PostalReporter.com Blog

On August 2, 2007 at 10 a.m., the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security  will hold a hearing titled: Service Standards at the Postal Service: “Are Customers Getting What They Paid For?”

According to the announcement:

The hearing will examine the implementation of the portion of Title III of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 which calls for the creation of service standards for most postal products. The hearing will also examine a number of issues that could have an impact on the service that the Postal Service provides, including mail processing facility consolidations and contracting out.

 A 10-year employee of the U.S. Postal Service filed a lawsuit Monday accusing the agency of selling the personal information of its workers to credit card and other companies without consent.

Lance McDermott, a mechanic for mail-processing equipment, said in the U.S. District Court complaint that he has been inundated with credit card, cell phone and life insurance offers in the past two years — but that’s not what most troubles him. In some instances, it appears the Postal Service provided the companies with eight-digit employee identification numbers, used for sensitive tasks such as accessing health care records, the complaint said.

McDermott said he was deluged with offers from Visa, Sprint Nextel Corp. and other companies

McDermott’s complaint cited the Postal Service’s April 2005 “Guidelines for Privacy” handbook, which included a section on direct marketing to workers: “Growing revenue is a critical strategy for the Postal Service,” it said, and for that reason, the agency would allow companies to bid for the right to mail promotional offers to Postal Service workers. The offers arrive “cobranded” with the Postal Service’s logo

source: Associated Press

Below is the Press Release from Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro

Copy of Complaint(PDF) | Join the suit

Postal Employees Cry Foul over Alleged USPS Privacy Violations

SEATTLE- Today Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the United States Postal Service (USPS) on behalf of all employees, claiming the Federal government agency has violated terms of the Privacy Act and distributed contact information of its employees to marketing partners.

According to the filed complaint USPS has allowed private businesses, as part of its Strategic Business Initiatives plan, to access and utilize its ‘employee master file’ that contains private information including home addresses of all career and non-career, full and part-time employees.

The complaint states the business initiatives plan allows private corporations to submit bids for co-branding agreements. Under these agreements the USPS logo is branded on various marketing materials and sent to the private residences of USPS employees.

“It appears that USPS is sharing sensitive employee information to a wide range of marketers, hawking everything from cell phones to credit cards,” said Steve Berman, lead attorney and managing partner of HBSS. “Not only do we think this sort of activity is illegal, we think it sets a very bad example as the nation’s second largest employer.”

Specifically Berman cites potential violations of the U.S. Privacy Act, which spells out very strict protections prohibiting employers from sharing employee information within federal agencies.

According to the complaint USPS recognizes that it is subject to the protection requirements of the Privacy Act. The postal service outlines the Privacy Act’s specifications on its Web site and in its handbook. Among those is a mandate to protect the privacy its customers, employees, individuals and suppliers and a requirement not to disclose personal, private information from employee records without the employee’s prior written consent - yet it is still happening.

The plaintiff alleges he has been subject to numerous mailings of these sorts for approximately the past two years and says he was never made aware of the ‘opt-in’ ‘opt-out’ programs which USPS claims are available.

“Our client is outraged that an organization he has dedicated the last 10 years of his life would be so quick to sell his personal information for a quick buck,” said Berman. “We expect a huge outpouring from postal employees throughout the U.S. who have experienced the same thing.”

The USPS is a Federal government agency that delivers mail daily to more than 300 million people at 146 million homes, businesses, and post office boxes throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam, the American Virgin Islands and American Samoa. USPS has an annual operating budget of $73 billion which is generated through sale of postage and money from other business ventures.

This class action suit seeks to recover the amounts which USPS unjustly received through the co-branding agreements and for the use of employees’ private information to be stopped.

source:  Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro 

 PRC Commissioner Goldway discusses changes in the USPS |  Audio (WTOP)

Ruth Goldway, Commissioner of the United States Postal Rate Commission, discusses new changes in the Postal Service, options and special services to help consumers save money, and other important consumer issues associated with mail service in the U.S

Post Office in Waldo, Kansas 67673. Open only from 9:30 a.m. to 11: 30 a.m. Monday-Saturday.

Flickr Photo

(Press Release) Congressman Steve King announced his support for a recently released report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) regarding the process used by the United States Postal Service to identify possible consolidation opportunities within its nationwide network. The report, undertaken at the request of Congress, highlighted several problems with the Postal Service’s Area Mail Processing (AMP) consolidation process. Among the problems, the GAO reported that the Postal Service has failed to adequately engage and communicate with stakeholders in the process, use clear criteria to identify facilities for possible consolidation, accurately project actual savings from the proposed consolidations, and develop a reliable and comprehensive means to determine what effect the proposed consolidations will have on mail delivery.
 
“Since the Postal service first announced the possibility that Sioux City’s mail processing duties might be moved to Sioux Falls, I’ve worked with our Senators to bring the Postal Service’s attention to the problems that we and the Siouxland community have identified with the AMP process. From the lack of meaningful, voluntary dialogue with the public and stakeholders, to a refusal to fully address concerns raised about the costs and degradations in service that could accompany a move to Sioux Falls, the Postal Service has missed several opportunities to make its case for consolidation. And now, with the release of this report, we find that, because of the gaps that exist within its AMP process, the postal service simply did not have the tools necessary to gather the information needed to adequately address our concerns.”
 
“At some point, the Postal Service must have realized the deficiencies of the AMP process on its own. It decided not to move forward with 34 of the 57 consolidations it originally considered. This GAO report has backed-up the concerns that have been long expressed by the Siouxland community.  I think it’s time the Postal Service takes a fresh look at its proposal to move Sioux City’s mail processing facility to Sioux Falls. I look forward to working with the postal service to do so,” said King.

GAO Report: USPS Progress Made in Implementing Mail Processing Realignment Efforts, but Better Integration and Performance Measurement Still Needed 

From eNAPUS Legislative& Political Bulletin

On Wednesday, at a Senate subcommittee hearing that was abbreviated by a small fire in one of the Senate office buildings, NAPUS and other postal employee groups discussed the implementation of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, PL 109-435. Speaking on behalf of the 40,500 members of NAPUS, President Goff focused his comments on the necessity of training and adequate resources for the Postal Service to adjust to the operational and financial challenges required under the new law. Dale indicated that NAPUS and the USPS are currently discussing these issues; however, staffing deficiencies continue to plague the system. NAPUS testimony can be viewed on http://www.napus.org/govrelations/testimony_pdfs/7.25.07.pdf.

Tennessee AMP Study Terminated

APWU News

The APWU has been notified that a proposed consolidation that would have resulted in a mail-processing shift approximately 90 miles across southwest Tennessee will not occur.

“After review, it has been determined that there are currently no significant opportunities to improve efficiency and/or service through consolidation of certain mail processing operations at the Jackson, TN Post Office into the Memphis, TN Processing and Distribution Center,” the Postal Service wrote to the APWU on July 27. [PDF] “Therefore, no significant changes will be made at this time.”

Thirty workers faced transfer or a reduction in hours under the Area Mail Processing study proposal, which was announced in December 2005.

Thirty-six consolidation-feasibility surveys have been terminated or placed on hold since April 2006.

Excerpts from GAO’s Report - 

U.S. POSTAL SERVICE:Progress Made in Implementing Mail Processing Realignment Efforts, but Better Integration and Performance Measurement Still Needed

Several major changes have affected USPS’s mail processing operations, including marketplace changes, declining First-Class Mail volume, increased competition, increased mail processing by mailers, automated operations, and population shifts. These changes have led to excess capacity in USPS’s mail processing network and variations in productivity among plants.

GAO’s 2005 report concluded that USPS’s strategy for realigning its mail processing network lacked clarity, sufficient transparency and accountability, excluded stakeholder input, and lacked performance measures for results. Since then, USPS has developed several initiatives that are at varying stages of development to address these issues and major changes with an overall goal of reducing costs while maintaining service. In 2007, GAO reported that while USPS has made progress in implementing its realignment initiatives, (1) USPS still did not have answers to important questions about how it intended to realign its network, (2) it remains unclear how various USPS initiatives are individually and collectively contributing to achieving its goals, and (3) the area mail processing (AMP) consolidation initiative, to which USPS attributes most of its progress in reducing excess machine capacity, still presents significant issues. These issues include unclear criteria used in selecting potential AMP consolidations, inconsistent data calculations, limited measures of the effects of changes on delivery performance, and a lack of appropriate stakeholder and public input. USPS is developing new policies to address some of these issues. Nevertheless, questions about USPS’s selection criteria continue as USPS has decided not to implement 34 of the 57 potential AMP consolidations it considered in 2005 and 2006 as shown in the table below. With limited data on the effects of changes, USPS cannot consider actual delivery performance in making consolidation decisions or in evaluating results.

GAO reported in 2006 that USPS does not measure and report its delivery performance for most types of mail and that its progress to improve delivery performance information has been slow and inadequate despite numerous USPS and mailer efforts. Postal reform legislation enacted in December 2006 requires USPS to submit a plan to Congress describing its strategy, criteria, and processes for realigning its network and provide performance measures for most types of mail. USPS is preparing its response to these requirements.

GAO made recommendations to USPS to enhance the planning, accountability, and public communications related to its realignment efforts and to improve its delivery performance measures. USPS’s response to the statutory requirements enacted in December 2006 is an opportunity to address GAO’s recommendations.

see full GAO report (PDF)

APWU News

The USPS “has begun to travel resolutely down the road of privatization,” APWU President William Burrus told a Senate subcommittee on July 25, “without authorization from Congress” — or the American people. The subcontracting of postal work, he warned, “is just one aspect of a dangerous trend: the wholesale conversion of a vital public service to one performed privately for profit.”

Burrus called on the Senate to act. “On the critical issue of privatization of the United States Postal Service,” he said, “it is imperative that Congress take a stand and insist on its right — its responsibility — to set public policy.”

“For more than a decade,” Burrus told the subcommittee, “virtually all of the legislative focus on the United States Postal Service was based on the belief that absent radical reform, this great institution faced imminent demise.” Because the APWU viewed the postal reform drive as “a veiled attempt to undermine collective bargaining,” the union did not support the legislation, Burrus said. “However, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act has become law, and we promise to lend our best effort to making it work.”

But some proponents of the law are now active behind the scenes, “on the unfinished business of the reform mania — the subcontracting of postal services,” Burrus told the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security.

In testimony [PDF] before the panel, he shared the words of a mailing-industry spokesman who was quoted in the Washington Post on July 7: “In the not too distant future, the Postal Service could evolve into something which could be called the master contractor, where it maintains its government identity, but all the services would be performed by private contractors.” (more…)

This unique mailbox was discovered in Westborough, MA.