The Postal Strike of 1970
March 18 marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most momentous events in postal history — the postal strike of 1970. The night before, postal workers in New York voted 1,555 to 1,055 to go out on strike in protest of a House committee vote to limit their wage increase that year to 5.4 percent on the heels of a 41 percent increase in Congress’s own pay. The wildcat strike and picketing were effective in shutting down postal operations in New York and quickly spread to about 30 other cities. Within days about 152,000 workers in 671 locations were on strike. It was illegal for federal workers to strike, or even to advocate a strike, but union officials said they had no control over the action.
Read MoreCould Longer Lines Be Coming to Your Local Post Office…Lottery Lines?
According to a representative on the Postal Regulatory Commission’s staff, a Postal Service-run lottery “could offer the potential for substantial profits for the Postal Service and utilize its current retail infrastructure with its 36,000 retail outlets.” Popular lottery formats in many states include drawings and instant lottery tickets.
Read MoreHow Can the Postal Service Reduce the Costs Associated with Postage Stamps?
How much does it cost to develop, print, ship, inventory, secure, sell, and cancel a stamp used to mail a letter? What about the stamps that are never sold? The Postal Service destroys billions of stamps each year because they are obsolete. In FY 2008, the Postal Service printed 37 billion stamps, which cost $78 million to print. In that same year, they destroyed old stamps, some of which were printed more than 10 years ago, that were valued at approximately $2.8 billion. Those stamps were printed, shipped, counted multiple times in various inventories, and finally shipped back for destruction under secure conditions. How much does this cost and does the Postal Service benefit from the expense?
Read MoreAt the Post Office
Last Monday was predicted to be the busiest day of the year for Post Offices™ across the country. Have you visited a Post Office recently? If so, we would like to hear your story.
Why were you there? What worked well? What didn’t work well?
Has your local Post Office adopted any best practices that should spread across the country? Are there any low-cost improvements that would improve the retail experience?
Read MoreMystery Shoppers
Like most retailers, the Postal Service uses mystery shoppers — customers unknown to the retail staff who fill out evaluations on their shopping experience — to determine how well retail units are performing. Not every postal retail unit is visited by mystery shoppers. Only units with a certain amount of revenue are included in the mystery shopper program.
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