PostalReporter.com Blog

Remembrance, a benefit concert for the families of the victims of the Goleta postal shootings will be held Saturday, April 29, 7:30 p.m., at the Santa Barbara, Calif. Junior High School’s Marjorie Luke Theatre. Scheduled to perform are Crosby Loggins [son of singer Kenny Loggins] & his band the Leadbirds, The Lonely Forest, and Jade Redd. Call 963-0761 for tickets. For more information on ARIA Global and te concert, see ariaglobal.org

Also, according to Daily Nexus Online: 

Proceeds from the ticket sales will be split equally between the families of 54-year-old Beverly Graham, 44-year-old Charlotte Colton, 37-year-old Ze Fairchild, 58-year-old Dexter Shannon, 42-year-old Nicola Grant, 52-year-old Guadalupe Schwartz and 28-year-old Maleka Higgins.

The Lonely Forest is also giving all proceeds from purchased internet downloads of their single “Now On To Other News” to the victims’ families.

U.S. Postal Service spokesperson Richard Maher said the Postal Service is not directly involved in organizing the event, but many representatives are attending. He said the event means a great deal to the postal workers, especially those who knew the victims of the shooting.

“We really appreciate the community standing behind the families of our coworkers who were killed in this tragedy,” Maher said. “The communities of Goleta and Santa Barbara are really pulling together.”

(Direct) More than six billion credit card offers were mailed to U.S. consumers in 2005, up 16% from 2004, according to Mail Monitor, the direct mail offer tracking service from Synovate. American Express was the primary factor in this increase as the company increased its direct mail credit card solicitation volume by 56% over 2004, but still received responses rates well below the industry’s 2005 average of 0.3%, according to Synovate. more from Direct

(DMNews) “Business mailers are becoming less interested in working with the U.S. Postal Service on negotiated service agreements because a recent landmark case is taking too long to be completed, a USPS official said last week. A Postal Rate Commission spokesman, however, said the PRC just wants to get the deal right.”

“The length of time that is being consumed by the Bookspan case is having a direct effect on other customers’ willingness or ability to engage in NSA discussions,” said Mike Plunkett, USPS manager of pricing strategy. “We’ve had a number of Standard Mail customer discussions stall, and I believe strongly that some of those will never revive.”

“Last month, the postal service also filed with the PRC for its first NSA based on encouraging a mailer to use more First Class mail. The USPS sought a three-year agreement with Washington Mutual Bank covering First Class Mail for the bank’s credit card services.” more from DMNews

(Press Release) Before Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast, the Postal Service’s New Orleans Processing and Distribution Center was inundated with 6 million to 8 million letters each day. Katrina inundated it with 14 million gallons of water, destroying every critical building system.

On Friday, April 28, 2006 at 10 a.m. the U.S. Postal Service will officially re-open its New Orleans plant, the primary mail-processing facility for mail to and from Louisiana. The reopening of the New Orleans facility is the latest in a long list of actions the Postal Service undertook to keep the mail moving following one of the worst natural disasters in our nation’s history, including setting up a New Orleans Post Office and a temporary ZIP Code for evacuees sheltered at the Houston Astrodome and placing trailers outside destroyed post offices to enable people to get their mail.

Re-Opening Ceremony:
    Confirmed Speakers:
    *  John E. Potter, Postmaster General and CEO of the U.S. Postal Service
    *  Patrick R. Donahoe, Deputy Postmaster General and Chief Operating Officer

SOURCE U.S. Postal Service 4/26/06

Updated Press Release: Re-opening Ceremony of the USPS New Orleans Processing and Distribution Center (4/27/06)

House Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., is asking the U.S. Postal Service to hold off on its next rate increase until issues surrounding postal overhaul legislation are smoothed out.

In a letter this month to Postal Service Board of Governors’ Chairman James Miller, Davis wrote that “It would be prudent to delay filing for the next rate increase” until overhaul legislation awaiting conference “is closer to resolution.” A similar letter was also sent from the chairman of the Mailing Industry CEO Council, a nonprofit group that focuses on mailing issues.

Postal Service spokesman Gerry McKiernan said he expects the next rate case will be announced by “early May,” which might coincide with the agency’s next Board of Governors meeting, scheduled for May 2 and 3.

more from Government Executive Magzine  

 The U.S. Supreme Court handed down this decision today (April 26) in a case that involves the Postal Service.  A 20-year fight with the U.S. Postal Service ended for an executive when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he cannot continue a retaliation lawsuit against five postal inspectors. Here is a short brief of the case:

HARTMAN v. MOORE (No. 04-1495)
388 F. 3d 871, reversed and remanded.

“Seeking to convince the United States Postal Service to incorporate multiline optical scanning technology, a company (REI), which manufactured multiline optical readers, commenced an extensive lobbying and public-relations campaign. In the end, the Postal Service begrudgingly embraced the multiline technology, but awarded the lucrative equipment contract to a competing firm. Subsequently, Postal Service inspectors investigated REI and its chief executive, respondent Moore, for their alleged involvement in a consulting-firm kickback scandal and for their alleged improper role in the search for a new Postmaster General. Urged at least in part by the inspectors to bring criminal charges, a federal prosecutor tried REI and its top officials. But, finding a complete lack of evidence connecting them to any wrongdoing, the District Court acquitted the defendants. Moore then filed an action under Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 , against the federal prosecutor and petitioner postal inspectors, arguing, as relevant here, that they had engineered the prosecution in retaliation for his lobbying efforts. The claims against the prosecutor were dismissed in accordance with the absolute immunity for prosecutorial judgment. Ultimately, the entire suit was dismissed, but the Court of Appeals reinstated the retaliatory-prosecution claim against the inspectors. Back in District Court, the inspectors moved for summary judgment, claiming that because the underlying criminal charges were supported by probable cause they were entitled to qualified immunity. The District Court denied the motion, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-1495.ZS.html

From Postal Reporter reader,  RE: Mail Delivery on Sunday due to Religious Reasons?? (4/24/06) “postal deliveries have been moved from Saturdays to Sundays in Collegedale, Tenn., because many residents are Seventh-day Adventists.”

When my parents lived in Loma Linda, CA many years ago, I learned that mail delivery there was Sunday through Friday for the entire town.  Loma Linda University and its Medical Center, Seventh-Day Adventist institutions, are located there.  Loma Linda was one of four cities (five now?) where there are so many Adventists that mail is delivered on Sundays, not Saturdays, their day of worship.

For more than a century after the founding of our country, mail delivery was SEVEN days per week.  Our founding fathers did not observe the Sabbath!  About the time of World War 1, Sunday became a half-day of work.  By World War 2 Sunday work was eliminated.  Religious organizations lobbied for this change as a way to boost church attendance.

- DCC

The very federal employees charged with protecting workers [note: including postal workers] against unfair labor practices are embroiled in a labor dispute of their own. Attorneys at the National Labor Relations Board, and independent agency in Washington, are contemplating filing an unfair labor practice grievance on their own behalf over their agency’s handling of benefits negotiated in the union’s last contract, said Leslie Rossen, president of the NLRB Professional Association. The association is angered by:

– cutbacks in the number and location of detail assignments 

 – short-term positions at NLRB offices around the country

– as well cuts to performance awards offered to attorneys.

The NLRB is a Federal agency that administers the National Labor Relations Act by:
- conducting elections to determine whether or not employees want union representation;
- investigating and remedying unfair labor practices by employers and unions (including postal unions)

more from Govexec.com

Related link:

 Higher Court Calls Bush NLRB Out on a Bad Decision
 A federal appeals court recently joined the growing chorus of critics of the National Labor Relations Board’s Republican majority. The Seventh Circuit Court issued a harsh assessment of the Board last month when they ruled to overturn its finding that an employer’s partial lockout of pro-union workers was legal. The decision wasn’t handed down by “liberal activist judges,” as you might have expected. Rather, a trio of Republican-appointed judges denounced the Bush Board. Public scrutiny over the policies of the Bush administration is at an all-time high, but the extreme decisions and willingness of the Board to undermine workers’ basic legal protections are still under the radar. Now that Republican-appointed federal judges have sharply rebuked the views of the Bush Board, will more eyes be on the NLRB? American Rights at Work (11/21/05)

APWU News Bulletin  - The APWU filed a complaint in U.S. District Court on April 21, charging that the Postal Service violated the Postal Reorganization Act in implementing its “network realignment” plan, known as Evolutionary Network Development (END). The complaint seeks a judgment that management violated the 1970 law, as well as an injunction against future violations.

The court filing alleges that the Postal Service violated Section 3661 of the Postal Reorganization Act, which requires the USPS to seek an advisory opinion from the Postal Rate Commission (PRC) “within a reasonable time prior to the effective date” of a proposal that would change the nature of postal services on a “nationwide or substantially nationwide basis.” See APWU Requests in Court Case (more…)

(Hueytown, Alabama - Associated Press) - A chemical used to make artificial fishing lures leaked from a flimsy package at a post office and sent about 20 postal workers to a hospital Tuesday after some experienced breathing problems, authorities said.

The noxious yellow liquid was so highly concentrated that it damaged the tile floor when it spilled, Police Chief Doug McBee said

Six postal workers had trouble breathing and were taken to UAB Medical West in nearby Bessemer for treatment and decontamination. More than a dozen others were taken to the hospital as a precaution, postal officials said.

The source of the package was not immediately confirmed.

“The hazardous materials people say it’s fish bait, but we want to make sure our employees are safe,” said Larry Dingman, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service in Memphis, Tenn.

The single-story brick post office, located a few miles west of Birmingham, was evacuated.