mr. guffey, please proceed. thanks for joining. >> and cliff guffey president of the american postal workers union. i am pleased to participate in the hearing today with the representative margaret cigno and inspector general williams who have through their hard work dedication and leadership, much to preserve and protect the postal service. as a chairman of this committee knows legislative relief is necessary to restore the financial stability of the postal service. the p.w. appreciates the leadership shown in proposing legislation there will meet the postal service critical need for the immediate financial relief. we strongly support and the entire coastal communities strongly supports the proposal to permit the postal service to use more than 5 billion each year from its overpayment in the civil service retirement account to meet its obligation to refund postal retiree health benefits and pay workers' compensation obligations. it bares emphasis that this is not a request for a subsidy or bailout of the postal

mr. guffey, please proceed. thanks for joining. >> and cliff guffey president of the american postal workers union. i am pleased to participate in the hearing today with the representative margaret cigno and inspector general williams who have through their hard work dedication and leadership, much to preserve and protect the postal service. as a chairman of this committee knows legislative relief is necessary to restore the financial stability of the postal service. the p.w. appreciates the leadership shown in proposing legislation there will meet the postal service critical need for the immediate financial relief. we strongly support and the entire coastal communities strongly supports the proposal to permit the postal service to use more than 5 billion each year from its overpayment in the civil service retirement account to meet its obligation to refund postal retiree health benefits and pay workers' compensation obligations. it bares emphasis that this is not a request for a subsidy or bailout of the postal

mr. guffey, please proceed. thanks for joining. >> and cliff guffey president of the american postal workers union. i am pleased to participate in the hearing today with the representative margaret cigno and inspector general williams who have through their hard work dedication and leadership, much to preserve and protect the postal service. as a chairman of this committee knows legislative relief is necessary to restore the financial stability of the postal service. the p.w. appreciates the leadership shown in proposing legislation there will meet the postal service critical need for the immediate financial relief. we strongly support and the entire coastal communities strongly supports the proposal to permit the postal service to use more than 5 billion each year from its overpayment in the civil service retirement account to meet its obligation to refund postal retiree health benefits and pay workers' compensation obligations. it bares emphasis that this is not a request for a subsidy or bailout of the postal

mr. guffey or mr strong. what do you think it was a service needs to do to reach out to customers, individual customers small businesses, to attract new business? what do we need to do to attract new business? >> one of the problems is our rules down in a lot of way. we prevent this does is from stay open past 5:00. they closed at 5:00 and the people who bring down the male, packages, just missed out. he got one of our competitors. we changed our rules to allow post offices to stay open longer. we have lowered costs of new employees and long-term benefits so the postal service can open and can lower costs to keep post offices open longer in the general committee, rather than shutting them down. we must -- we have lowered the cost of processing inside plants. we have tried that some of the bay mailers keep their this counts -- discounts. the men and women of the unit are concerned about as office and want to help but be a viable institution, and they overwhelmingly voted to do those things. >> mr. strong? >> i