Given the state of technology,
privatization is probably the only long-term solution for the
USPS. But it is so saddled with legacy costs that no investor
would touch it. If Congress gives management the tools it needs
to meet the crisis, and if management uses them effectively --
two big ifs, we admit -- the Postal Service will have a chance
to get its house in order and one day attract private capital,
as European postal services have done. Otherwise, it may wind up
as a burden on taxpayers, like another iconic business with an
aging workforce, high legacy costs and an outdated product line:
General Motors. (3/10) |
Illegal immigrant stole identity and got a job with USPS
- Douglas County
investigators said they don't know the suspect's real name but
they said after she obtained U.S. citizenship using Afolobi's
name, she was able to get a job with the postal service as a
mail carrier in Paulding County. Investigators said while she
was employed with the postal service, she stole the identities
of people on her mail route. (3/10) |
Theft, Fraud Charges Filed Against Postal Employee/Gym Owner A mail carrier who claimed she was
injured and collected nearly a quarter of a million dollars in
worker's compensation has been accused of fraud after allegedly
spending her time launching a career in mixed martial arts. Check
out YouTube video (3/10) |
Bill’s
Author Can’t Change the Facts: In a continuing effort to rewrite
history, the author of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement
Act (PAEA) has attempted to refute the Postal Service’s
contention that the 2006 law is responsible for the Postal
Service’s current financial difficulties. But the author of the
bill can’t change the facts: Postal ‘reform’ legislation has
forced the Postal Service to the brink of insolvency, APWU
President William Burrus noted in an Update for union
members. (3/9) |
postal leaders last week pleaded
with stakeholders — unions, Congress and customers — to support
drastic reforms: a sharp rate hike next year; the end of
Saturday delivery; widespread post office closures; changes to
the Postal Service's formula for financing health care benefits
for retirees; and deep staffing cuts. But few of those measures
now appear likely to win approval — leaving the Postal Service
with no clear fallback plan for closing its mammoth deficits. The U.S. Postal Service is Officially in a Panic
(3/8) |
The APWU is asking union members to
contact their U.S. Representatives and encourage them to
co-sponsor House Resolution 173, which urges the Postal Service
to continue to provide mail delivery six days per week. (3/8) |
“Undercover Boss,” a CBS show that
began airing in February, follows Chief Executive Officers
(CEOs) as they go undercover to work primarily in lower-level
positions in their own companies. Beyond its entertainment
value, the episodes have exposed a significant disconnect
between senior management and employees. Postal employees often
say their managers fail to communicate various corporate
policies to them, fail to listen to their comments and
suggestions, and fail to understand how corporate policies
ultimately affect field operations. (3/8) |
On June 9, 2009, Greg Danner
arrived to his job at the downtown Minneapolis post office and
noticed his co-worker Art Tilson was looking pale. Little did he
know it would be the last time he would see his friend alive.
Approximately 30 minutes after he started the work day he
collapsed of a heart attack," said Danner. Danner's efforts to
get Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) into the post
office have been denied, even after fellow employees made the
requests in December and an organization offered to donate them
for free. (3/8) |
S. David Fineman, a former chairman
of the U.S. Postal Service board of governors, has been
appointed chairman of the Americas region for DHL Global Mail,
the small-package courier service unit of Germany-based Deutsche
Post DHL. (3/8) |
For the seventh straight year,
FedEx is the Postal Service’s top supplier. FedEx transports
Express, Priority, and First Class Mail, and earned postal
revenues of $1.4 billion in fiscal 2009 – more than triple the
amount of the next largest supplier. While at the top of the
list, FedEx’s postal revenues declined from a high point of over
$1.6 billion. Another postal competitor, United Parcel Service,
is also one of the Postal Service’s top suppliers, netting $83
million in revenue and holding the 18th spot. (3/8) |
What would be lost, for example, by
delivering first-class mail perhaps three times a week, and
advertising and magazines only on, say, Mondays? Could post
offices better serve their customers as communications centers,
providing public Internet service? How can the government make
better use of the unparalleled contacts that letter carriers
have with every resident and business in the nation? (3/8) |
Reasons for moving to five-day
delivery: Decreasing mail volumes; Increasing
delivery points; Mail mix now yielding larger volumes with lower
contribution margins; Existing cost cutting programs not enough .
(3/7) |
U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (MO-08)
responded to an announcement that the U.S. Postal Service will
seek to drop one day of home delivery in an effort to offset
budget shortfalls. Emerson, who represents the mostly-rural
Eighth Congressional District in Southern Missouri, says the
reduction of delivery days would adversely affect residents of
her part of the state. (3/7) |
a new Rasmussen Reports poll this week
indicates that while an overwhelming majority of Americans (70%)
have a favorable opinion of the Postal Service, a substantial majority
(58%) are good with not getting 15 to 20 pizza flyers and pre-approved
credit card offers on Saturday. In fact, some folks suggested that
to save even more money, the Postal Service eliminate mail delivery
Monday through Friday and just bring it all by on Saturday, so it
can be thrown out at once. |
The Minyanville column suggests that
the Postal Service will Fail because the legislative and regulatory
process will not move fast enough to allow the Postal Service to
handle a wave of change that is similar to what has already devastated
newspapers and magazines. This viewpoint is not without merit
as the Postal Service's proposal is similar to other proposed policy
changes designed to transform an industry in that the benefits are
diffuse (i.e. all businesses and households that would use a universal
mail delivery network in 2020), and the costs are concentrated (i.e.
job cuts, higher postage rates, changed retail presence).
|
54-year old mail carrier's is pictured
on the Megan’s Law website. It says the mail carrier committed a
lewd or lascivious act with a child under 14 years old. He also,
according to the website, lives near Morning Creek Elementary school.
Holly says she met with a postal service investigator in December.
“The investigator told me that if they tried to change his route
that they could be sued by the postal workers union..." USPS Plans To Root Out Sex Offenders |
Facing a projected $7 billion loss
this year, the United States Postal Service is hoping to shut down
some locations and reopen in drug stores and grocery chains to save
money. In North Texas, Target has already launched a joint venture
with USPS designed to give its customers more in-store convenience.USPS
planning to add kiosks to retail stores and consumer sites |
Calls For OIG Investigation
into USPS expanding role of subcontracting
- APWU President William
Burrus condemned USPS proposals to reduce mail delivery to five
days per week, saying, “It would be the beginning of the demise
of the Postal Service. “Postal management has intensified its financial
problems by offering excessive worksharing discounts to major mailers
and by subcontracting work at exorbitant costs,” Burrus said. “We
call for a thorough investigation by the Office of the Inspector
General into the expanding role of subcontracting and the inflated
costs associated with them,” he said. |
Dead Tree Edition: The U.S. Postal
Service plans to rely more on part-time employees as it adjusts
its operations for declining mail volume.“ Annually, approximately
5 percent of employees are eligible and expected to retire. It would
not make sense to replace them with full-time employees if demand
is moving in a direction better suited to a part-time workforce,”
the USPS says in its “Action Plan for the Future” “Over the next
10 years, over 300,000 employees — more than half the current workforce
— will be eligible to retire. This will provide an opportunity to
make the workforce even more efficient by increasing use of flexible
and part-time employees.” |
NALC opposes cutback in mail service; urges
Congress to give USPS ‘financial breathing room’
- “I do not believe that weakening
our commitment of six-day service to the public will enhance the
long-term position of the Postal Service as a critical element
in our nation’s economic infrastructure,” Rolando said. “In view
of the January report released by the postal Inspector General
that showed that the USPS was overcharged by $75 billion for
postal pension costs, Congress instead should take immediate
steps to correct the error.” |
Postal Service
Outlines 10-Year Plan to Address Declining Revenue, VolumeFacing unprecedented volume declines and a projected, cumulative
$238 billion shortfall during the next decade, Postmaster General
John E. Potter today outlined an aggressive plan of cost cutting,
increased productivity, and an array of legislative and regulatory
changes necessary to maintain a viable United States Postal Service.
Establish a more flexible workforce that is better positioned to
respond to changing demand patterns, as more than 300,000 employees
become eligible to retire in the coming decade. Postal
Service to shed another 30000 jobs |
The U.S. Postal Service will release
projections Tuesday that confirm for the first time the suspicion
that mail volume will never return to pre-recession levels. In response,
the agency is pushing anew for a dramatic reshaping of how Americans
get and send their letters and packages. In an effort to offset
some of the losses, Potter seeks more flexibility in the coming
year to set delivery schedules, prices and labor costs. The changes
could mean an end to Saturday deliveries, longer delivery times
for letters and packages, higher postage-stamp prices that exceed
the rate of inflation, and the potential for future layoffs. Officials
will also seek greater flexibility in forthcoming union negotiations,
including addressing ballooning health-care costs, Potter said.
A
Message From PMG Jack Potter: Envisioning America’s Future Postal
Service|
Previewing the Postal Service's Proposal |
USPS is pushing for a radical reshaping |
USPS OIG: According to a representative
on the Postal Regulatory Commission’s staff, a Postal Service-run
lottery “could offer the potential for substantial profits for the
Postal Service and utilize its current retail infrastructure with
its 36,000 retail outlets.” Popular lottery formats in many states
include drawings and instant lottery tickets. The claim is that
running a national lottery could help the U.S. Postal Service close
its multibillion-dollar budget gap. It could also build foot traffic
to post offices, increasing retail sales of postal products. A lottery
might bring in a lot of revenue, but would it also bring more problems.
|
The Postal Service will add a new feature
(eRetire) to LiteBlue which will provide employees the option of
using self-service to begin the retirement process.
|
People are sending less mail and that's
left the U.S Postal Service with a huge deficit and now employees
are losing their jobs. Some workers injured on the job say they've
become targets. It's the first-ever layoff at the Postal Service.
Although they're technically not calling it a layoff, it's a work
force reduction that specifically targets workers with work-related
injuries.USPS Statement for Response to Media
Inquiries Only Regarding NRP |
The U.S. Postal Service announced at
the January 28th public meeting that the proposed moving of outgoing
mail processing operations from the Jackson Post Office to Memphis
would save $877,000 per year. There is no transparency, no explanation
of exactly how and where these savings can be accomplished.
|
Halline Overby, an annuitant in a retirement
trust fund operated by National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC),
and his wife Paulette Overby brought suit in district court seeking
a declaration that a purported amendment to the trust plan which
would have rendered Paulette Overby ineligible to receive benefits
under the plan as a surviving spouse was not properly adopted and
is therefore inoperative.|
The Postal Service had net income of
$179 million for the month, it revealed in a
report filed yesterday with the Postal Regulatory Commission.
The USPS had more mail volume (9%) and revenue (6%) than budgeted,
but lower expenses (-2%), enabling it to beat its budget by $546
million.USPS'
December - Better But Still on the Precipice |
For 235 years, the U.S. Postal Service
has delivered your mail in snow, rain and dark of night. However,
tough market conditions are creating new challenges for our business.
Misconceptions about the future of our enterprise abound; dispelling
these myths will show that we can continue to deliver the mail.
|
The union won a major victory against
subcontracting Feb. 10, when Arbitrator Shyam Das directed the USPS
to assign Maintenance Craft employees to maintain computers at approximately
8,000 of the nation’s largest associate offices. The arbitrator
also instructed management and the union to discuss the possibility
of assigning additional computer maintenance work at AOs to the
Maintenance Craft.
|
The U.S. Postal Service is installing
Flats Sequencing System machines at a rapid pace but is still overhauling
the schedule for future installations. Only 11 of the massive machines
are up and running, which is about eight months behind the early-2009
schedule for the system that is supposed to revolutionize the handling
of catalogs, magazines, and other flat mail. But another 39 installations
will be complete by the end of July, postal officials said at last
week’s MTAC (Mailers Technical Advisory Committee) meeting. |
Just months after a federal investigation
found managers at the Somersworth Postal Service branch altered
workers' timecards, the New Hampshire chapter of the National Association
of Letter Carriers is calling for an investigation of the Dover
Postal Service branch after a violation was found on a worker's
time sheet. Dan Yianakopolos, the chapter's president, said
while an employee of the Dover Postal Service branch was in the
process of filing a grievance on overtime, the employee came across
a time sheet violation. This prompted the employee to investigate
previous time cards, where he allegedly found additional violations,
said Yianakopolos.
|
It is beginning
to appear as though the U.S. Postal Service has a death wish. Judging
from the customer service policies we've seen in the Florida Keys
recently -- or, more accurately, customer service reductions --
the agency seems hellbent on self-destruction. For instance, the
Postal Service spends a lot of money advertising its convenient
new Priority Mail flat-rate boxes. But where is the convenience
if you have to wait an hour in line to get them?
|
USPS Refuses To Sever Ties With Subcontractor
Debarred for Defrauding Its Workers Of Wages, Benefits-
Last month, newspapers reported a settlement between the Department
of Labor and a USPS subcontractor that exemplifies the problem with
postal subcontracting: After three years of defrauding its workers
of pay and benefits, the contractor, MT Transportation & Logistics
Services, Inc. was ordered to pay employees $1.8 million in back
wages, and was barred from entering into new federal contracts for
three years. The Postal Service’s reaction? Despite the contractor’s
illegal treatment of its workers, current contracts with the disgraced
company will remain in effect, the USPS said.DOL Will Recover $1.8 Million In Back
Wages From USPS Mail Hauling Contractor
|
APWU:
In January, the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W) rose to 633.176, well
below the July 2008 index of 644.303 (upon which the last COLA increase
was based). The CPI-W must rise above 644.303 before another COLA
is due. After the final month of the six-month measuring period,
the seventh COLA under the 2006 National Agreement and the Operating
Services Agreement which would have been effective March 13, 2010
(pay period 07-10, pay date April 2, 2010), will be zero. PR note: Last time Postal Workers
received a COLA was September 19, 2008.|
The U.S. Postal Service could become
insolvent if Congress doesn't approve five-day mail delivery and
change the way the agency funds its retiree health benefits, according
to the agency's top financial official. Managers have already slashed
28 million work hours in fiscal 2010, and they're on pace to cut
93 million in total this year — the equivalent of about 52,000 full-time
employees. Those cuts come on top of the 115 million work hours
that were cut in 2009. The Postal Service doesn't plan any layoffs;
Corbett said those cuts will come through attrition. Corbett said
the Postal Service can't cut many more employees without jeopardizing
six-day universal service. The current full-time workforce is about
599,000, down from 623,000 in 2009.
|
We estimated supervisors did
not comply with Postal Service policies and procedures regarding
unscheduled absences for at least 11,468 employees nationwide. We
identified several causes, including lack of training, supervisors
not using the Enterprise Resource Management System (eRMS) as the
system of record for controlling unscheduled absences, and insufficient
oversight. In addition, Labor Relations indicated they did not have
adequate resources to monitor attendance control. As a result, overtime
was used to cover 17.4 percent of the unscheduled sick leave and
the Postal Service could have saved $4.0 million in overtime costs
by following proper attendance control procedures during the 12-month
audit period....however, opportunities exist to improve oversight
and reduce unscheduled absences. archive:USPS Attendance Control Crackdown 2010
|
Ohio Senator Calls For Investigation
Of Proposed Consolidation Of Postal Facilities in Lima
-
In a letter to the USPS OIG, Senator Sherrod Brown wrote: Over the
past four months, I have raised a number of issues with the United
States Postal Service (USPS) in Ohio about the proposed consolidation
of USPS facilities in Lima. I remain concerned that USPS simply
cannot maintain an adequate level of service if the consolidations
occur, which would only serve to reduce the use of USPS in Ohio.
In addition to a degraded level of service, this consolidation could
displace many workers and their families. Not only could many Postal
Workers be forced to move great distances to preserve their jobs,
but they would leave a social and economic void in the communities
from which they have been uprooted. |
Former Postmaster,
Postal Employee And Mail Owner Indicted in $2.9M Mail Fraud Scheme
- Robert Scott
Gray, president and owner of SG Print & Mail Inc., defrauded the
U.S. Postal Service of $2.9 million by falsely claiming stamps were
used on bulk mailings and concealing documentation of mailings from
the Postal Service to avoid payment, the indictment alleges. Gray
paid Festus Postmaster Teresa Tremusini $20,000, payable in two
cashier’s checks in August 2006, and paid U.S. Postal Service employee
Michael Jones $10,000 cash in January 2007 in return for allowing
the use of fraudulent postal forms, the indictment alleges. |
A previous post, "Is
5-Day Delivery Inevitable?", laid out a potential schedule for
when the Postal Service could implement a switch to 5-day delivery.
As the Postal Service's filing with the Postal Regulatory Commission
is coming in the matter of weeks, this post takes a second look
at likely implementation schedules for stakeholders to think about.
Revised USPS five-day delivery plan keeps branches open, some processing |
Postal Topics
