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Our NAPS Members Are the Best of the Best

Our NAPS Members Are the Best of the Best
By Ivan D. Butts
NAPS National President

As we move from the Thanksgiving holiday season to the Christmas holiday season, I want to pause to wish you, my NAPS family, a joyous and wonderful holiday season.

This time of year always poses challenges to us as managers. We deal with employees who may be struggling with personal issues that are intensified due to the holiday. We may be dealing with our own personal issues. And to top it all off, we still must be the guiding force to ensure this agency continues to move the mail during this important time of year.

This year has been extensively more challenging as we continue to deal with the effects of COVID-19 and its impact on our total operating expenses (TOE) and employee availability with the implementation of the liberal leave policy, Emergency Federal Employee Leave (EFEL) and the delivery of America’s election ballots with reduced processing capabilities that created exorbitant overtime usage.

This has left us with a NPA ranking that fails to bring, at a minimum, the 3% that was advocated for with NAPS’ request to do away with the NPA process for FY21 due to the Postal Service’s failure to properly administer the process from the beginning of FY21.

Still fresh in my mind are the pain and sorrow felt from the senseless murders of two of our fellow NAPS members in Memphis, TN. Also, the less-than-engaging response seen by NAPS members in the lack of presence of USPS Headquarters leadership outside the service team that was dispatched to the city and the WTIL-failure telecon that was deemed necessary for the day of homegoing services for our fallen members.

Yet still you rise to bind a nation together by connecting families across the world. You do this by managing the operations that process all the letters, cards and packages received.

I have seen the results of this firsthand as my son received the care packages I sent him during the holidays he spent in Iraq. It was because of your dedication to provide the highest quality service to the American public that can be given that the lives of not only my son, but also the lives of others in his unit, were blessed.

Your commitment to excellence is further demonstrated during this period of great change and subjective leadership. We are operating in an time when the often empty words of “dignity and respect” are spoken by leaders who appear unable or unwilling to make them more than just two nouns around a conjunction.

These words understandably could harden our hearts as this type of leadership impacts our lives and also could easily impact how we manage the day-to-day operations. However, day in and day out, you prove yourselves to be the best of the best, giving your all to get the job done.

I thank you for all you are doing to keep the United States Postal Service moving in the right direction as you provide the services constitutionally promised by law to bind the people of America together. And I thank you for your pledge to sup-port the effort to live up to the mission statement of our great association.

God bless and best holiday wishes to you and your family.

In solidarity…