Eastern Region Holds Successful Cabinet Meeting

Eastern Region Holds Successful Cabinet Meeting
By Richard Green
NAPS Eastern Region Vice President

The annual Eastern Region Cabinet Meeting was held in Cleveland, OH, over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. The meeting was attended by 140 leaders from local branches across the Eastern Region. Cleveland Branch 46, our host branch, did an outstanding job providing great hospitality, as well as scheduling an enjoyable night out where our members showed off their singing voices with karaoke!

Now, to the business. We had great representation from the Postal Service. Elvin Mercado, newly appointed acting chief Retail and Delivery officer and executive vice president, shared his vision of how the Postal Service would be moving forward to address and improve safety for employees across the scope of his responsibilities.

Todd Hawkins, vice president, Processing Operations, Eastern Region, shared information on performance from the previous fiscal year. He thanked our delegates for their outstanding performance during peak season. We also had the opportunity to hear from Mark Wilson, newly appointed acting Lakeshores director.

Bruce Nicholson, director, Labor Relations Policies & Programs, shared with our delegates the work that was done last year that resulted in a $13 million reduction in Article 8 payments. He also discussed where the agency was regarding the new contract agreement with the National Association of Letter Carriers and how that impacts talks with NAPS in relation to a new pay agreement. I want to thank Bruce for working with me to provide a great representation of senior postal leadership to speak to our delegates.

I also want to thank our resident officers who took time out of their busy schedules to be with us. President Ivan D. Butts shared information concerning the lawsuit still being litigated between NAPS and the Postal Service. He also shared his thoughts on pay talks and how soon (best-case scenario) or how far out (worst-case scenario) that could be. He reminded us of his core beliefs: Everything he does is focused on the betterment of members.

Executive Vice President Chuck Mulidore shared a legislative update that included the results of the 2024 elections and the impact of those results for NAPS. He thanked delegates for their work with their respective representatives that led to passage of the Social Security Fairness Act that repealed the WEP/GPO. He shared how proud the resident officers were to attend the signing of the bill by President Biden.

We had a wealth of great training presentations from Steve Dillard of Dillard Financial Solutions and Arvella Collins from the Federal Thrift Investment Board. We thank them for their wealth of knowledge shared with our delegates.

Lastly, I want to personally thank every delegate who took time to attend this event. Your attendance and support are greatly appreciated. Thanks again to Cleveland for a great weekend. I know you won the NATI by beating my team, but I still got love for ya! See you in Philadelphia in 2026.

Fighting for membership!