I’m not as down on the USPS as most are. I see a organization that has potential but is so weighed down by bureaucracy that it’s impossible to realize it.
If they go bankrupt, shed the union liabilities and are allowed to create and implement an aggressive business model and compete in an open market, I say yes.
If they are hampered by obscene government mandates and forced to perform mostly unprofitable functions at a loss, then no.
I agree. Too many people are ignoring the realities. The post office isn’t allowed to raise their rates without congressional approval and it was government that mandated the ridiculous funding of pensions.
Then there’s the fact that UPS and Fed Ex have no intent of delivering mail door to door. At the last local meeting I went to, the UPS rep that spoke estimated that letter delivery wouldn’t cost cents, it would cost dollars for door to door delivery.
There are union problems but those are primarily in the cities. Many are wildly overstaffed, people within sight of their post offices still get home delivery and there are too many individual mail carriers.
My local post office is down to 1 full time employee and two part time employees. Our post mistress would be more than happy to end Saturday mail and ditch the part timer they send 70 miles from Detroit to earn overtime for 4 hours every weekend. She says she would also cut the rural delivery to those closest to the post office. She also wants to combine morning and evening delivery to the post office into a single daily route.
Our local post offices are getting screwed on their contracted transportation from the sorting station in Lansing. They’re making 2 and 3 trips per day in a near empty truck to each individual post office in the little towns around here when they should make a single route out of it in a big rig.
Personally I’d cut saturday mail, raise rates, cut home delivery back to reasonable levels, and hand off anything above the local level to UPS and FedEX eliminating postal service sorting centers.