NWU's National Executive Council has voted to support U.S. Rep. Stephen J. Lynch’s bill, called “U.S. Postal Service Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011." This legislation addresses a decades-old accounting error that led to the Postal Service being overcharged by billions of dollars for payments into the Civil Service Retirement System. The bill would allow the USPS to improve its financial future.

The U.S. Postal Service is a success story among U.S. government agencies. The USPS takes no taxpayer money, it delivers mail (including independent publications and local newspapers that ensure free speech) at very low cost to every community and every individual living in the U.S. Its thousands of workers are unionized, and not only is it financially self-supporting, but it has always brought in a surplus.

In the lame duck session of 2006, the Republican majority in Congress passed a law requiring USPS to accumulate, in advance, enough money to pay for the next 75 years-worth of health care benefits for its present and future employees. It is to come up with this money in the next 10 years. No other government agency (and no business) has such a burdensome requirement, which has caused a USPS deficit of billions of dollars that it cannot pay. To close this deficit gap, the USPS is planning to close hundreds of local Post Offices, especially in remote rural areas and small towns; and to lay off 120,000 unionized postal workers.

Please write and call your representative to the U.S. Congress to ask them to co-sponsor the bill. Click here for their contact information.

The NWU has filed comments with the U.S. Copyright Office in response to that office's public inquiry about "how copyright owners have handled small copyright claims and the obstacles they have encountered, as well as potential alternatives to the current legal system that could better accommodate such claims."

The NWU's comments focus on the real-world experience of NWU members whose copyrights have been infringed, and the patterns and trends in infringement-related grievances which have been brought to the attention of the Grievance and Contract Division. Our comments provide a snapshot of the problem copyright infringement poses for working writers, and a blueprint for what needs to be done about it. The NWU's comments were drafted by Book Division Co-Chair Edward Hasbrouck and reviewed and revised by an ad hoc committee made up of GCD members and Book Division co-chairs, as well as First Vice President Ann Hoffmann.

The deadline for submission of comments, originally Jan. 16, has been extended until 5 p.m. Eastern time on Jan. 17 in light of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observance.  Anyone can submit comments.

We encourage individual members who have had copyright issues to submit their own statements. Please identify yourselves as NWU members; you may wish to mention that you also endorse the NWU's comments. A comment form, along with background on the possibility of a special court or special procedures for small copyright claims, is posted on the Copyright Office website at http://www.copyright.gov/docs/smallclaims. If you are considering filing your own comments and would like to coordinate them with the NWU, please contact Book Division Co-Chair Susan E Davis at sednyc@rcn.com.

"NEW YORK -- New York Times staffers unhappy with management are letting publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. know it. In recent days, more than 270 current and former Times employees have signed an open letter expressing their "profound dismay" with recent company decisions." (by Michael Calderone in Huffington Post) More

In related news, HuffPo bloggers unhappy with management are letting publisher Arianna Huffington know it. For news from NWU's Pay The Writer campaign to set a standard base pay rate for online freelance journalists at the Huffington Post and other online publications, sign up for email alerts at Pay The Writer and follow the conversation on Twitter @PayTheWriter.

National Writers Union Joins NY Press Club Coalition for the First Amendment

We have joined a dozen other NY press organizations in a coalition to monitor NYPD/Press Relations stemming from the arrests and mistreatment of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street. For more information about the New York Press Club Coalition for the First Amendment click here.

National Writers Union Urges Children's Book Authors to Honor Hyatt Boycott

The National Writers Union has been asked by UNITEHERE! Local 11 President Tom Walsh to help encourage children’s book writers and illustrators to honor the union’s boycotts at Hyatt hotels.  In particular, we urge the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) to move their 2012 Summer Conference, scheduled for August 6-8, out of the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles.

Workers at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza have called for a boycott of all business since August 2010 for a safe and fair contract.  They join workers at 16 other Hyatt hotels throughout North America in demanding that Hyatt change its safety record and allow workers to take on the company’s practices, wherever it is abusing workers.  SCBWI continues to plan its conference in the Hyatt, in the face of repeated outreach to their board and staff.  The Hyatt boycotts have been endorsed by the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO, the LA County Federation of Labor, and Writers Guild of America-West (WGA-West).