Posted on 12/30/2010 8:20:45 AM PST by jmaroneps37
Last week the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced it had lost a staggering $8.5 billion year. Of course there are many reasons for a loss this big.
Nevertheless, while no single factor could produce such financial disaster, one cause that stands out is the USPS’s,spiraling labor costs.
Fully $5.4 billion of this loss was caused by union pension obligations with another $2.5 billion going to cover workers’ compensation insurance costs. This second figure begs a simple question: Is Postal Service work so dangerous that it takes $2.5 billion to cover Workers Compensation (WC) insurance? This smells like union abuse.
In the coming year the USPS intends to burrow the last $3.5 billion of the $15 billion line of credit it has with the Treasury. When it takes this money, the Postal Service will have exhausted all of its sources of funding and will be bankrupt at this time next year, just in time to be in competition with California and Medicaid for scare bailout dollars.
Some positive steps
The USPS is trying mightily to help itself. In just the past two years it has cut approximately 105,000 full time jobs saving $9 billion. Since this was still not enough, one has to ask just how bloated its workforce is.
Like so many governmental agencies at all levels, the USPS is plagued by union imposed rules and arcane profit killing agreements such as the aforementioned Workers’ compensation insurance costs.
Information developed by a recent Senate hearing provides a glimpse of what the USPS is fighting against. Over 1000 employees (not former employees) who are over 80 years old are receiving WC payments and thus staying on the rolls as active workers!
This option (unknown in private industry) allows these de facto retirees to take a 75% monthly…
More…
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Your comment nails it. Remove the gummint monopoly on letter mail and what there is left of the USPS would either have to adapt and develop a competitive cost structure or would likely be sold off to the private carriers who would integrate with their existing operations.
There is no longer a reason for delivery of mail (and packages) to be a concern of government.
And when you consider that companies like FedEx and UPS provide good-paying jobs, invest heavily in capital equpment and STILL make a profit, it tells you a lot about how inefficient USPS has become.
Get rid of Saturday delivery, reduce the discount for presorted (junk) mail, and raise the price for First Class postage.
Maybe instead of issuing commerative stamps, the USPS should start selling advertising on their stamps.
A $23.00 per hour postal worker will get a direct raise when the federal minimum wage goes up. To their contract, this is not a raise, merely a new baseline.
Write your legislators today demanding that any major piece of legislation presented this year removes this mechanism which crushes the taxpayer. The taxpayer who thinks the raise in the minimum wage is targeted at the single mom who works at McDonalds. It's not at all.
There is one simple and easily understood reason for the loss. The Postal Service is — and always has been — run for the benefit of its employees. All other causes for its financial collapse and the deterioration of its service can be traced to that single factor.
The same can be said of virtually every unionized “public service” union. Teachers, cops, you name it. The racketeering has got to stop.
The stupid postal union goons sealed their fate voting for O. The USPS was on a slow death but the O Depression will kill it off faster.
I had to call a postal office the other day and they were very nice on the phone. Christmas this year they were empty. Last year they were still crowded.
Someone needs to post a picture of the doctor on Star Trek saying “it’s dead Jim.”
Unless the GOP House “bails out” the USPS then they are sunk. You are going to see cities and states in the same situation and Obama will be calling for bail outs.
The liberal news media and ALL of TV will try to demonize the GOP. There is no such thing as a “bail out.”
Why don’t they just end the pension program and transfer the funds to a 401k?
Almost every other sector of industry has done this.
Government workers like to compare themselves to the private sector so let’s treat them like the private sector.
The Post Office has been a prime example of government bloat and mismanagement for decades. Can you imagine what our national healthcare system will be like?
I’d go for that. It’d be a 403b for a non-profit, but it’s the same thing as a 401k. I work at a state university and we’ve had a defined contribution plan for almost 20 years. (My 403b took a big hit in 2008.)
New hires get a defined contribution 403b plan, and the USPS matches employee contributions. The more the employee has deducted from his paycheck, the more the USPS matches.
105,000 jobs for 9B$, that’s about 86k per person for all bennies. The unions got to go.
The problem with the postal service is that it is in the constitution.
The USPS is obligated to deliver mail to every address where it is practical. This means rural areas and areas where no other carrier would find it feasible to deliver.
If you allowed UPS and Fed Ex to deliver first class mail, they would cherry pick the good locations and be able to do it. That would leave the postal service to deliver in the high expense areas.
The answer is stop hiring consultants and crappy supervisors, hire enough people to move the mail faster and more efficiently, and hold the unions to stricter standards.
Anecdotally, our local post office just hired another two supervisors. They also have three existing openings for full time carriers. So, they hire the dopes who do not produce anything, and force the carriers to split up the routes. Now we have carriers delivering mail to routes they do not know (which takes longer) and my mail that used to come at 2PM now comes at 6:30 PM—so my checks cannot get deposited until the next day. Not a big deal, but it was nice to get my banking done before I left for work—I run my own business so cash flow is a concern.
I worked at the post office when I was a kid in college. The folks there are not all deadbeats-as I worked in the corporate world for the next 25 years after that, I found few offices that would compare to their customer service ability. I know they get a bad rap, but in my experience the front line people (on the routes and in the offices) are held back by stupid procedures and policies. And the supervisors will point to their posters about customers service, but they do not know how to deliver it.
In recent years I have had to deal with the PO over issues of items not being delivered. Try getting a refund from them. It took six months and weekly letters to my Congressman, the Postmaster General, and even the White house to get the problem resolved. In the end, it was more of a joke—seeing who I would write to next. The problem was finally resolved—I got paid twice for the lost package. Another example of crappy service.
As it is with most companies, the front line people just want to get their jobs done. The middle management of the post office is made up of idiots who continue to rise to their level of incompetence.
You have heard: “Old postman never die; they just lose their Zip!”
Seriously, not too many years have passed when laws prohibited goverment employees being unionized.
Then the government begin to cave, and made concessions, the unions were allowed in, but they had a no strike clause!
Now what have we got? The government has become an impossible, unaffordable monster.
Now no large or small corporation can continue to exist, when the employees cost far more than their company profits.
Now that I’m retired (as of April 2000) and I’m seventy six +, I have got a live message: “I always paid too much, and sold too cheap!”
“I believe our elected and appointed government people have been doing the same!” (They are just not earning their pay, and that is being a profitless servant)
You have heard: “Old postman never die; they just lose their Zip!”
Seriously, not too many years have passed when laws prohibited goverment employees being unionized.
Then the government begin to cave, and made concessions, the unions were allowed in, but they had a no strike clause!
Now what have we got? The government has become an impossible, unaffordable monster.
Now no large or small corporation can continue to exist, when the employees cost far more than their company profits.
Now that I’m retired (as of April 2000) and I’m seventy six +, I have got a live message: “I always paid too much, and sold too cheap!”
“I believe our elected and appointed government people have been doing the same!” (They are just not earning their pay, and that is being a profitless servant)
The postal service still won't make money but they won't be costing the taxpayers $10.5 billion a year. In fact I bet in most rural towns you could still contract out postal delivery. Leaving just a few outposts of people which would change of costs to me from billions to a few million.
By the way the Constitution granted the government the power to maintain post roads and post offices not the delivery of mail.
I rarely use them anymore. Christmas cards are about it. And the water bill because that the only one I can’t pay online.
Yep, and yesterday I had to pay a ticket I got in Annapolis, MD {making a right turn on red without a complete stop, I think I did, cop said see you in court, $140, Merry Christmas}.
I didn't even have an envelope, but I did have some old stamps that we bought several years ago, called 'FOREVER, FIRST CLASS' regardless of the increase in stamp prices, these things are good FOREVER, or until the Post Office changes the rules.
Even back in 2003, the postal service had 81 "workers" who had been on worker comp for over 40 years, and they
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