U.S. postal workers union endorses Bernie Sanders for president in 2016

Reuters ^ | 11/12/2015 | Caren Bohan

[simpson96]

(Reuters) - The U.S. postal workers union's executive board said on Thursday it had voted to endorse Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, the union said in a statement.

The endorsement was a setback for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who has been vying with Sanders, her chief rival, for the support of organized labor.

"Politics as usual has not worked. It's time for a political revolution," said Mark Dimondstein, president of the postal workers union. Dimondstein called Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, "a true champion" of workers.

[Jack Hammer]

I’m not too sure I’d be happy about an endorsement from workers at an outmoded and largely useless organization involved in countless expensive hours of make-work nonsense.

[Gritty]

The Union has a point.

Their members are going to need those minimum wage $15 an hour jobs that Comrade Bernie is promising.

[pieceofthepuzzle]

This USPS website has some interesting numbers.

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/size-scope.htm

According to their own data, they have ~617,254 employees, and they pay out $1.8 billion every two weeks in salary and benefits. Although I'm sure it's an inadequate calculation that is missing some significant variables, this appears to come out to something like $75,820/year per employee in salary and benefits. I'm sure there are many hard working people among those 617,254, including some hardworking people I know. The question is, how sustainable is this, and what can be done to make it sustainable if it isn't.

Again, simple calculations, but at $1.8 billion of salary and wages every two weeks, the annual salary and benefits expenses would appear to be ~46.8 billion. They list an annual revenue (from 2014) of $67.8 billion, thus ~69% of their total annual revenue goes to salary and benefits. There is also a $5.7 billion annual pre-fund for future retirees they are mandated to pay by Congress. I don't know if this is included in the above, but if not it obviously brings their personnel costs well into the 70th percentile of their total revenues. They had a deficit of $5.5 billion for 2014. This is from their own math and figures, so it could even be worse if there are deficits etc. that are not being included.

One very big question is how was it allowed to get to this point? It's the same kick the can down the road mentality that has gotten the US into trouble in multiple other areas, and it would appear that this union would like to vote for the candidate most likely to continue taking that approach.

[Buckeye McFrog]

[minnesota_bound]

#7 time to close the Post Offices.
That means Dianne Feinsteins husband will get the land.

Dianne Feinstein’s Husband’s Real Estate Firm Poised to Make $1 Billion Selling Post Offices
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/dianne-feinsteins-husbands-real-estate-firm-poised-make-1-billion-selling-post