Lack of coverage disappointing

My fellow postal workers and I are very disappointed to see the lack of news coverage from the Daily Herald. On Tuesday, Sept. 27, there were rallies staged at some congressional offices, and there were no news media or newspaper reporters there. I personally, with many other members, was at the rally at Congressman Peter Roskam’s office in Bloomingdale.

I have been a postal letter carrier for over 30 years, and we realize the postal service is having difficulties. We have been trying to inform Congress and the public that our problems are due to the fact that in 2006, Congress mandated the postal service to pre-fund 75 years worth of retiree health benefits in only 10 years.

This means that, every year, the postal service has to pay $5.5 billion to that fund. This fund is estimated to be over-funded by between $50 billion to $75 billion at this time. No other federal agency or private enterprise has been forced to pre-fund like this. If we did not have to make these payments, the postal service made a net profit of $611 million the last four fiscal years and broke even the fifth year.

We are asking Congress to pass HR1351, which would relieve the postal service of having to pre-fund like we have been mandated to do. We are not asking for a bailout, and the postal service operates with no tax dollars.

You ran a front-page story about the Fright Fest at Great America, and on Page 15, a story about submitting photos to vote for the best Christmas tree in your yard on Sept. 28. We believe that our story deserved coverage, too.

Lawrence Johnson

Roselle