Should the Postal Service Eliminate Sunday Mail Processing Operations?

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page of calendar showing picture of conveyor belt on Sunday
Keep Sunday Operations?

We’ve all heard the bad news. Mail volume in fiscal year (FY) 2008 totaled 202.7 billion pieces, a decline of 9.5 billion pieces or 4.5 percent compared to the previous fiscal year. Mail volume has declined even further this year. At the end of the last quarter, mail volume was down more than 12 percent from the same period last year. Most recently, the Postal Service lost $2.4 billion in the third quarter of FY 2009 and projected a net loss of more than $7 billion for FY 2009.

 

As a panelist during the August 6 Senate subcommittee hearings on the Postal Service, Postmaster General Jack Potter once again focused on the need for 5-day delivery, greater flexibility, and the elimination of some network infrastructure. During the same hearings, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommended urgent action to streamline the mail processing and retail networks as the Postal Service no longer has sufficient revenues to cover the cost of maintaining its large network of processing and retail facilities.

page of calendar showing picture of conveyor belt on Sunday with red line drawn through
End Sunday Operations?

The reality of the current situation is that in many areas the Postal Service has an excess of equipment, staff, and facilities to process a declining volume of mail. Given the harsh economic conditions faced by the Postal Service today, looking at opportunities to cut costs by streamlining inefficient operations or eliminating unnecessary ones makes good business sense.

One area for consideration is the elimination of Sunday mail processing operations. In many Processing and Distribution Centers around the nation, mail processing activities are run on Saturday night and into Sunday just as they are the rest of the week.

With mail volume declining, should the Postal Service reduce mail processing operation to 6 days a week, rather than the traditional 7 days, and allow employees to have Sunday off?

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Permalink | Comments (88) | Sep 21, 2009

 

 

88 Responses to “Should the Postal Service Eliminate Sunday Mail Processing Operations?”

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  1. 88
    Joe Says:
    December 14th, 2009 at 10:04 pm

    Why doesn’t the media report on the PMG running the Postal Service broke. He took out paid for vending machines and scrapped them. Then LEASES vending machines from IBM at a total cost of $14K a month EACH…. no we can’t make money this way.

    He says mail volume is down so he removes collection boxes and scraps them… now vail volume will never come up.

    He will not advertise first class mail. He will not advertise the sanctity of the mail. He will not advertise the fantastic value that a letter, card or envelope delivered from anywhere to anywhere in this large nation is less than 50 cents, door to door.

    And he runs the largest contractor scam the world has seen. AKA: Facility Single Source Provider (FSSP), A contracting department that only gives contracts to political favorite, non bidding, no minority considerations, No women in business considerations… a total exclusive club. The contractors are paid 3 to 5 times what local contractors would get paid and it is all done without field level oversight. Day labor, illegal workers, convicts… all OK to come and go out the rear entrance of the Post Office.

    In the mean time jobs that once ear-marked for Veterans now are being abolished thousands a month.

    The sanctity of the US Mail is in jeopardy and the American people won’t know what they have lost until its gone.

  2. 87
    shaftedagain Says:
    October 15th, 2009 at 9:24 am

    they already tried to stop processing on sunday….when they do the trucks are backed up down the road!We got us a convoy!

  3. 86
    CharacterObserver Says:
    October 14th, 2009 at 4:48 pm

    Working in an AO my position is not the same as working at a PDC. I understand it’s the greatest concentration of APWU employees and they need those Union dues. Same thing for letter carriers one in six would go away. It’s still the right thing to do. Most people don’t even stop in on Saturday for stamps or mailing items. Some offices open from 8a-10a on Saturday. What is the point of that? Even the government checks, if the first or third falls on the weekend, they have an in-home date of FRIDAY.

  4. 85
    ananias Says:
    October 13th, 2009 at 12:36 pm

    I found the replies more interesting than the blog! I hope upper management takes them seriously. The ratio of management to workers (if it as high as the some of the replies suggest) seems like a serious systemic problem that will undermine all attempts to improve the USPS. Fixing that is definitely the number one priority.

    Here are my ideas for some of the things you might do to drum up new business and better serve your pubic:

    How about creating a means for people who do not have computers (or perhaps the desire to use them) to get email and even have some sort of web presence? You would simply print the emails (not the spam) they received and deliver it to them as a service. You might even give them a means to reply simply by scribbling something on the back which you will then convert into an email reply to the original sender (and any indicated other recipients.) They get that back as well the next day. The service might come with a binder to make organizing it easier and support attachments.

    Likewise you might look for ways to give people who’d rather get email a way to accomplish that by arranging for you to open, scan, and send them an email far more quickly than you could deliver their physical mail. The hardcopy would still be delivered, perhaps a day or two later than it would have otherwise (possibly saving you from visiting their homes every day.) Of course you need to be able to allow them to reply with email as well, and certify to those recipients that reply did indeed take place as if by physical mail.

    You might also offer a safe data transfer service that involved picking up a USB drive from the office or carrier which could be loaded with many gigabytes of photos, music and other data that the sender wanted to send to possibly more than one recipient. You then send the data and place it onto drives for delivery the next day, recipients then have a week or two to take the data off and return the drive by leaving it in their mailbox.

    You might look for opportunities to automatically collect and sell mapping data for the giant internet firms that have an insatiable urge for it. By simply outfitting your trucks with the right equipment you might be able to subsidize a significant fraction of their expenses by allowing mapping sites to have almost real time street views. It might even allow the deployment of sophisticated crime fighting tools that could search the unedited source material for evidence that might have been caught inadvertently by your cameras.

    I think you are going in the wrong direction in terms of shortening the work week. I think there is a great deal of potential for all kinds of new services if you delivered every day. Even holidays. Maybe even twice a day. I say this because you have a uniquely valuable opportunity simply by being so dependable and regular to leverage that visit in many different ways, from simply checking up on elderly single people living alone, to doing a few odd jobs for people out of town, to becoming the cheapest supplier for many of the products we use every day.

    Suppose, for example, that you created an easy way for local merchants to better serve the residents sharing the same post office by offering them a means to cheaply and quickly deliver small items in standardized reusable containers. It seems to be mostly an information management challenge–helping residents to realize they can order things online from local stores before a certain time and receive them that same day with no packaging waste at all, and small local merchants a convenient new way to sell online without all the hassle normally associated with it.

    I think you may be able to create more desirable jobs for your carriers by looking for new ways to help them better serve the folks on their route. What sorts of knowledge or skills can you give them to allow them to do more than simply drop off and pick up mail? How can you spare people one errand each week? What kinds of problems do people face that can only be cost effectively solved by someone who’s already visiting their home to deliver their mail? That’s the perspective that might lead you to discover whole new ways to generate income and more rewarding roles for your people.

  5. 84
    microG Says:
    October 12th, 2009 at 8:15 am

    Yes, eliminate Sunday processing. Elinimate or reduce the statistical gathering that serves little useful purpose other than to distract the Supervisors from doing what they should do which is to supervise and support their people. Eliminate the EAS positions which serve no useful purpose other than to justify some manager’s higher salary. Focus on processing and delivering the mail, not on gathering numbers. Enforce accountability at ALL levels.

  6. 83
    dryMAILman Says:
    October 5th, 2009 at 7:36 pm

    Yes. Please spare all mail from the Flats Shuffler Shredder (FSS) at least one day a week. I’ll deliver the beautifully walk sequenced output of ’self-serving printers’ on Sunday off the clock. Stay tuned for video highlights.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sID1lRTnXDY

  7. 82
    jas bake Says:
    October 3rd, 2009 at 4:34 pm

    Tell me why USPS workers need a union?
    Unions clearly cost us all money by forcing the USPS to overpay what unskilled labor workers are truly worth. I say let the market determine how much a USPS employee will accept as fair compensation for a good days work along with the rest of the employers of the world. Disband the union and I bet we could keep at least the same level of service at a much cheaper price and better quality!

  8. 81
    jas bake Says:
    October 3rd, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    Maybe if the employees were higher quality stock the organization could rely on more initiative and fewer managers/baby sitters.

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