In these challenging times, reducing the cost of delivery operations — one of the Postal Service’s largest expenses — could save millions. One option the Postal Service is considering is to discontinue Saturday city and rural delivery and collection services.
Saturday is said to be one of the lowest mail volume days. It’s also a day when many businesses are closed. The September/October 2009 digital issue of Mailing Systems Technology included a survey of managers working in the mailing industry. Of those surveyed, 98 percent said changing to 5-day delivery would not require a change in staffing. The survey results also indicated that most managers surveyed (81 percent) preferred Saturday as the day of the week that the Postal Service would stop delivering mail. An additional 62 percent of the managers surveyed felt that once implemented, there should be no exceptions to 5-day deliveries such as for holiday weeks or high-volume mailing periods.
Loading ... Loading ... Loading ...Gallup also conducted polls on ways to help the Postal Service solve its financial problems. They found that 66 percent of Americans supported reducing mail delivery days from 6 to 5 days, and 66 percent also supported reducing the number of days the Post Office is open from 6 to 5 days.
The Postal Service is currently studying the reduction of mail delivery from 6 days to 5 days. Should the Postal Service consider eliminating delivery, collections, retail, and remittance services only for delivery units with low mail volume? Should the Postal Service eliminate these services for all delivery units nationwide?
This blog is hosted by the OIG’s Delivery directorate.
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Before we consider cutting Saturday delivery we must see the plan for what it is. The USPS claims it will save $3.6 Billion by cutting Saturday. The Government Accounting Office did it’s own review and claimed the savings would be more like $1.7 Billion.
Postmaster General Potter ADMITS that cutting Saturday delivery will result in the loss of $600 Million in revenue as customers go elsewhere for service.
So, using the GAO numbers, the USPS will save about $1.1 Billion by cutting Saturday delivery. USPS revenue for 2009 was $79 Billion. $1.1 Billion in savings represents only 1.3% of all postal costs.
Cutting Saturday delivery would result in cutting 16.7% of service while only saving 1.3% in costs.
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as usual , upper level management is only seeing the idea cut craft employees numbers or pay and increasing their workload- eliminate about 40% of all managers – close all post offices below level 18 and comsolidate all post offices into one for every 5 miles — and place managers pay back to 2006 pay grades –remove all managers who give out LOW and then lose most of t them in grievence battles – that costs too much – — eliminate all PFP and bonus permanently – to do that we need to replace Potter and get someone in who is NOT part of the manegers coven–what we have now is far to many former girlfriend managers — the result of the managers for the last 20 years prmoting th eir women and now we have mostly the women – who promote mostly other women -
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Why not institute Part Time Regular City Carriers in more cities?
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Get rid of lazy worthless management who is running the place into the ground. Hire some real management from the private sector and place all current management and 204B’s back into craft.
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Our small post office has 4 carriers and TWO managers. Yep, I said it, TWO managers managing 4 carriers. Yesterday three of the four carriers worked nearly 13 hours each. I don;t think we need to get rid of more carriers and carrier jobs by eliminating Saturday delivery. We need to start down sizing the managers.
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I would like to see the OIG find out WHY the USPS will not support the Customer Connect Program. I agree with some of the theories about management’s seemingly deliberate pattern of eliminating the services we need to increase revenue such as the 24 hour lobby machines. They were brought in to help with the lobby lines and to reduce work hours. Then, after they were very successful, they were taken out because they cost too much. According to the window clerks they were generating more postage revenue than the window. Also, we are removing more and more blue collection boxes from the street because it costs too much for the carrier to take out two ( generously ) minutes to get out of his truck and empty it ? You NEVER increase revenue by lowering your visibility. I believe that management is deliberately trying to decrease revenues to show Congress that we are going failing and ” our business model is broken ” as Potter has been saying for months. This, is what is called a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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The Postal Service should research and consider privatizing some of its enabling functions such as some of the departments in Finance, Legal, Marketing, and Transportation. With that said, the privatized functions with some tweaking could then offer their services to other government agencies in addition to the Postal Service.
They could also open privatized entities that could enhance the Postal Services business profile. For instance having banking services available in Postal retail offices could help the customer accomplish their Postal and banking chores in a “one stop” shopping style.
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What is this going to do for people who have no home delivery and thier post office location is only open during the hours they work? If they shut the post office down on Saturday’s I will not be able to get my mail. Is that fair for me?
The postoffice should cut the pork in their own budget. There are people that work for the Postal System that are certainly not needed. Cut them out completely and cut the pay of of everyone counter cyclicly. Managers get cut 15 percent and on down the line to where street level employees (mail delivers) see a 3 percent pay cut. That way everyone pays. The people that actually deliver the mail are the ones that will instead get screwed over and foot the bill for managements bad decisions. My grandfather had a saying: “When the company goes bad, the janitor is the first one to pay.” As we have clearly seen with the recent recession, that is the truth. How many “janitors” were cut and laid off while the managers were left alone?
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5 day delivery is better than a wholesale butchery of the entire service. When you need revenue, why would you shorten retail hours and reduce retail staffing, causing long lines at the counter? Talk about cutting off the hand that feeds you. Why is the USPS delivering ups parcels? UPS makes a profit for just dumping truckloads of parcels at the post office. Cut out the middleman. In rough financial times, USPS is helping UPS stay afloat by making their deliveries for them. If I charge a guy 10.00 to mow his yard and give you 1.00 to do the mowing, I have a pretty nice little mowing service. USPS, like big government, lacks in common sense. Dan
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It is time for the government to step up. Tax payers bailed out the banks and auto industries. Time the government help the USPS. The USPS is a vital part of the US economy and society. Offer early outs for CSRS employees without penalties. Cutting service and closing plants and offices is not the way to fix the USPS. As suggest maybe a wage freeze as unpopular as it may be is a start.
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Please explain why the USPS and its Postmaster General have 44 VPs throughout the organization. If the US is able to operate solely with one VP, why can’t the USPS consolidate its upper management ranks? That is a viable option than reducing service. When was the last time a company reduced its service did its revenue increase?
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This weeks’ topic is Viable Alternatives for 6 Day Delivery Operations. So why did the USPSOIG include “Retail and Remittance” mail service in questions 2 and 3? Delivery Operations is distinctly accounted for separate from Retail and/or Processing.
Skew? Remember Statistics 101 and Accounting 101?
Understanding and separating Delivery Operations from Retail Operations would be a good start to brainstorming about alternatives, unless that is the questions are to generate statistics for possible targeting closure of non delivery rural post offices and/or select Associate Offices.
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NO other money saving scheme should even be considered until, for a start, several things take place;
- Mgmt. ranks reduce their staffing numbers in direct relation to the thousands of craft positions they have recently eliminated.
At this time, NOT ONE mgmt. position has been eliminated, but thousands of those who actually move the mail, have.
Mgmt. likes to tout a line of having eliminated x number of jobs, but those are secretarial, etc.
There were to many supervisors, etc. to begin with, and now the ratio is even more lopsided.
Micro-management is the root cause of all the Postal Services ills.
- All mgmt. bonuses should be eliminated permanently. Even with all the crying they’ve done about the financial state of the USPS this year, as of June of this year, $50 MILLION OF BONUSES WERE STILL HANDED OUT.
- Supervisors, etc. have to be made personally financially liable for the thousands of repeated contract violations done yearly.
Currently, there is no incentive (in fact, they’re encouraged to do so) for them not to violate the contract, yet it costs the USPS hundreds of millions of dollars annually in arbitration awards given for contract violations.
None of these items get the press attention they deserve.
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Most everyone on this site has been saying the same thing. Which I totally agree with. Cut management by 90% and increase some craft. In Springfield, MO we have carriers out after dark because there are not enough of them. We need career people, not TEs. They won’t let the PTFs go regular, and most of them have been working overtime for over 6 months. That is only one of the many problems the USPS has.
Maybe a suggestion is for us to forward the Postal Reporter and many of the other sites we visit to our Representatives and they could read a lot of this themselves. Sure couldn’t hurt. They would see that it’s not an isolated problem.
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Work Tour 1. We do LITERALLY the same thing every single night. Do NOT need 5 MDO’s. Hell we do NOT even need a SDO. Cut back on MANAGEMENT!!!
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So what if delivery is halted on Saturdays. You still have operations fully running on Sat and worst of all Sunday. Where clerks/MH are paid premium. Close down the plants totally on Sundays. I’d rather be home with my family than get paid premium. All I do is read magazines all day. Nothing moves. Hardley anyone is in the plant anyway. Its a worthless processing day.
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The biggest problem I see with this plan is that even today, offices with rural delivery have great difficulty in securing a maintining a supplemental workforce in the form of RCAs (mostly). These employees give up (usually) 2-4 days a month, must always be “on call”, and receive no benefits other than a decent hourly wage. If these 2-4 days get eliminated they will have no incentive at all to stay. I had a “K” rural carrier working 6 days a week for nearly a year because I could not attract a replacement for an RCA that transferred. I borrowed RCAs from other offices, carried the route myself, and even had clerks carry it so that my carrier could take Annual Leave, attend his son’s graduation, etc. Until these and other staffing issues are resolved, I don’t necessarily think it is a good idea.
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5 day what do you do with monday holidays that puts us 3 days behind in mail delivery.
i dont get overtime i dont get paid breaks like the other crafts.cant even take a vacation cause my rca is unavailable tell pmg harry potter to cut the stupid paper pushers that create crap to justify there jobs
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PLEASE! Someone please tell me what the persentage of carriers (rural and city) and what persentage of all management (Outside of the post office it’s self) is the workforce of the Postal Service?
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The OIG follows management’s orders. They are responsible to management.
If the OIG were allowed to audit the management structure of the USPS and submit their findings directly to Congress there is no doubt changes will take place. Until than, same old, same old
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