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 ...
Nothing like having Uncle Sam as your boss ~ standards for supervisors are quite a bit lower than the general public realizes. USPS employees would be crazy to give up their unions.
Concerning binding arbitration, You are correct to a point that Arbitrators end up siding with the Unions on many issues, but not all. The Unions have their place in this mess, but many times Management rejects ideas that come from carriers that make the job more efficient. Let the people who know how to do the job, do the job. Carriers are micromanaged to the point of paralysis. We have had 6 routes sit vacant for almost 1 year. We have hired 1 carrier in the last 11 years. This is supposed to be a service job, yet management refuses to hire enough people to do the job, preferring to force carriers to work overtime on a daily basis to cover vacant routes and providing poor service by delaying the delivery of mail. Yet, there is NEVER a shortage of floor managers, district mangers, facility mangers, etc. It’s a disgrace! Carriers are told by management to delay mail. You get fired for driving a block with your door open on a 95 degree day. (UPS and FEDEX drive all over with doors wide open) Because of stupid decisions by management, they prefer to pay carriers overtime to sit at home rather than hire. USPS is a visible company, but you on the outside who think you know how it operates, you don’t! If you want to know, try to get hired for one of these high paying, great retirement, great perks jobs! My guess is in todays environment, you won’t last a month. But give it a go.
Point taken.
Our post office is an important cultural feature of our town. You see everyone at the post office and keep up with poeple without having to make a direct effort. The postmistress always knows any local important news. The most incredible service is the bin provided where we all throw away our junk mail!
So, what level of service can be provided at a reasonable cost? What needs to be done to affect the cost structure? Refer me to a prior post if you have already answered these questions, and thanks.
I remember those guys. One night after checking out a freight rail terminal in Omaha at 30 below zero we flew over to Kansas City and stayed at the Muhlbach Hotel a few weeks before it was knocked down.
Don never could figure out how to "stack" out of service BMC containers ~ plus, they were so heavy that when loaded with mail a single individual could not push them and had to hook them up to the towveyer before getting them into service.
My APC worked much better ~ because it was rectangular in shape (so it "stacked horizontally" and it was light enough to push that even full of mail a little bitty lil' gal could come over and just push it all over the place!
Then I went into the Infantry for a while. Then I came back and the APCs were just all over the place. It was such a good idea postmasters bought them out of operating funds. BTW, that all happened under the Post Office Department. I knew from the APC success with preferential mail in unimodal environments that it would kick butt at the BMCs too.
They kept them out of the BMCs for several years, but they finally had to give up because those BMC containers were too expensive.
HYPOCRITES!
So, his first week on a route he ended up in a very large puddle in a flooded street and it was a good 20 feet to the shoreline. Well, he got out of the truck and went to one of the homes along the route and asked to make an emergency call.
He forgot to lock up the truck too.
He ended up as a clerk.
He cried and cried about that.
However, they do get to count each year in Congress as worth 2 years in service time.
So cool that you invented the APC! And that you are willing to provide a whole bunch of interesting POD and USPS history. Thanks so much for doing so!
Correct me if I am wrong, but I never SAID they were entirely to blame, did I?
So it really makes me wonder why so many of them ranted and raved at the idea of letting private sector employees have a similar way to invest in the Stock Market, and have a private "savings plan" in addition to Social Security, when they themselves are taking advantage of what is in actuality a "privatized Social Security plan".
Thanks for the reminder of the sacrifices that our veterans have made Route. Cor-vette appears to have missed the point. I’d like to see more veterans in the post-office and in other federal positions and fewer diversity driven hires. I can guaran-damn-tee you that veterans are not the drag on productivity in the Post Office.
USPS is ran as a job mill not a business.
No self-respecting vet would work at the USPS, and least based on the experiences I’ve had there.
“Yep sell it off. A private company will buy it and end up running at profit. 5 day delivery is fine.”
They say the same about Amtrak, but I don’t see any buyers stepping forward! :)
Nor will you see any if the Post Office were to be put on the auction block.
The problem with the post office (other than bloated labor costs, which can - and WILL - eventually be trimmed somewhat) is that (like Amtrak) it offers a service which cannot be expected to earn a profit any more, due to the changing nature of the economic world in which it operates.
If the Post Office was to charge for a first-class stamp what it actually needed to charge to cover all the expenses behind the operation, the cost of that stamp would probably be so high as to discourage people from buying them.
Perhaps what’s needed for the Post Office is a “Scott Walker/Wisconsin solution”. That is, a forced restructuring of the labor contracts, along with restrictions on what can be “collectively bargained for”.
However, even after the most extreme reforms re Labor and other operational considerations, I _still_ don’t believe the Post Office will ever become “profitable”. It’s more a matter of reducing operational expenses to that point where losses become reasonable and minimized.
Just sayin’....
The Post Offices in other countries still function and are useful. I don’t think the internet has killed off Post offices, just changed the way they should work
They can start by firing everybody except one or two at our post office. Replace them with the next 10 people who walk down the street. They could not possibly be worse.
You sound like the driver who delivers to me, from the limited conversations I’ve had with him over the last 10 or so years. Limited because he’s hustling up and down the driveway.
If a person only read the postings by the Postal Service Apologists they would be left with the impression that USPS is the model of efficiency that should be copied by every corporation in the world.
Here is an efficiency idea for the apologists to mull over and develop their rebuttal.
Namely, the residential delivery should be two shifts with the first shift beginning at 3am and the second shift beginning at 10 am.
The Postal Service would be able to sell nearly 50 percent of their vehicles.
You may be right.
“another huge problem with USPS:
49,000 on “disability”
75% of their salary tax free for life”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.