The Postal Service unilaterally announced earlier today that it is offering Voluntary Early Retirement (VERA) to eligible mail handlers throughout the United States.  This VERA comes without any monetary incentive payments to retire, and simply makes early retirement available to eligible employees.

More detailed information will be widely circulated to all eligible mail handlers, directly from the Postal Service, during the coming weeks.  In general terms, to be eligible to retire under the VERA, an employee must have completed 20 years of service and be at least age 50, or have completed 25 years of service and be of any age.  There will be three options to choose as a retirement date in 2018 – January 31, February 28, and March 31.  In the meantime, we wanted to ensure that all Local Unions and all members were informed that the process for implementing this opportunity for voluntary early retirement has been initiated.