The no layoff clause is seriously hurting the ability of the USPS to trim the workforce. But here is what I don’t understand;
The USPS just signed a new contract with the APWU in May. We were all expecting the no layoff clause to go, and modest pay cuts. Instead, the no layoff clause was EXPANDED to cover all current employees. In the previous contract, layoffs were prohibited only for career employees with six years of service.
In addition, our pay was not cut, but frozen until 2013. (We haven’t had a raise since 2009, and that was 1.2%).
One problem not discussed in this article is AGE. Our workers are old! I work in a package sorting facility, and the average age of workers is somewhere between 55 and 57 years old. We desperately need an injection of a little youth into the workforce.
They are now beginning to retire and that's breaking the back of the medical insurance operations.
Frankly, you probably won't get a real raise out of USPS (presuming it survives as an entity and isn't just disposed of the way they got rid of the Post Office Department) for half a century.
This is a consequence of mechanization, automation, computerization, improved processes and robotics.
Those 5 things are creating the greatest and most massive unemployment ever seen in this nation ~ ain't nobody goin' back to work, and even though USPS managed to get 700% productivity improvement since its inception, mail volumes quit growing in recent years but the productivity improvement continues to surge ~ so instead of being able to keep it hidden with additional mail, the employees will now need to take it in the rear.
BTW, although I worked in and among that thin film of folks who create the words and make USPS procedures stick together with the physical reality for many years, it's THEIR FAULT this is happening. If you just got rid of the smart guys who created the productivity improvements, the place would turn to cr*p in months and you could keep your jobs.