>Most likely, although Unions do manage to threaten companies into agreeing to many things. Government protected organized crime is a serious problem in this country.

As far as I understand, this had nothing to do with unions but with Congress, from one the link in my previous message

"The congressional notion was that the Postal Service was making lots of money selling its products and services, and so it might be a good idea to put those profits into pre-funding future retiree health care benefits for the next 75 years and do so in a decade. No one else, public or private, does this – but it would put the Postal Service that much more ahead of the game in terms of future liabilities. And so, in 2006, Congress mandated that the USPS do so, at a price tag of about $5.5 billion a year. "

Now, I understand that was the opinion of a biased person (Fredric Rolando, President of the 300,000 member association), but it should not be difficult to find out if it was true. My bet is that the Congress was under pressure from the FedEx and UPS...