Posted on 09/04/2011 4:49:11 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.
“Our situation is extremely serious,” the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.”
In recent weeks, Mr. Donahoe has been pushing a series of painful cost-cutting measures to erase the agency’s deficit, which will reach $9.2 billion this fiscal year. They include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers, nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force.
The post office’s problems stem from one hard reality: it is getting squeezed on both revenue and costs.
As any computer user knows, the Internet revolution has led to people and businesses sending far less conventional mail.
At the same time, decades of contractual promises made to unionized workers, including no-layoff clauses, are increasing the post office’s costs. Labor represents 80 percent of the agency’s expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Why aren't they still at USPS? Are they retired, old and broken down, or are they rejects who couldn't make it there? Why are they working at UPS if postal employees have such a cushy job?
I can assure you that many of the postal employees I knew worked just as hard as anybody in private industry. I respect any person who tries to do a good job, whether they work at UPS, USPS, or any other entity.
In my youth I saw twice daily deliveries to homes. The letter carriers rode public transportation. They picked up their mail in drop boxes placed at intervals throughout the city. These boxes also served as mail boxes where residents could post letters.
Now I see the jeeps drive house to house making deliveries. Perhaps a return to the earlier plan would reduce costs. It would reduce the motor pool for sure.
“privatize it”
The mail in Canada is private. They go on strike, there’s no Sat delivery, and you never know how long something will take to get thru their system & be delivered.(if it does get delivered)
There's absolutely no rhyme nor reason to the situation. OPM continues to charge USPS the wrong amount for retirement deposits and Congress ignores it.
Representative Issa is close to the point where I am going to think he's not really a responsible person ~ possibly senile ~ and he's got too important a job for any Consevative to be forced to think that about him.
He has to deal with this. It's his committee.
And,local Post Offices deliver a lot of the packages that Fed Ex ships!
The Postal Service has lost a lot of money--but they are one of the few government agencies that actually have a product to sell, and up until recently that product provided the income needed to cover the cost of doing business.
Unfortunately, they were not allowed to compete with Fed Ex and UPS in the way a private company might have, and that's where being a quasi-governmental agency put them at an extreme disadvantage. Also--the Postal Unions, like so many others, were given far too much control over wages and benefits, but Postal retirees do NOT get the kind of retirement bennies that so many state employees do (like a retirement income that is 75-100% of the income earned while working).
In smaller communities, the Postal Service does a better job of living up to its name, and it is sad to see that these communities might lose this Constitutionally mandated service.
It was NEVER part of the Department of the Post Office—and IIRC, using it cost a very pretty penny!
USPS is a protected monopoly. Protected by laws.
We don't have a choice for first-class postal service, no one else offers it and they can't.
Postage rates are set by WHO? The mandates are set by WHO?That money comes from WHOM?
TAXPAYER FUNDED MONOPOLY. Can you repeat that without slobbering on your shirt?
And you are lying or too lazy to do your research, USPS was rec. tax funds well into the 80's. (outside of the normal money they get every year for free services that I don't really count)
Thank you!
You don’t need to throw rocks at veterans. How about just making an arguement with some ideas?
UPS is USPS on steroids, twice the pace. Production for profit is king.
Come on in and look for a part time job for peak season. Get in shape with out going to a gym. LOL!
Folks, the Post Office management signed those contracts with the unions. The unions did not hold a gun to their heads, management agreed. With respect to pensions. A reasonably simple calculation based on the number of years that a person works (about 45) and the number of hours in a work year (2080) one can easily figure out what a reasonable pension can be. The problem is that reason has flown out the door. We need reasonable values and a person has to save for retirement.
I’m still not really understanding what actually happened here.
Are you saying there was some level of overpayment to the post office retirement plan, and the govt has been adjusting usps’ money to account for the overpayment, since 2001?
What about all the uncollected mail? My mailbox is jam packed almost every day with catalogues, solicitations from charities and businesses, and local newspapers, etc. Quite frankly, if I had to travel for my mail each day, I'd doubt I'd pick it up more than once or twice a month.
I worked at a UPS hub during college. Work for a living we did. Work too slowly, or mis-sort something and life got harder. The work rules were silly, but they were always clear. Working there provided me with a lot of good stories about the kind of odd stuff one can find jumping into the back of a truck.
Interesting part of history. BTW, do you know anything about the deal with American Can Company? Once heard (many moons ago) that deal was how the BMC’s got started—but am not sure if that’s right.
The big problem with a cluster box is FULLNESS. That’s readily solved with what’s called a PARCEL LOCKER (in common parlance). Let’s say there’s too much mail for your regular box they stick it in one of the several parcel lockers in the cluster unit and deliver you the key in your regular box.
There is a small town just west of us with about 125 residents. Post office just closed. We have a waiting list for boxes here (5 miles away), so they have to drive a 24 mile round trip to get their mail.
Congress will of course find a way to continue funding this fiasco, like all the others.
For now...
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