Postal workers present petition Special delivery

COEUR d'ALENE - More than 200 carriers headed out from The Coeur d'Alene Resort, but they weren't delivering letters.

They didn't have any packages, fliers or bills, either.

What many of them held in their hands was a petition that asks residents to support a drive to keep the postal service delivering mail six days a week.

"We are asking people to let their congressman know, the post office belongs to the people, not to Congress," said Ron Farnsworth, president of National Association of Letter Carriers union 1260.

The annual convention at The Resort attracted postal workers from six states, who will be in town through Friday for training and talks on union issues.

But they took an hour or so to head out late Wednesday afternoon seeking signatures. Wearing blue T-shirts that read "5-day is the wrong way" and "Save American's Postal Service," they set out by foot and by car. They knocked on doors, walked into businesses and stopped people on sidewalks.

The petition calls on the "super committee" to include preservation of six-day delivery service in its recommendation to Congress this fall.

The Postal Service lost $8 billion last year and is expecting even larger losses this year. To remove red ink, a White House plan calls for eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing post offices nationwide and laying off more than 100,000 workers.

But Farnsworth said the deficit is due to a law that requires USPS to "pre-fund" health care benefits for future retirees. The congressional mandate costs USPS more than $5 billion a year "and is the cause of the postal service's financial crisis," he said.

With a few changes, it could operate in the black, he said.

"We don't want a bailout, we don't want money from the public, we're not asking for money from anybody," Farnsworth said.

The Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee unveiled a proposal Wednesday to resolve USPS financial woes.

Highlights of the plan include:

• The Postal Service would receive a refund of nearly $7 billion it has overpaid into the Federal Employee Retirement System.

• The agency would be required to use part of the refund to set up a buyout program aimed at reducing staff by 100,000.

• Agency payments of about $5.5 billion into an account to fund future retiree health benefits would be reduced by spreading out the payment schedule.

• The postmaster general could negotiate with unions on a possible alternate health care system that would cost less.

• Mail delivery would have to continue at six-days-a-week for at least two years.

Farnsworth said the proposal was a step in the right direction.

"It sounds like we're getting some of what we're asking for. I don't know if it's everything," he said as he stood in front of The Resort.

"I think it's great they want to continue six-day delivery, although they're only during it for two years, in which case they'll look at it again."

Paul Price, national business agent for letter carriers in the Pacific Northwest, said the latest proposal "cushions the blow" but doesn't go far enough to protect postal workers' jobs and Saturday delivery.

"Most of what they're proposing isn't needed," he said.

"Congress is trying to fix something that's worked for over 225 years."

The USPS, which employs about 580,000, does not receive government funding, he said.

He said the solution to end red ink, simply, is to let the postal service fund health care and retirement benefits for workers over a longer period of time.

"We're the only company in the world that has to pre-fund health care in advance," he said.

People prefer six, not five-day mail delivery, he said. Many count on it for personal and financial reasons.

"It's not wanted by America, it's not needed by America," he said. "It's a knee-jerk reaction."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.