The debate about the Postal Service’s future is heating up and Pushing the Envelope is interested in your views. Last week the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services, and International Security held a hearing on the Future of the Postal Service. The week before there was a hearing in the House on the Postal Service’s financial crisis and future viability, and on April 12, the Government Accountability Office issued a report laying out the strategies and options to maintain the Postal Service’s viability.
Some of the strategies under discussion include:
• Ending Saturday delivery.
• Reducing the size of the workforce.
• Making postal employees pay the same share of health and life insurance premiums that other federal employees pay.
• Generating revenue through new products.
• Allowing the Postal Service more pricing freedom.
• Restructuring the Postal Service’s network of mail processing facilities.
• Moving retail services from Post Offices to alternative access options.
Loading ...One item that is generating a great deal of discussion is whether the large payments the Postal Service must make for retiree health benefits should be restructured. One option is to give back some of the excess pension funding and allow the Postal Service to use these funds for other purposes. In January, the Office of Inspector General for the Postal Service issued a report that found the Postal Service had been overcharged $75 billion for its pension obligations from 1971 to 2009 because of an inequitable method of calculating the size of those obligations. Adding to this inequity is the fact that the Postal Service is currently required to fund 100 percent of its retiree health and pension obligations. Very few in private industry do this, and the rest of the federal government’s pension funding level is only 41 percent. In addition, the OIG believes that the forecast of the Postal Service’s future retiree health care costs is too high. Fixing these issues could save the Postal Service $7 billion a year.
What do you think? Which strategies will be most useful to the Postal Service? Should the mix of strategies include cutting delivery service?
This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).
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If we suspend Saturday delivery, we will be training our mailers to get along without us. This will just be the beginning of the end for the post office. The only unique thing that we have to offer is 6-day delivery. Instead of concentrating on cutting, let’s increase revenue! How about charging an annual fee for city and rural delivery? Street delivery has increased in cost dramatically over the past few years but we continue to be forced to deliver for free. We could install cameras and card wipers in lobbies and allow people to purchase credit card-like keys to access their mail at any time of the day or night. We could be allowed to fax paperwork for a fee for the general public. We could sell a money order at one post office and have it printed at another office accross the country which would allow a low-cost way of sending money to friends, relatives, or clients. There are probably countless other ideas which would build the bottom line and allow us to forgo cutting delivery. Please help put a halt to the ruin of the Postal Service!
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One way to save money in the Postal Service is to Eliminate the Districts,
give the Areas just a few more people and have the POOM’s report directly to the Areas. The Districts are useless and provide no support now anyway. At the same time offer 3 years Service to all Civil Service employees who will then have 30 years . Tell them to either take the offer or be converted to FERS and have to work longer. This will get rid of CSRS people and open up the spot for a Second Tier retirement system which you want and need anyway ,where the onus is on the employees to save for retirement. It also gets rid of all the Highest paid employees as well as gets all their Annual Leave and Sick leave off the books. It will not cost anything upfront like a $25000 buyout offer and will save billions in the long run. If their are any costs take it out of the 75billion that OPM should have. At the same time you just eliminated 74 Districts which would save a ton and would never be missed. Make the Areas earn their money.
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The office of Office of Inspector General is the investigative arm of the USPS. Their job is the protection and sanctity of the U.S.Mail and the integral and honest operations within the USPS. They represent law enforcement of justice for America. To fight against corruption for the sake of honesty upholding Americans. It is a shame that they cannot be disconnected from the USPS to be a separate entity so as not to have to be accountable to top USPS management. So what am I talking about? Rampant theft and abuse of postal employees time, money and humane civilized living. Management across the country are constantly changing clock rings of employees cheating them out of time and money after all are out of sight and have left the post office to go home. They, on a daily basis violate and break the contract between craft employees repetitively over and over again costing millions of dollars to the financially strapped USPS. They put employees through daily totally inhumane abusive harassment trying to either make them quit, say or do something that will get them fired or cause them to cut many corners, many unsafely, or do things off the clock all saving the USPS time and money, which also counts towards a managers bonus, of which is another matter of great concern. Why should managers receive bonus money for a job that they are already being very well paid to do anyway. This also would dramatically change the financial situation for the post office. Shouldn’t everyone in a just, free America expect to be paid for doing their jobs? The craft employees go above and beyond the call of duty, in a stealth, cloak and dagger mode to ensure that the American people are provided the real, time honored, traditional, integral service that the American people have always known to receive. Management could care less. They care only for bonus money, and power and live in a state of cowardice all fearing their next higher level manager above them never questioning inhumane orders received to inhumanely abuse employees, which truly, and very sadly dramatically affects the employees families as well, causing a daily life of misery for them all. It has been recorded that the “Customer Connect “ program, which is a program that Letter Carriers use to go out to businesses to drum up more revenue for the post office of which they have drawn in millions of more dollars for the USPS, but some of these Carriers have been reamed because to do this takes time on the clock to win over the businesses to win this money, but the money won does not go directly for the managers bonus money, thus, the time counts against the managers bonus, thus, the they discipline the Carrier for this. Weigh 30 minutes of a Carriers time in say winning a monthly extra few thousand dollars or annual extra of a few million dollars verses a hundred or two dollars toward a managers bonus. So where is the actual concern of the manager? Their own pockets or USPS financial stability? Shed cowardice, firmly speak out against inhumane abuse, injustice and corruption as we as Americans have worked, fought, and died for, for a free honest living people and society.
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I think that you could raise a great deal of money and provide a real service to start-up businesses by allowing the Postmaster General of each post office to also serve as a Registered Agent. The Post Office would receive two fees from every business 1) for the mailbox which they would be required to have in order to use the PO as their RA in their state and 2) the RA fee itself. I have to pay two RA fees, one in Delaware and one in Virginia and for a solo person start-up paying an extra $100+ annually is a real pain. I could have used that money for any number of things because as a small start-up every extra penny helps. Mainly, it is annoying because I have never used the service: in other words, I have never received any mail from my Delaware agent except for their agent bill. Even paying $35-$50 for RA fees, excluding the mailbox costs) to the local Postmaster General would be better than paying it to a firm I will likely never use or need.
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Best way is to fired Potter.His salary alone will save USP right away
Eliminate management position who are not physically handling mail
Some carrier’s management need to step down to deliver mail.They are too many.Anyway they were carrier before so they had an experience to deliver mail.As you look at the record,until now there’s a lot of overtime to carriers because of long route. We need more carriers not too many supervisors.
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Forget about closing small, distant “inefficient” brick-and-mortar offices – Congressman will NEVER let that happen in their districts. !!CUT COSTS!! A recent “The Week” Newsmagazine article put USPS pay/benefits costs at about 80% of the budget – WAY higher than “the competition” (FedEx, UPS,..) and almost ANY private-sector company. A 25% cut in labor costs would reduce the portion of the budget due labor costs to 60% (still high, but “competitive”), and the overall USPS budget by about 20% – BINGO, instantly out of “the red”, without cutting customer service.
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The PO can save a ton of money by eliminating the District Offices or at least most of the people that work there. There is way to much unnecessary paperwork that these people do. There is alot of money that they waste coming to our processing facility telling us how to do our jobs. They have motels, food, and transportation paid for. How useless is that? There are alot of ways to cut money spending at the top and not from our service areas. They need to cut supervisory positions down dramatically, including the 204B. We need clerks to provice service, not more supervision or management positions.
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Forget about Saturday delivery. Here are some cost saving ideas that would put us in the black quick:
1) Congress should get rid of the corrupt unions that teach us to milk the system and act like parasites on a dying host animal. At the very least, the Postal Service should negotiate more realistic terms to the contracts. The whole labor process is full of corruption and for the craft to pretend like all the problems are with management (or vice versa) shows some real ignorance and stupidity. Collective bargaining is KILLING the USPS because it can’t do things that make sense to save itself. These contracts won’t help any of us if the whole Postal Service goes under.
2) Implement USPS-wide random drug testing with a zero tolerance policy – I’ll bet accident rates and Worker’s Comp claims would drop like a rock if we got some of the zombies out of here. Seriously, why should drug use be tolerated in a government job environment? If you want to smoke or sell crack in your off time, go do it. Just get a job at McDonalds and not here.
3) Quit hiring felons and sex offenders. Is that all we can get for our salary and benefit money? We make a great salary, so can’t we get people who don’t molest children, sell dope, or beat their wives to work here?
4) Send managers to real management schools to teach them how to handle employees like human beings and not oxen. Most of our managers don’t have a college degree in business, and instead manage by oppression, which could be from a lack of training.
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The quickest way to turn around the postal system is to CUT postal rates for businesses.
If your priority mail flat rate box cost is decreased to 5.95 and the small priority box to 3.95 you will immediately take a huge amount of business directly away from Fedex and UPS.
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First people should do there research and get there facts correct before they comment. Incorrect and misleading comments reduce the validity of their argument. That being said,
1.First class letter mail volume is not going to rise significantly and electronic forms of communication will continue to rise. With this trend of the public moving to electronic media there should be an increasing amount of online commerce. No one has invented a way to email an physical object at this point, so the Postal Service must concentrate on dominating the parcel market.
2. The Postal Service by law is required to deliver to every address. They should use this delivery network as selling point. Instead of looking for ways to contract out work to outside companies, the Postal Service should go to FEDEX and UPS and deliver there packages for them in areas that are not profitable for them. The Postal Service is having to go to those places anyway due to the requirements of the law. It would not cost us any more per say and if there were extra cost incurred it would be more than off set by the new revenue that is generated. It would be a win win of everyone.
3. Its not rocket science boys, remember what all successful coaches know. Concentrate on the basics!! Mail on target on time. Customer service,”The costumer is always right”
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None of the proposals talk about being over managed. When you send two managers into a different office in the district every day looking for stickers in the carriers case, it is too ridiculous to mention. Why can’t the supervisor do this? One day in our office we had 2 of those checkers standing and shooting the bull with the P.M. and the supervisor. This is nuts, that’s about $250,000 in saleries a year standing around screwing off and expecting the workers to work harder. Cut management not just retitle them, and you will get people to feel like doing more.
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Go into the offices and talk to the employees who are at the retirement age and ask them what they need in order to retire. Some are not eligible because of the 5 year rule for insurance. Some need an incentive to pay off some bills. Some need don’t need anything but to have their head examined. Find out from the people themselves, a personal touch goes a long way.
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Joe R. I am not sure what country you live in, but here in America $10 an hour, we would all be living in poverty!!! I know cashiers at Best Buy that makes more than your suggestion for a Federal employee!! Think realistic!!!
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I guess we should focus on the human resources work plan to work this out
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There are alot of really great strategies posted on this forum. The point is the popular concensus is that change is mandatory in order for the postal service to have a future. Change is not always comfortable and usually takes time to accept, not only by employees, but also the customer. However, it must occur and quickly.
I have worked for USPS for over 22 years, and have seen many changes. Some for the better,some for worse. I can honestly say that I have been proud to work for this company, and it has offered an opportunity for me and others to make an honest living, provide for our families,and feel secure that we will have a retirement. Thats what we signed up for. We signed up for dedicating our life to a career, not a job. We stayed for the golden egg at the end of the journey. Otherwise, we would have pursued other careers. So all the consideration of forcing existing loyal employees to pay higher health and life insurance premiums is like saying, “OOPS,Sorry… we lied”. Our forefather, Ben Franklin, would be scolding the federasl government. Franklin believed if we worked and dedicated our life to a company, we should reap the golden egg at retirement. However, the federal government didn’t really expect retirees to live so long. Now, with our increase in life expectancy, change has to occur. So,USPS should cut the cord, and offer a more reasonable VERA package. If they expect senior employees to make a deal with the devil, USPS should bite the bullet and sweeten the pot. Not withstanding, the fact of our current economic crisis in this country,it makes the fear of leaving a career for uncertainty a no brainer.It is an insult to these emnployees to think they can’t do the math. Fact: USPS needs voluntary early retirements. Fact: The VERA package needs major concessions,and it should be offered to more employees.
Unfortunately, USPS can not continue to extend these past benefits to more recent and future hirees , but thats what they signed up for. That is what happened. They accepted a JOB offer without the trimmings, so these new hirees can not expect the golden egg, or a CAREER for that matter. This is not to be sqabbled over as this change is already in motion. Will it affect customer service? YES. As the old adage goes, “You get what you pay for.” How can USPS expect the customer to accept increases in prices with decreases in customer service? Passing the burden on to the customer is a mistake. They should lower the prices, even if slightly, and this in turn will make us more competitive and increase customer satisfaction. It will be an insult to our customers if USPS thinks the customer can not do the math as well.
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