currently approx. $169 month

D – prescription - no mandate to take

Starting 1/1/25 this law takes effect.

There are 2 groups.

Group 1 – anyone 65 or older

Group 2 – all 64 and under

Group 1 – There is no mandate to sign up for Medicare. If you do not, there is a 10% penalty added each year you do not. if you are already 65 and retired, and you did not take Medicare at 65, you have accrued a 10% each year you have not been in it. I.e.: 69 years old would mean a 50% penalty.

If you do sign up for Medicare, during the 2024 open season, that penalty will be paid by the USPS for the rest of your life. Medicare then becomes your primary insurance.

Currently 85% of all USPS retirees sign up for Medicare. Your health plan then becomes your secondary insurance.

This is all your choice for those 65 and over on 1/1/2025.

Group 2 – all employees 64 and under on 1/1/2025

Every retiree in this group is mandated to Medicare at 65. If you do not, then you will lose your federal health plan.

There are 2 exceptions to this:

1.     If you are covered under your spouse’s plan.

2.     If there is no Medicare coverage in the area you live. (This does not really affect us in this area)

All of this starts in Plan year 2025. You MUST change your health plan during open season to duplicate plans under a USPS subset.

Instead of a FEBA plan it will be a PEBA plan(P for Postal only) the plans are identical but it identifies us as postal retirees.

This information will be flooding us over the next year and a ½. Hopefully all questions will be answered.

The repeal of the prefunding law also allows the USPS Medicare group to join other union groups to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices. Prior to this the USPS was excluded from this plan.

There will be some hiccups but with educating our members we hope it will not be a real problem overall.

The NALC Health Plan offered a “Medicare Advantage Plan this year. It is a supplemental plan provided by AETNA. This plan offers different options. It has a Silver Seniors program. Rebate of $800 ($75 per month) per year. If you join but do not like it, you can change back to the NALC health plan. If you take the advantage plan, make sure you doctors are part of the AETNA network. The NALC plan is a CIGNA provider plan.

Contract negotiations Brian Renfroe NALC President

Opened negotiations on 2/22/23. Current contract expires 5/20/23

We are the 2nd largest bargaining unit in the country.

It is better to negotiate with a company that is not bleeding money like the USPS has been doing since 2008 when it lost 40% of the revenues due the collapse of the market and the slowdown in mail volume. We also do not have to push legislation to mandate 6 day delivery that we have had to do every year. With the passage of postal reform, it is now written into law.

The BOG must approve any contract. There are 2 current board members who are currently on a up to 1-year holdover. One is very important for us.

As per the creation of the current USPS, we must be compensated as other similar workers. It has always been UPS. At some point we expect them to try and use amazon/uber and other delivery workers as comparable. That is one reason we are doing our best to help organize those workers.

The following committees have started discussing these issues:

·       Subcontracting issues. Huge topic of conversation

·       Workforce structure – career vs. non-career Trying to get an all-career workforce.

·       Possible combing pays tables 1 and 2

·       Contract compliance issues - art 8-19-41

·       Articles 14 safety and 15 grievance process

·       Transfer process

·       Route adjustment issues

·       City delivery vs rural

·       Letter carrier political fund sign up process

We are preparing for arbitration as we negotiate. We will be prepared for either one.

Getting an agreement shall be challenging but Brian believes we can get it done.

There are two major issues that are creating major problems around the country.

1.     Staffing there are hundreds of routes not being delivered on a daily basis due to the lack of help.

Carriers are being forced to work 12 hours and more in many areas. This cost the service millions.

As I said above, we are attempting to raise starting wages and getting an all-career work force.

This not easy since many other businesses are trying to hire out of the same pool we are.

2.     Carrier safety. Carriers are being robbed, assaulted and injured on a daily basis around the country. The NALC has been meeting with the OIG and Postal inspection service as well as discussions with the postal police. The target in many areas is the theft of arrow keys. The criminals use the keys to steal mail in NDCBU’s and collection boxes.

This issue exploded during the COVID pandemic. Criminals started looking to steal the COVID relief checks being sent out. It now appears to be an organized effort. Organized gangs around the country are observing and plotting thefts. Even when people are caught and arrested, it seems like the local DA’s are not pursuing the issues in court. This must stop. Hopefully, the parties can find some solution to this problem.

The last issue I want to discuss is our letter carrier political fund. It is a very important part of what we do. The recent success of postal reform is a clear indicator of that. we were the driving force behind the passage of that law. We had many friends in Washington because of our PAC fund. Now we are trying to push through some very important changes again:

·       HR 82 which would repeal and correct the windfall elimination signed into law in 1983. This law has cheated hundreds of thousand civil service retirees out of untold Social Security. money.

·       The Federal Employee Retirement act. This act would allow non-career employees to buy back their non-career time (T. E., CCA). This is a bill that would benefit every T. E. and CCA with getting credit for all time worked towards retirement.

The only way to get politicians on board is to give to their political campaigns. We can not use our dues money to do this. We must use our PAC money. Last election cycle we raised approximately 7 million. That was with only 10% of the members contributing. There is no reason that number is so low. You are investing in your future. There is no reason that each and every one of us does not give at least $5 per pay. Think how much you would benefit as a former T. E. or CCA if you could buy back the time spent in a non-career position. In some cases that could be 6 or more years. There must be a major push to grow our PAC fund. Put your money where your mouth is!