Posted on 08/07/2011 6:15:39 AM PDT by maggief
A large majority of post offices that have been targeted for closure are in Republican districts.
More than 2,500 of these post offices are in GOP districts while about 1,000 are in districts represented by Democrats, according to a review by The Hill. There were fewer than 100 stores where the district could not be determined because the zip code is represented by lawmakers in both parties.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has stressed that politics played no role in determining which sites to shutter, noting that it adhered to a strict methodology for choosing them. The USPS used a computer program to select the offices on a range of factors, including revenue and workload.
The closures would save about $200 million annually for the ailing USPS, which has urged the end of its Saturday service.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Thar's not ‘saving on energy’ - not very ‘green’ of them.
At the same time - how much money does the gov't want to spend to get Internet cable out to the rural folk? (Of course, they could then monitor their activities, contacts, etc...which snail mail use doesn't provide. (see my tag line)
Direct floor supervision over distribution clerks has lightened up considerably with the advent of extensive automation and computerization.
So, what are you talking about? Start giving me job classification numbers.
Typically when these little offices are shut down the delivery burden is shifted to rural letter carriers ~ most of whom are already traveling by your home or place of business. Or, you could be added to a NCDBU or comparable situation.
Why that would change the miles driven to get your mail is a good question. Please 'splain.
The older system (CSRS) was a defined benefit plan.
Hmm ~ make who do what? Your typical apartment dweller in this country gets his mail from a bank of boxes to which he must walk.
They'll call you a commie agitator, but maybe you got a new idea eh!
Now, about cluster boxes ~ you'll still see letter carriers out there ~ the only savings is a short amount of travel time ~ a very small amount.
Got your numbers handy?
Rural Route delivery service is a 20th century development made possible by gravel roads and trucks!
Must be the Tea Party’s fault..../s
The other show that talks about things around the house said to lay soaker hoses a few inches from your foundation to keep it from cracking.
Direct floor supervision over distribution clerks has lightened up considerably with the advent of extensive automation and computerization.
Two things there....automation should have reduced the overall numbers of employees, yes or no.
As far as first line supervisor, I am not going to dispute your numbers, which are probably correct, however, I think one has to look at the entire administrative structure per carrier. IMO, delivering mail is not rocket science and why there is a huge bureauracy concerns me. Here are some comparison numbers from Poatal Magazine:
USPS EMPLOYEE STATISTICS FROM 2000 - 2010
2000 2010 -/+ Percentage
USPS Headquarters 2279 2924 +28%
Inspector General 664 1151 +73%
USPS HEADQUARTERS TOTALS 2943 4075 +38.46%
USPS Field Support / Inspection Service (Field) 9756 7173 -26%
USPS FIELD TOTALS 9756 7173 -26.47%
Postmasters (Installation Heads) 26121 23324 -11%
Supervisors / Managers 38797 27848 -28%
USPS SUPERVISORY TOTALS 64918 51172 -21.17%
Tech Personal 9959 5907 -41%
Clerks / Nurses 282147 161607 -43%
Mail Handlers 60851 49674 -18%
City Carriers 241079 197105 -18%
Motor Vehicle 9347 7614 -19%
Rural Carriers 57111 67434 +18%
Maintenance 42284 37513 -11%
Vehicle Maintenance 5546 4977 -12%
USPS CRAFT EMPLOYEES TOTALS 708324 531831 -24.91%
USPS is probably a bit more computerized than most people imagine, or can imagine.
Headquarters grew mostly through shutting down field management units such as regional headquarters, Districts, MSCs and a wide variety of other management type operations.
The net number of "executives" and specialists in that top layer is thinner now than at any time in USPS or Post Office Department history.
USPS has its own economists, CPAs, lawyers (to bring suit against people who don't pay or who fail to properly haul mail ~ that's all private contracts BTW ~ or to aid DOJ lawyers in putting away bad guys).
The Inspector General, that looks like a budding growth industry, carved a chunk out of other management type structures including the Postal Inspection Service. It's a mix of cops and analysts for the most part ~ got to know an awful lot of them simply by being one of the world's foremost experts in mailing practices).
My primary area for many years was in the field of Classification (pricing and collections for you folks in the private sector) ~ we went from having about 1300 people available to us in 1978 to about 347 in 2004. A lot of that reduction was made possible through automation, mechanization, computerization and robotics.
Excess personnel position were transferred to other jobs closer to the primary mission ~ moving the mail.
For most of the period you were looking at the number of mail pieces handled per person increased substantially, denoting massive productivity increases, and the density of supervisory personnel of any kind decreased substantially throughout the system.
During the current downturn field supervisory positions have been cut like there's no tomorrow. Some guy retires his job is gone.
What I hear about Headquarters you don't want to know but it's brutal!
Well, I am glad to hear the postal service has joined the rest of the country in flatening out its organizational structure. I had a chance some years ago admitedly to view a district office structure and was startled by the sea of white shirts doing very little. Perhaps my perception is clouded by that eye opener.
Perhaps the postal service is losing money due to its legacy committments, I don’t know enough about their cost structure to know that and if so then things seem to be running fine now...if not and the legacy costs are just adding to a problem, then it is time for a change. What I do know though is a service company should not look at cutting services as a means to improve its cost structure. Something is lacking in an equation where that is the only variable.
Guys responsible for making sure mailers give it up to the tune of a billion bucks a year are, of course, quiet and don't move around much!
Even quieter is the preparation of new procedures (regulations) to be followed to accept mail, enter mail, pay for mail, do this, do that, sign this, sign that, use forms in such and such a manner, and finally the quietest activity of all ~ designing a new form.
I did over 1,000 new forms over the course of several decades (that includes major revisions to existing forms as well as the creation of entirely new forms). ALL of my work made it easier for you to do business with the Postal Service, and some of them even saved USPS millions of dollars.
If you'd seen me working I'd been bent over my desk screwing around with a pencil (or later, a MacIntosh computer). Occasionally I'd twitch or something, or pass gas.
USPS is also losing money because Office of Personnel Management collects deposits for the federal employee retirement system (which covers USPS employees) at a HIGHER RATE than for other federal agencies.
Currently the government has overcharged USPS about $78 billion. That money is being used by Obama and Geithner to pay off Chicago politicians and foreign bankers.
What else you need to know?
Hey, doesn't look like USPS is doing so bad. It's $8 billion in arrears but is due about $108 billion by the creditor demanding payment.
Ain't bad at all ~
I also thought the one we used was closing - it’s the one closest to Boehner’s home and employees there told my wife they thought they were on the list. Checked it at:
http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/expandedaccess/statelist.htm
Found 45069 was not on the list - which actually looks like it may have some reasonable basis.
That being said, there is likely much more the USPS can do to be more efficient. Our mail is delivered from a post office 14.5 miles away based on our assigned ZIP code, while there are two different zip code post offices within 6.5 miles.
The people I saw at the district office were not doing anything except batting their gums and having coffee. I am not talking of worker bees, I am talking of honchos who were putting in time and to me not much more.
Maybe it was an anomoly but my personal experience with government staff work was the offices were over staffed and lost sight of what they were doing as in supporting operations. Having been one of those worker bees, not in the USPS, I know first hand about the amount of work that is done by them. Some of it unfortunately is process oriented work which adds no value except to bureaucrats. I lasted about 2 years doing such until I found meaningful work away from SOG. Perhaps I should not paint an entire picture based on a personal snapshot and I will leave it at that.
USPS has had an interesting track record with regard to what are called District Office operations. Sometimes they have hundreds of the things and other times dozens. You might well have caught them just as they were being abolished ~ I know that when that happens most people just stop doing whatever it was they had been doing.
HEHEHEHEHE! You can still buy stamps and mail your letter from there though.
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