Posted on 12/22/2012 3:42:05 PM PST by traumer
Despite most of Congress leaving town for the holidays, postal workers are continuing a hunger strike protesting legislation to save the United States Postal Service (USPS) through budget cuts.
The hunger strike began Tuesday and is expected to end late Saturday, according to The Washington Post.
Six former and current postal workers, part of a group called Communities and Postal Workers United, are calling the strike “six days starving to save six-day delivery.” Their goal is to stop Congress from reducing postal delivery to five days a week. “We have to be on guard, to raise awareness and pressure the decision-makers as they wrangle back-room deals,” group spokesman Jamie Partridge, a retired letter carrier from Portland, said in a statement.
The same small, grassroots group staged a hunger strike in June to protest legislation proposed to overhaul the service.
The agency lost $16 billion in fiscal year 2012, and needs to cut around $22.5 billion from its annual budget by 2016.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Counterpoint for your shameless promotion of the USPS:
The Post Office is on track to lose what, $6B this year, with the taxpayers on the hook when the Post Office defaults on its loans. This is not true of UPS or Fedex, which do not survive on taxpayer loans.
In my experience, international mail through the USPS is a horror. Long ago I learned from having critical documents disappear into the void that USPS is grossly unreliable. In fact, it is impossible to track your letter through to its destination with the USPS! I send dozens of documents every week internationally via Fedex, and have done so for years. Only ONCE did a document go missing with Fedex in all that time, and from their tracking they were able to pinpoint the exact driver (in France) who was culpable.
USPS is a dismal failure and an anachronism and needs to be permanently weaned from the government teat. If they collapse, so be it.
Ha, Ha, Ha.......... if they quit eating, more for me.
The postal system must adapt, change to accommodate the fact mail is mostly obsolete. The problem is that there are parts of the population that still depend on the mail.
It would seem a better course would be to demonstrate at the White House demanding that all government funds dispersements to the people be made by paper check transmitted by the US Mail
The USPS is a disfunctional POS of an organization!
At my last company, we are in a skyscraper, and the building had a mailroom down on the first floor. We ordered quite a bit of computer equipment, and at some point we would order equipment and it simply wouldn’t arrive. The mailroom was inaccessible except to the mailman, but one of my employees stuck his arm through the mailbox with a camera and videotaped the mailman sleeping in the mailroom, and with a couple of the very unique-looking equipment boxes stashed in the corner, beside his chair. Mind you, this is after the USPS claimed they could not locate the boxes.
I reported this to the local Postmaster, who called me and informed me that due to this gentleman’s age and race, he could not open a complaint against him or reprimand him, as the offender was close to retirement and had already opened a racial discrimination case against the Post Office. The Postmaster said they would get someone else to handle our mail so it didn’t happen again.
True story. In a private company, that guy would have been FIRED ON THE SPOT and probably criminally prosecuted! Only in a worthless, union-controlled organization like USPS can all the lazy Newmans and other hangers on survive.
A pox on them all.
Haha, your paper check for EBT is an excellent suggestion!
Amazon shipped my package by mail on 28 November and it hasn’t arrived yet
Strictly for printed materials (books for those in Rio Vista)
Your ignorance is blinding. I’ve been a city letter carrier for 22 years, will not be eligible to retire until age 65. I am 49 years old . You do the math.
Civil Service Retirement Plan was ended in 1983. All other employees are under the Federal Employees Retirement System. FERS is a 401, with one exception; employers matching 1% went out the window 3 years ago. my retirement is what I contribute plus whatever interest it earns; as of my year-end statement, it stands at 2.11%.
As for taxpayers being our servants, the USPS doesn’t use tax dollars. The money comes from the products we sell. If you don’t want to “subsidize” the USPS, there is two simple steps; don’t buy any postage, and PULL DOWN YER FRIGGIN’ MAIL BOX! A whizz like you ought to be able to figure them thar ‘structions out.
Oh geez, my IQ is plummeting.
For a small fraction of the money we send to just the koranimals in the palitrash area we could provide a lifetime POP server farm for every American.
The USPS is broke because, by law, they have to pre-fund retirees healthcare benefits, and as it stands all current employees are covered, plus an extra 7 billion bucks. Hell, that covers letter carriers that ain’t even born. Just sayin’.
Even worse, however, is that recently our own personal mail has been routinely returned to the sender for no reason. Packages, magazines and credit cards have gone missing or returned as undeliverable. There are two sets of numbers on our house, and the house is on an easily accessible street, so there's no excuse. We've been to the post office several times, but they don't seem to care.
I have to wonder if it has something to do with Obama's new postmaster general.
What happens to the healthcare funds when obamacare kicks in?
The USPS handling of my mail is appalling.
In my experience, it has been a lot longer than 18 months. I chalk it up to a disfunctional organization staffed and managed by union morons and government bureaucrats. Just my opinion, though.
A package was mailed to me,last week, using the USPS, from a large city that is 300 miles away.
After languishing in the post office for two days my package then spent three days on a truck, and was delivered, finally, after many calls to the post office, after a week in transit.
The total driving time from one city to another was six hours.
The charge for this non service was $20.00, UPS would have delivered it in three days for a little more than $10.00.
Needless to say, I will never again use the USPS for package delivery
Correction: 25% have gone missing. The others arrived--eventually.
Hey, SgtIdiot—read the following article and educate yourself, if your IQ is high enough to allow it:
The USPS has ALREADY defaulted on loans from the taxpayers. Yes, the taxpayers are propping up USPS, and it needs to end.
I’m not surprised!
Without the taxpayer subsidies, I suspect the USPS would have to charge $4 to deliver a First Class letter and break even.
They say that email has really hurt the postal service. But you never hear of lay offs from them.
Any other business that suffers from a loss of customers invariably has to get rid of employees to survive. But never these bozos!
Have you pulled down your mail box yet?
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