First off, let me thank all of you who participated in the Letter carriers food drive on May 9^th. I don’t have the figures yet, but I am confident that we met or exceeded our goals.  Be aware that all the food picked up goes to a local food bank. It doesn’t matter if this is Nome, Alaska or Puerto Rico. In our area, the 3 organizations that benefit from our food drive are Forgotten Harvest, Gleaners and Salvation Army. It is possible that smaller food banks get some also, but I’m not privy to that information. Anyone who displayed one of our yard signs and doesn’t wish to store it until next year – bring it to our June Meeting – I will do the storing. 
 
But I have something to say on the subject of your Postal Service. While I have been retired for over 10 years, I stay very active in my union – The National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO. In fact I recently just received my 50 year gold membership card. But before I lay out the problems, perhaps a primer is in order. The United States Postal Service – formerly the Post Office Department, is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. It is the largest single employer of veterans. U.S.P.S. receives no money from the government – all our operating expenses come from revenue generated by postage. 
 
But we are fighting a battle on two fronts. Management, at the highest levels, has decided that we must begin an austerity program because of budget problems. One of those problems was artificially created in a lame duck session of Congress in 2006. A bill passed by a GOP dominated Congress, mandated that the Post Office must pay into a fund – pre payments for a 75 year period – of the expense it will incur for health insurance – and do so within a window of 10 years. About a $5 billion dollar layout per year. No other entity, in or out of government has been so required. In effect, we are pre paying for people not even born yet who will work for the post office. It is obvious to anyone that the purpose of this legislation was to cripple the post office – not ensure solvency. But believe it or not, we were making those payments – until the recession hit the post office like virtually every other business in the country. The Post Office is making a modest recovery now – not withstanding this crippling requirement. 
 
And that is where the current austerity program kicks in. Management at the highest levels decided that we had to cut services, reduce standards, and close facilities in order to save money. My mother would say it was being “penny wise & pound foolish.” We sell nothing but service!!!!  A saving grace in this area of emails and other electronic communications have been the need for advertizing mail ( you guys call it “junk mail” )  Ha, you would be surprised at the number of people who look forward to this type of mail – especially in rural areas. We do a great business in greeting cards – be it Christmas, or someone’s birthday card. Somehow, Happy birthday in an email doesn’t quite work like a beautiful  – or funny – card. But our biggest growing market is packages. Amazon, EBay, Craig’s list – you name it. 
 
While we should be shoring up these segments, we are actually reducing. They are closing processing plants, post offices – often in rural areas and because of a reduction in the workforce, reducing the delivery standards because they don’t have the personnel to “work the mail” as fast as they once did. A couple of things on managements radar is such things as: eliminating Saturday delivery, eliminating door to door delivery in favor of cluster boxes – and outsourcing window services. 
 
And as if fighting management was bad enough, Congress – usually a Republican – have been introducing various bills that would codify these terrible programs into law. And I am not even going to get into issues that strike at the heart of our pay & benefits.  But public employees are on the GOP hit list. 
 
Rain, sleet & snow – and nasty dogs, are not our only problems. Thanks for your support.
 
Mike Smith