For anyone needing yet another marker of the U.S. Postal Service’s condition, here you go: Total work hours last year fell to their lowest point since the mail carrier became an independent federal agency in 1971. That’s according to the Postal Regulatory Commission’s “Annual Compliance Determination” report released this week.
For fiscal 2011, total work hours dropped to just under 1.15 billion, the report says. With the exception of rural letter carriers, no craft was spared. Clerks and mail handlers were hardest hit, with their total hours dipping almost 4 percent. The decline shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that the number of postal employees is also falling to historic lows. From 2008 to last year the career workforce tumbled from 663,238 to 552,251, about a 16 percent decline.
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Ha! Ha! Good thing they didn’t look at my w-2. Had my best year…ever! 🙂
If you were a worker you would know more hours were needed to cover the workload.
Is Sean Reilly really as obtuse as this bizarre misapplication of statistics makes him appear? The fact is that USPS’ current volumes are nearly twice what they were in 1971 and they deliver them using fewer workhours. Just for fun, let’s put a different spin on Reilly’s tortured analysis:
“For anyone needing yet another marker of the U.S. Postal Service’s advances in mail processing efficiency, here you go: Total work hours last year fell to their lowest point since the mail carrier became an independent federal agency in 1971 while mail volumes have doubled.”
Really, Reilly, you may hang around with the kids in the park and you may even have the kids in the park proofread your copy, but you shouldn’t rely on your readership to consist solely of the kids in the park. It’s insulting.
This is just more of Sean’s BS helping the PO bushwhack the public. Sean needs to go see the mail stacked up at various office across the country. Work hours may be down, but management is delaying mail and fudging numbers to decrease work hours. This article must not include overtime, either, because everyone in my area is working more OT than they want. 6 days a week, 10 hour days. TE’s have no life! It would not surprise me if TE’s and PSE’s were not even counted in this bogus info.
what a joke 3 fat supervisors sitting on there arse counting every second the real employees are working ….Pitiful management….What a JOKE
A quick P.S. 130,000 injured on the job employees were fired since 2006, there goes a few work hours.
Our facility employs nearly 200 fulltime. The work is there, there is no downtime. First class stamps have declined, but parcels, and standard mail, and second class mail have all increased. Consolidations are causing anxiety for employees as well as customers who will be left without service. Consolidations are not saving any dollars, when the mail needs be trucked up to 200 miles further away and back for delivery.
WASHINGTON, March 26, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — National Association of Letter Carriers President Details Union’s Concerns about Legislation in Letter to U.S. Senators
Fredric V. Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), has formally called on the U.S. Senate to pass S. 1789 — the 21st Century Postal Service Act – because it is getting very late, it will provide long-term fixes. He said that while the measure “will provide resources to allow the Service to recover within a few more years, it will change the downward trajectory of this vital institution.”
The NALC and APWU will join forces in a demonstration March, for Tuesday , April 3rd, 2012, the buses will meet you in the parking lots , located at 1580 lake Street, in Elmira, NY , call your National or local for directions, all expenses will be paid.
In a letter sent today to each U.S. senator, Mr. Rolando stated, “S. 1789 appears to be based on the Postal Service’s Retirement Incentive strategy, which will alleviate the excessing of employees .
Mr. Rolando said NALC has “no choice but to Support S. 1789.”
Mr. Rolando noted that just last week, a USPS witness before the Postal Regulatory Commission acknowledged that a study ordered — but later stopped — by the Postal Service on its own plan for service reductions indicated that the “combined effects of all the service cuts under consideration, including the elimination of Saturday delivery (and 80,000 delivery-related jobs), would not be so severe if The Early Retirement Incentives were offered now.
Other key points from Mr. Rolando’s letter about the Decent Retirement Incentives in S. 1789:
It adequately addresses the single biggest cause of the Postal Service’s recent financial distress, the mandate imposed by Congress in 2006 that the Postal Service pre-fund future retiree health insurance benefits. That mandate — required of no other government agency or private business — has cost USPS $21 billion over the past five years. It is money that could have been used to offer the Early Retirement Incentives in April 2012, in a more lucrative way.
Reply to Fatahba–Why are you spreading false information? This is from Rolando’s speech.WASHINGTON, March 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Fredric V. Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), has formally called on the U.S. Senate to reject S. 1789 — the 21st Century Postal Service Act — because as currently drafted, it provides only short-term fixes. He said that while the measure “might provide resources to allow the Service to limp along for a few more years, it will not change the downward trajectory of this vital institution.” Go to NALC.org to get the real story.
My work hours went from 40 hours to 54 hours and 6 days a week. I am not complaining,just saying. Eventually management will move employees around and things will get to the new NORMAL for your office. WE HOPE
Sounds like a lot of your posters to this blog have been smoking crack. I thought the USPS had random drug testing.
I receive no first class mail. I receive all bills and pay them on-line. The only mail I get is “junk mail” I cannot remember when the last time I bought a stamp was.
Congress and the postal unions can drag this out as long as they want. Eventually the USPS will go the way of the Pony Express.
I guess It’s all about you, Andre. Most people get more than just junk mail. Where do you live, the trailer park?
Maybe it’s me, but someone around here is speaking with a fork tongue. How can last year be the lowest year ever and at the same time they spent 717.5 million on unarthorized overtime? Last year was the first time in my 24 year postal career was I forced to work overtime on my drop day, while not on the overtime desired list. Seems like an oxymoron to me. And besides that I know that they the APWU President found that the were hiding mail in trailers in Phila. last year.