A Basic and Fundamental Service ‘Provided To and Supported By the People’ by APWU President William Burrus in the May/June 2006 of American Postal Worker Magazine

The glaring absence of any representatives of “the people” is evidence of the transformation of the U.S. Postal Service from the constitutionally required service to the people into a service catering to commercial entities. Postal management has aided the transition to a service that is simply a delivery arm of major mailers, and in so doing has rejected any semblance of balance between services to individual citizens and to the business community.

USPS headquarters at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, DC, has become a cesspool of industry officials under contract or in a lobbying capacity who influence the decisions of a service constitutionally intended to serve the people

As the founding fathers deliberated over the precise wording of the constitution of the new nation, they fully appreciated the importance of communication to a developing country, and determined that the establishment of the post office and postal roads were of paramount importance.

Management has shifted the focus, replacing service “to the people” with service “to the business community.”

Article 1, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution says that Congress “shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States … and to establish post offices and post roads.” In the exercise of this responsibility, one of the nation’s first congressional acts was to pass legislation setting forth the purpose and scope of the nation’s mail system.

The Postal Reorganization Act of 1971 preserved this vision, providing that, “The United States Post Office shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people.”

These are the constitutional and legal underpinnings of the service now known as the United States Postal Service. The clear constitutional intent was that the government would provide postal services “to the people” that would be supported “by the people.”

‘To the Business Community’

In direct contradiction to the clear intent of the U.S. Constitution and later laws, postal management has now shifted the focus and purpose of postal services, replacing service “to the people” with service “to the business community.”

This transformation has led to the distortion reflected on the cover of this issue of The American Postal Worker, where corporate CEOs decide the future of the USPS network while ordinary citizens are excluded. Decisions, including network redesign and plant consolidations, are not based on their impact on the people, but on their effect on the large mailers.

The objectives of large mailers have been adopted by the top ranks of USPS management as their own. Representatives of the “mailing industry” have been provided access to the internal functioning and strategies of a government service that was originally intended to serve the people. This business model — shaping the Postal Service based on the needs and objectives of large mailers — has, by its design, excluded “the people” for whom the service was originally intended.

Through the creation of organizations that are closed to the general public and their representatives, large mailers act in concert with postal management to develop processes and plans to reconfigure the Postal Service to better serve their corporate interest.

Charter Activities

Membership in these postal organizations is restricted to “ CEO-level ” representatives, with no ordinary citizens — or their representatives — allowed. A typical charter calls for a postal council to “determine the best methods to meet evolving consumer needs, enhance the capabilities of the mail product to compliment and compete effectively with other communication methods, and identify new learnings and opportunities relevant to all aspects of the mailing industry.” [Emphasis added.]

These corporate tycoons have co-opted postal management, resulting in the conversion of a government service into an ally of the hard-copy mailing industry — to the disadvantage of citizens and small businesses. In the process, the major mailers gain an advantage over competitors who offer advertising through other means.

Try to imagine the newspaper or broadcast industries having the opportunity to exercise extensive influence over the decisions of a national governmental publishing agency; imagine how that would enhance their competitive position: Imagine the government having exclusive newspaper-publication rights (similar to the private express statutes) and the advertising companies being granted a seat at the table at which decisions are being made on specific commercial interests.

In the mail-processing world, these moguls of the private sector whose primary responsibilities are to generate profits for their companies are making core postal decisions and dictating the future of the U.S. Postal Service. Even though their products dominate the package industry, these business executives would not dare suggest that they should play a similar role at FedEx or UPS, where they are excluded from the decision-making process.

Advertising mailers use the Postal Service to effectuate delivery of commercial messages, but, because of the USPS’ governmental status, they avoid paying the taxes on postal services that are levied by private advertising media. When businesses advertise on TV, radio, or in newspapers, in addition to the hefty fees for air time or print space, they must pay taxes. FedEx and UPS collect taxes on the services they offer, but the USPS is tax-free. This is just one more benefit mailing industry moguls enjoy, courtesy of the USPS.

A Who’s Who in Influence

A listing of the participants in postal-industry “councils” reflects the influence of the large mailers on USPS-related decisions. The participants and their activities include:

Mailers Technical Advisory Committee: “A joint effort between mailers and the U.S. Postal Service to share technical information, advice, and recommendations on matters concerning mail-related products and services in order to enhance customer value and expand the use of these products and services for mutual benefit.”

Mailing Industry Task Force: The stated purpose includes “fostering a close working relationship between the Postal Service and business mailers.”

Postal Customer Council: The stated purpose is to “improve communications between U.S. Postal Service customers and managers.”

Participants in these councils include representatives of the Major Mailers Association, the National Association of Presort Mailers, Presort Services Inc., Advance Presort Services Inc., the Association of National Advertisers, the Direct Marketing Association, the Parcel Shippers Association, the Magazine Publishers of America, the National Newspaper Association, the Newspaper Association of America, McGraw-Hill Companies, Time Inc., Reader’s Digest Inc., Washington Post-Newsweek Inc., Pitney Bowes, Quebecor World Logistics, RJ Reynolds Tobacco, RR Donnelley, the American Bankers Association, MBNA American Bank, Sprint, Southwest Airlines, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers.

The glaring absence of any representatives of “the people” is evidence of the transformation of the U.S. Postal Service from the constitutionally required service to the people into a service catering to commercial entities. Postal management has aided the transition to a service that is simply a delivery arm of major mailers, and in so doing has rejected any semblance of balance between services to individual citizens and to the business community.

USPS headquarters at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, DC, has become a cesspool of industry officials under contract or in a lobbying capacity who influence the decisions of a service constitutionally intended to serve the people.

Balance of Interests

The current network-redesign scheme is but one example of the business community determining the nature of the postal network — changing it to one that will serve their interest as opposed to serving the nation.

In their view, this network should be limited to what is necessary to perform the services needed for the delivery of their mail. An example is the fact that they do not use USPS collection boxes, so they rejected the costs associated with collections as too great a burden. Lo and behold, the number of collection boxes was drastically reduced across the country.

The USPS network realignment plan focuses in major part on reducing the number of facilities that process outgoing mail, because large mailers now print, presort, and transport large parts of their mailings to points of destination. Outgoing processing within certain geographical limits does not serve their interest, therefore, but adds to their cost. The major mailers and the USPS are unconcerned that the realignment they are proposing will add a day — or two or three — to delivery of mortgage payments, utility bills and birthday cards.

With 96 percent of all postal volume being business related (business to business; business to customer; and customer to business), large mailers have a legitimate interest in postal costs. But their interest must be balanced against the interest of “the people” for whom the postal system was designed. If the frequency of mail collections is under review, the needs of the public must be considered, and representatives of the public must be allowed to voice their views. Instead, only groups of self-interested entrepreneurs have been given the opportunity for input.

Something has gone terribly wrong: A public service has been converted into a service for a small sector of the business world. This was not the intent of the framers of the Constitution and it was not recorded as the purpose when Congress established government-sponsored postal services. The American public must be made aware that service to the public has been hijacked by the commercial mailers.

Over the coming months, the American Postal Workers Union will work to spread the truth about this takeover of postal services, and congressional representatives will be held accountable for their response. We shall need your involvement within your community. The Postal Service was created for the people. It is up to us to take it back to the people. http://www.apwu.org/

Related link: Who Pulls the Strings at the Postal Service