PostalReporter.com Blog

Priority Mail boxes and envelopes available at Post Offices and online

Washington, DC — Any weight, any state.

That’s the simple message and the simplicity of shipping holiday gifts with a Priority Mail Flat Rate Box.

Ship letters or packages in an average of two to three days with Priority Mail Flat Rate Envelopes and Boxes. For one low rate, ship as much as can be properly secured in a flat rate envelope or box to any U.S. destination. Saturday and residential deliveries at no extra cost.

“If it fits, it will ship,” said Nick Barranca, vice president, product development. “Flat Rate boxes and envelopes take all the guess work out of mailing this holiday season. Customers pay the same price no matter where they’re shipping.”

The Flat Rate Box must close securely and retain its shape when taped with adhesive. The shape of the box can’t be changed or enlarged to fit its contents.

Other shipping options include:

Priority Mail service delivers in two to three business days. The Postal Service also offers flat-rate priority boxes and envelopes. Customers pay one price regardless of weight or destination.

Express Mail service delivers overnight, guaranteed, 365 days a year to most U.S. cities. Express Mail delivery to most major American cities is scheduled for Christmas Day.

Global Priority Mail service is designed for delivery in four to six business days to more than 50 countries. Economical way to send packages weighing up to 4 pounds.

Global Express Mail service is guaranteed to be delivered in three to five days to nearly anywhere in the world. Now available to businesses in the Pacific Rim through an agreement with postal administrations for Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, the United States and the Republic of South Korea.

Global Express Guaranteed is a date-certain service that delivers in one to three days to thousands of destinations in more than 190 countries.

Premium Forwarding Service lets customers take their mail with them. Mail is forwarded weekly to a temporary address for up to a year.

The peak mailing day is expected to be Monday, Dec. 18, when an estimated 280 million cards and letters will be mailed, nearly three times that of an average day.

WIRELESS AMBER ALERT PROGRAM LAUNCHES
Cell phone text alerts now available

If you’re a wireless subscriber, you now can help the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children search for abducted children. A new initiative created jointly by the Center and the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association allows you to receive Wireless AMBER Alert text messages.

AMBER stands for “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response,” and the alerts have been highly successful. By rapidly broadcasting descriptions of abducted children and suspected abductors to millions of Americans, the program increases the chances of finding missing children. More than 240 children have been safely recovered since AMBER Alerts began in 1997.

With nearly 200 million wireless phone users in the country — more than 60% of all Americans — Wireless AMBER Alerts have the potential to dramatically increase the number of people on the lookout for an abducted child.

It’s easy to sign up to receive Wireless Amber Alerts as cell phone text messages. If your wireless phone is activated for text messaging, visit www.wirelessamberalerts.org, or your wireless carrier’s website. Enter your 10-digit wireless phone number and up to five ZIP Codes for which you wish to receive alerts. You will receive only alerts for your specified areas, targeted geographically by the law enforcement agency issuing the particular alert.

 The service is voluntary. There is no charge to sign up and, in most cases, no charge to receive the text message alerts. Check your wireless carrier’s website or customer service office for details of your coverage.

The Postal Service has long been a supporter of AMBER Alert and other child protection programs. With thousands of concerned employees acting as the eyes and ears of their communities nationwide, it’s a natural fit for USPS to partner in this effort. Wireless AMBER Alerts offer another way to assist.

For more information, go to www.wirelessamberalerts.org.

source: U.S. Postal Service - www.usps.com

Postal rates could rise nearly 25% for in-county newspapers in May 2007 if the United States Postal Service has its way, and further annual increases are in store, the National Newspaper Association (NNA) revealed today.

USPS announced this morning that it intends a larger rate hike for local newspapers than for virtually any other mail class, NNA declared. The proposed increase is the highest in more than a decade. The announcement came with the filing of proposed rate increases for all mail, including a 42 cent first-class stamp. Rates would be expected to go into effect around May 2007.

“National Newspaper Association vigorously opposes this increase,” Jerry L. Reppert, NNA president and publisher of the Anna (IL) Gazette-Democrat, said in a statement. “This has to be one of the saddest days in the history of community newspapers and the Postal Service, which has always been one of our strongest partners. USPS seems to be saying our mail is no longer desirable because newspapers are shaped like newspapers and have to be transported in containers that the Postal Service no longer wants to use.

more from Editor and Publisher

(Direct) Rising gas prices will serve as a spurious justification for a postal rate hike in the “high single digits,” (between seven and nine percent, for instance), according to John A. Greco Jr., the DMA’s president and CEO.

It’s a nice cover story, but it’s only part of the reason, at best, Greco continued. When the new recommendations come out, in the next week or two, labor costs and the question of whether the Postal Service will have to cover the military pensions of its workers will have a greater impact on the organization’s fortunes.

Of course, all this is moot if proposed do-not-mail lists are enacted. During a keynote address, Greco noted that while several localities have pitched creating mail opt-out lists, “none have extraordinary legs,” that could realistically result in their being enacted. more from Direct 

By Washington Post Columnist John Kelly - George Orwell would have loved the letter I received recently from Azeezaly S. Jaffer , the U.S. Postal Service’s vice president of public affairs and communications. Azeezaly read my recent column about how tough it’s been to stop the junk mail that keeps coming to my house for my late mother-in-law. Azeezaly wrote: “I had an agreement with your predecessor and that was that I wouldn’t call what falls out of the center section of my Sunday Post ‘junk newspaper’ if he would refer to what he found in his mailbox as advertising mail. Can you and I agree, too?” Oh, let’s agree to disagree, shall we? Washington Post

USPS is offering extended hours on tax day at some locations. Click here to find out if your post office is offering extended hours.

This year your Tax return is considered filed if postmarked by April 17.

If you live in Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, or the District of Columbia April  your tax return must be postmarked by April 18.
In the Columbus Ohio area 9 locations will stay open until midnight for last-minute tax filers on April 17. “Because April 15 falls on a Saturday, the Internal Revenue Service is allowing people to mail income-tax returns on the next business day, said Lue C. Terry, spokeswoman for the Columbus district of the postal service. Some living in the Northeast may mail their tax returns on April 18 because a state holiday in Massachusetts will affect an IRS processing facility there, the IRS said.” Columbus Dispatch

The U.S. Postal Service in Montgomery (Alabama) is prepared to stay open late to accommodate last-minute filers. To offer additional service to customers, the window service at the General Mail Facility, 6701 Winton Blount Blvd., will remain open until 8 p.m. on April 17. Also, mail may be deposited at this location until midnight and still receive the April 17 postmark. Montgomery Advertiser

From KHOU-TV 11 News Staff Reports:

Police were called to the 6600 block of Park Lane in southeast Houston Monday afternoon where a mail carrier was allegedly forced to strip at gunpoint. One suspect waited in a vehicle while two others allegedly approached the male postal worker with a rifle and ordered him to remove all of his clothing. The suspects fled the scene with the man’s clothes after a neighbor saw the confrontation and asked what was going on.  The neighbor called 911 and provided the nude man with some of her husband’s clothes.

 Postal carrier robbed of his clothes in bizarre attack  (see video of carrier

Informational Picket to Protest Reduction of Mail Service - Wednesday, 3/22/06 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
 
For Immediate Release 3/20/6                   

Contact Clint Burelson, President 360-970-2965
 
Statement by Clint Burelson, President
 
The United States Postal Service is reducing service to many communities by consolidating mail canceling and sorting operations into just a few large hubs. The proposal to discontinue canceling mail in Olympia, and to move many mail operations to Tacoma on April 3rd, is part of a larger national restructuring where as many as 250 mail processing facilities may be closed and consolidated. These consolidation plans will benefit the big mailers at the expense of citizens, non-profit organizations, small businesses, and businesses of any size that require fast mail service to and from their customers. 
 
Large advertising based mailers such as AOL Time Warner (People magazine, etc.) plan to benefit from the consolidations by obtaining huge discounts for taking more work away from the USPS.  At the same time, the big mailers want the average citizen and small mailers to receive less service or pay more for the same service. 
 
It is a common understanding that the Postal Service provides first class mail service at the same rates to citizens wherever they live and however far their mail has to travel.  The relatively low cost of mailing a letter to someone in the same town helps to balance the more expensive cost of mailing a letter to the other side of the country.  This type of system makes it affordable for everyone and insures that everyone can correspond equally throughout the United States via the Postal Service. 
 
However, out of public view, large mailers have lobbied and have been successful in securing discounts for their advertising based mailings through “worksharing,” which is what the USPS and large mailers call the process by which mailers perform the functions such as applying barcodes, sorting, and trucking that would otherwise be performed by the Postal Service.   Through “worksharing,” the large mailers pay less than the regular citizen for using the mail.  The “worksharing” discounts have been so large, in excess of the savings to the USPS, that it has caused the Postal Service to have continuous revenue problems and for rates for the small mailers and citizens to rise unnecessarily in order to pay for the discounts to the big mailers. 
 
The large mailers are pushing to pay even less of their fair share of the costs of universal postal service.  In documents submitted to the President’s Commission on the Postal Service, the large mailers indicate that regular citizens should have to pay more or receive reduced service because they are not as efficient as the large mailers in their mailings. 
 
Use Your Voice
The Postal Rate Commission is holding a pre-hearing on March 24th in a case that will determine if the Postal Service plans for a reduction violates the Postal Reorganization Act, which requires that the Postal Service provide prompt service to the public. 
 
Individuals can submit their views on the matter in letters to the Commission (901 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20268), through the use of the “Contact Us” form on the Commission web site and by calling the Commission at 202-789-6800 for by faxing to 202-789-6866.  The docket number is N2006-1 and all the documents can be viewed and/or downloaded at the Postal Rate Commission web site at http://www.prc.gov/
 
Informational Picket
The Olympia Local of the American Postal Workers Union will be holding an informational picket on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm at the Olympia Downtown Post Office located at 900 Jefferson Street in Olympia, Washington.  The informational picket is to protest the Postal Service plans to close and consolidate mail processing facilities across the country and reduce mail service as a result.  The community is invited to join us in our efforts.  Please note that the date is a change from the original date reported.  The date was changed so that union members could pay their respects to Art Anderson, a union brother and good friend whose funeral is on Tuesday.
 
Read Full Press Release
 
See more articles and information on USPS Network Realignment

 DMNews Reports 

The U.S. Postal Service has finalized a new labeling requirement for Bound Printed Matter machinable parcels based on this year’s deployment of upgraded package sorters.

The rule takes effect July 6 but mailers are encouraged to comply as soon as possible. Bound Printed Matter is Package Services mail (typically catalogs, books and other printed material) that weighs up to 15 pounds and meets specific eligibility standards.

Under the rule, published in yesterday’s Federal Register, when a BPM machinable parcel consists of multiple pieces for a single address secured with transparent shrinkwrap

This year, 74 of these APPS next-generation package sorters will be deployed in the postal service’s network. APPS uses optical character and barcode readers to improve distribution productivity. APPS is replacing many of the older-technology small parcel bundle sorters and is driving the need for 100 percent readable and accurate package barcodes.

see information on Automated Package Processing System (APPS)

“MULTICHANNEL MERCHANT has heard from several sources that Santa Fe Springs, CA-based third-party logistics provider APX Logistics will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection before the start of business March 16.

Several sources confirm that the company will also no longer be serving the small parcel/small package business for the U.S. Postal Service. After midnight of March 15, the company will no longer process its small packages/small parcels.

According to its Website, APX Logistics claims to be the USPS’s leading package partner and its largest Parcel Select mailer. It processes more than 250 million packages and manages more than 200,000 truckloads a year. The company employs more than 1,850 workers and has 47 facilities nationwide.