Postal Service to end Saturday mail delivery in bid to cut costs

FOXNEWS ^ | AP via FOX

[Doogle]

The U.S. Postal Service will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says.

In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the Saturday mail cutback would begin in August.

The move accentuates one of the agency's strong points -- package delivery has increased by 14 percent since 2010, officials say, while the delivery of letters and other mail has declined with the increasing use of email and other Internet use.

[Arrowhead1952]

Who will sign for registered mail if the recipient is working Mon - Fri? Unless the USPS treats them as packages instead of regular mail. Just a question.

[muawiyah]

Let me put it this way ~ it’s far more complex than that. Carrier time on the street is about 75% of carrier costs. Cutting street time in half doesn’t cut total carrier costs in half.

[deport]

half of all addresses get Monday-Wednesday-Friday delivery, the other half gets Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday delivery.

*************

I’ve agreed with that approach for a long time for residential delivery. However some commercial may need 6 day service but that wouldn’t be a large percent of them.

[edcoil]

They have not stopped paying for employees that stopped working 10 years ago.

[muawiyah]

Why? If you get paid for 5 days of work and the company shuts down for 2 days a week, why would they cut your pay?

[muawiyah]

minority employment today is about 25% of the work force and it was about 25% of the work force 50 years ago.

I think it's due to the feminization of the work force

[muawiyah]

Best pay? Your typical NIH guy makes possibly 5 Times as much as the average postal worker.

You can look up federal pay and postal pay on the internet and compare them.

[eartrumpet]

I once lived where we had the mail delivered twice a week. If you expected something important, you drove to the post office in the town of less than 90 and asked if it came. I never felt shorted.

[GeronL]

Probably will end up costing more

[upchuck]

Who will sign for registered mail if the recipient is working Mon - Fri?

Same way it works now. They leave a note in your mailbox that you have registered mail and you go to the Post Office to get it. If you go read the article, it states that POs will continue to be open on Saturday.

[Doogle]

no doubt......

[Lion Den Dan]

If you expected something important, you drove to the post office in the town of less than 90 and asked if it came. I never felt shorted. You might if it was an 80 mile round trip.

[pgkdan]

Who will sign for registered mail if the recipient is working Mon - Fri?

You will, when you drive to the post office to pick it up. They'll leave you a little green post card alerting you to the fact that you have mail at the p.o. Just like they currently do.

[pgkdan]

Who will sign for registered mail if the recipient is working Mon - Fri?

You will, when you drive to the post office to pick it up. They'll leave you a little green post card alerting you to the fact that you have mail at the p.o. Just like they currently do.

[Doogle]

most likely you’ll probably see it later in the day...or make arrangements with alternative drop off.

[upchuck]

Two more grafs from the article:

The agency in November reported an annual loss of a record $15.9 billion for the last budget year and forecast more red ink in 2013, capping a tumultuous year in which it was forced to default on billions in retiree health benefit prepayments to avert bankruptcy.

The agency's biggest problem — and the majority of the red ink in 2012 — was not due to reduced mail flow but rather to mounting mandatory costs for future retiree health benefits, which made up $11.1 billion of the losses. Without that and other related labor expenses, the mail agency sustained an operating loss of $2.4 billion, lower than the previous year.

Frigging unions. Although management knew very well what they were getting into.

[pgkdan]

Most people won’t even notice. I have one elderly aunt with whom I maintain a written correspondence. In addition to that my wife and I send and receive birthday cards and Christmas cards. The rest of the mail is bills (5%) and garbage (95%).

[count-your-change]

I’d be happy to have dependable week day delivery.

[DAC21]

“minority employment today is about 25% of the work force”

Maybe in Kansas, no way, no how in every post office I have been to in Califoirnia.

[Celtic Conservative]

Contract it out to FedEx, it'll run twice as efficiently for half as much.

My .02

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