If nothing else, the U.S. Postal Service is successfully drawing Congress’ attention to its financial plight–just not in the way that USPS leaders might prefer.
The latest evidence: 20 senators today called for a six-month freeze on any closings of rural post offices or mail processing facilities.
“While some of these changes may be needed, we believe that it is very important to give Congress the opportunity to reform the Postal Service in a way that protects universal service while ensuring its financial viability for decades to come,” the group wrote in a joint letter to Senate leaders.
They are asking that the freeze be included in the next appropriations bill, presumably a reference to the catch-all fiscal 2012 spending measure that could come up for a vote next week. The signers were almost all Democrats, joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
In case anyone out there has forgotten, the Postal Service is studying more than 3,600 post offices and 252 processing plants for closure as part of a drive to cut billions of dollars in annual operating expenses.
19 Comments
I guess this must be a worldwide problem, here in the UK post offices are closing at an alarming rate, the GPO was privatised in the late 1980’s here, having family in Ireland the Irish postal service is even worse, they often go days without a postal service, In the Uk we used to have two deliveries a day, now it’s one and often we can go two days without post, snail mail it certainly is now, first class used to be guaranteed to get to it’s destination the very next day, now it averages at two days.
John Robbins
SEO Cardiff UK
Congress is doing a great job interfering with the operations of the Post Office and f-ing it up.
i just hope that congress listens to the postal workers and the unions about the help the postal service needs. Delaying mail and closing processing facilities isn’t the way and they need to put a stop to that for further review that isn’t done by the postal service. We all know the postal service screwed with the numbers on those offices being amped. The economy cannot handle 100,000 people being laid off…we are tax payers!
The Senate LOONS are out lead by the biggest Barney Sanders
If Congress stops Postal Service downsizing are they going to pay the Postal Services bills. The Postal Service is in dire financial shape and was largely ignored for the last few years and now Congress wants to step in stop what the Postal Service is trying to get back in the black.
One of the reasons the Postal Service is losing money, the inability to make sound business decisions without Congressional interference. The Democrats seem to want the Postal Service to avoid consolidation and Republicans want to dismantle and privatize. Congress get out of the way.
Get rid of injured employees. Rehabitate them. Get rid of unions.
Its everyon’s fault. We chose to use the internet instead of the mail system. What can the Postal Service to do, they must react
Val: I’m not in a union, nor am I injured and in need of rehabilitation. I’m not even with the PO. But how, in any way imaginable, could your comment be construed as constructive? Anyway. Is it possible to save jobs by downsizing management and wage concessions? The ultimate goal is to provide the service and save those who work for the PO. I would hazard a guess that 80% of a check would be better than unemployment.
Are you kidding? Save the post office? This is exactly what happens when you unionize. The post office chose to leave the security of the government to unionize so now us taxpayers are looking at a huge bailout. The post office is currently losing $9 billion a year and will go up $2 billion more in 2012. So some senators are wanting to delay any action concerning the post office. Must be Democrats. Everything nowadays seems to be put off until after the election of November 2012, then it will be 4 more years of marxism. I am a Republican and Romney will get crushed by Obama in debates because he just does not have to smarts like Newt Gingrich. Gingrich/Obama debates would be history. When Gingrich talks, intelligence rolls off his tongue, just like Obama and Clinton. Why do you think Gingrich has risen in the polls by 30% in one month? People think he is a bully but that is exactly what we need in the White House. The only asset Romney has is being a nice guy. In today’s world that won’t cut it. The President of the U.S. has to have balls, i.e., Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, and the most with the most balls, former F.B.I. director of 40 years J. Edger Hoover.
Jim,
And unemployment for Postal Workers is particularly painful as they are not eligible for unemployment benefits because the Post Office does not pay unemployment insurance.
Wage concessions? I haven’t has a raise for almost 3 years and the next one comes in Nov 2012. So, 4 years.
Almost the same for any cost of living allowance as well.
All this while the cost of living has been increasing steadily.
Maybe now the Post Office will be forced to do something about way too much management. One out of six management to employee ratio is too much. You could eliminate every Post Master Position and it would not affect mail delivery at all.
It’s not the unions that are hurting the PO. It’s the multi-level of management that do not touch the mail. These 6 figure jobs take from and do not help the PO. A postmaster CANNOT
make decisions on a local level. They have to get approval from their boss. The Postmaster General should not be able to make more than the President. Management also gets pay for performance. Shouldn’t this be tied to financial performance????????????
the postal service is the only gov’t agency that is required to PRE-FUND it’s retirement account-to the tune of 5-7 billion a year-that is why they are in trouble without that mandate(thank you democrats) the servic would be in the black-the gov’t can’t handle the PO-what do you think will happen with obamacare?
What about cutting back on all the postal exec salaries (published 11/27/2011 in Federal Times).
http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20111127/DEPARTMENTS02/111270307/1001
Its the postal service fault They should have a better retirement plan So when you do 30 years you have to retire and not work till your 70 That will force the postal workers to save and be accounted for there money for 30 years service The postal service has to many old timers wasting there life away by working
There’s plenty of blame to go around. Too many layers of management, management blindly holding on to out of date business models, unions more interested in maintaining power than the long term job prospects of their members, a meddling and incompetent Congress, a public that demands door-to-door service and a post office every few miles, etc. The question isn’t how the Postal Service got here. The question is how the Postal Service moves forward. Everyone is going to have to share some pain or the whole thing will collapse if the current model isn’t changed.
The postal service heads are trying to dismantle the P.O. They are sitting back with private companies ready to pick up the slack. The P.O. gave political mailers a price break on their mailings this year. We are losing money and they are giving the guys that will vote for things they want a PRICE BREAK! That should be illegal! If you look at the postal services earnings before we were ordered to pre-fund our retirement system, we were in the black and spending millions on machines to save even more money. Finally, does anyone talk about the cost of gasoline, and what effect that has on the P.O.!
who said obamacare is ‘nt working is lying , financialy my healthcare payment is going down. Thankyou ! president Obama.