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Posted on 08/11/2011 4:16:22 PM PDT by tobyhill
The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is considering cutting as many as 120,000 jobs.
Facing a second year of losses totaling $8 billion or more, the agency also wants to pull its workers out of the retirement and health benefits plans covering federal workers and set up its own benefit systems.
Congressional approval would be needed for either step, and both could be expected to face severe opposition from postal unions which have contracts that ban layoffs.
The post office has cut 110,000 jobs over the last four years and is currently engaged in eliminating 7,500 administrative staff. In its 2010 annual report, the agency said it had 583,908 career employees.
The loss of mail to the Internet and the decline in advertising caused by the recession have rocked the agency.
Postal officials have said they will be unable to make a $5.5 billion payment to cover future employee health care costs due Sept. 30. It is the only federal agency required to make such a payment but, because of the complex way government finances are counted, eliminating it would make the federal budget deficit appear $5.5 billion larger.
If Congress doesn't act and current losses continue, the post office will be unable to make that payment at the end of September because it will have reached its borrowing limit and simply won't have the cash to do so, the agency said earlier.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I’m sure there is plenty of room for them all at the IRS.
Maybe they should apply at FED EX or UPS.
The obvious move is to convert their retirement pensions into soc. Sec. It will be interesting to see how many will be forcd into temp positions. I haul mail on contract. The unions have destroyed the post office.
Orderlies at places like Bellevue?
These (soon to be) fired 120,000 postal employees — the work “workers” doesn’t seem to fit, somehow unless you’re a dedicated Marxist — should count themselves fortunate as they may well be the first fired wave of federal employees and thus will have a better chance of finding employment than will future tsunamis of cashiered sinecures at Fannie, Freddy, the Departments of Education, EPA, etc.
And yet, I can’t see much future for someone who takes five minutes to transact the sale of a book of stamps
But no! I did just the four years in the military (US Marine Corps) and have spent the rest of my life working in the dreaded private sector. All I'm going to get when I retire - if I retire - is whatever is left of my 401(k) after the stock markets finish crashing.
I also have some compact discs of music I mostly don't listen to anymore and a dog who needs walking at least twice a day as well as a wife who keeps reminding me to paint the shed and mow the grass.
I used to envy the mailman....the guy who delivers the mail. Seems all he had to do all day was walk up and down the streets delivering the mail. I used to like delivering newspapers when I was but a boy. Imagine getting paid much bigger money as an adult for doing pretty much the same thing? But now, they drive around in those little white and blue trucks with the steering wheel on the wrong side. And if you don't shovel your driveway...I mean SCULPT your driveway so that the little mail truck has perfect access to your mailbox, you don't get the mail! Far cry from the days where the mailman would deliver your stuff through rain, sleet, hail and vicious dogs.
Anyway, I'm thinking of running for president. Yes, I think I should be the next president of the United States. That would get me a good pension and I'd also be able to fix some things. For starters, I would deport about 15 million illegal aliens and I would completely end the welfare and food stamp program. Please, elect me to office so I can do those things and MORE.
I feel for the letter carriers. It’s the mid level people I have problems with. I can’t get a periodical permit for the Catholic Cathedral Bulletin in my home town. It is caught up in red tape in New York. Sorry mess.
The federal government is tasked with “establishing post offices”. Well, it did that. And quite well. It does not say the federal government need do anything more than establish them (ie, no need to run them). Let them sink or swim.
“...expected to face severe opposition from postal unions which have contracts that ban layoffs.”
And if there is no more money, then what? The cushy retirement pay for rural letter carriers should definitely be cut back.
At least it is a start... no bailout... fire the fat... ban the union and deliver the damn mail.
LLS
Apparently Darrell Issa called them out on it, but they refuse to pull the ads. article here.
I'm sure the amount spent on pointless and false advertising could have gone a long way toward helping those who will lose their jobs retrain for employment in the real world.
good riddance.
Not to defend the excesses and extent of the bureaucracy built around the PO, but at least there’s a Constitutional mandate for it, unlike most of what the Feds do in the name of the “general welfare”...
I read an article a few years ago there was a post office in a rural area of the country where the only two people who received mail from it were the Post Master and his wife.
!
Never happen. They would actually have to work at those places.
Insanity.
Cut the salaries of all postal workers 50% and there would be thousands standing in line for these jobs.
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