U.S. Postal Service leaders gave members of Congress some of what they wanted with today’s announcement that widespread post office closures are off the table. But what about plans to shutter or consolidate almost half of some 460 mail processing plants? Wait until next Thursday for word on that, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe said at a news conference this morning. That’s two days after the Postal Service’s voluntary freeze on any plant closings expires. Although many lawmakers want that moratorium to be extended, the Postal Service will go forward, Donahoe said in a brief interview after the conference. Although no…
Browsing: Pat Donahoe
Postmaster General Pat Donahoe may be having his difficulties with Congress, but he can take solace in one fact: Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle still use the mail. Among the correspondence Donahoe received this week: A Wednesday letter from 43 senators pressing him to extend the U.S. Postal Service’s self-imposed freeze on post office and processing plant closings. That moratorium is currently set to expire May 15; the group of mostly Democratic senators wants the Postal Service to hold off on any closures until Congress approves a comprehensive fix for the mail carrier’s problems. “We are deeply concerned that the closing…
Financially, the U.S. Postal Service has been performing a bit better than expected lately. Politically, that could be bad news for the mail carrier. Why? Because USPS leaders have banked on a sense of crisis to rouse Congress to agree to some heavy-duty service cuts. The faintest glimmer of hope may be all it takes to persuade lawmakers to let the Postal Service instead muddle through until after the November elections–if not longer. “Congress is never going to really do something final until it knows the clock has run out, the money has run out, it’s got no choice,” said Gene Del…
As anyone who follows postal matters knows, the Senate this afternoon approved legislation aimed at putting the U.S. Postal Service back on its feet financially. But the USPS Board of Governors just put out the following statement indicating that it’s anything but happy with the outcome. Here’s the statement in full, following by separate comments from Postmaster General Pat Donahoe: “The Board, in working with management, has spent the past two years preparing a comprehensive business plan to make the Postal Service viable so it would not become a liability to the American people. This plan was validated by outside…
The focus of a congressional hearing last week was on the U.S. Postal Service’s desire to create its own employee health insurance plan. But Postmaster General Pat Donahoe also had something intriguing to say about the possibility of some kind of employee buyout program. Asked by one lawmaker whether he had any plans or suggestions to “incentivize” retirement for workers who are eligible to leave, Donahoe said this (according to a transcript): “We do plan on issuing some incentives based on the fact that we make some changes in our operations. As we shrink the network, as we move from…
It’s no secret that the U.S. Postal Service is looking at shutting more than 3,200 post offices as part of a major downsizing initiative. Less known is that 20 privately run post offices are also on the chopping block, but in this case because of a labor agreement with the American Postal Workers Union. Under its latest contract with the APWU signed last year, the Postal Service agreed to close 20 “contract postal units” (CPUs) or else insource the work “as soon as practicable.” Those units are in New York, Texas, Florida,Puerto Rico and several other states. Given that there are…
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, took to the Senate floor today to blast the U.S. Postal Service. That in itself was not surprising; many members of Congress are unhappy with the agency’s recently unveiled plans to close or consolidate more than 220 mail processing plants. What’s noteworthy is not so much what Collins said, but how she said it—criticizing Postmaster General Pat Donahoe in sharply personal terms, according to a transcript released by her office. “I find myself in a quandary, one created by the Postmaster General himself as he shifts from plan to plan, from negotiation to negotiation,” Collins concluded.…
The U.S. Postal Service signaled today that it will suspend mail processing plant closures starting Aug. 31 “to avoid any adverse impact on the November election.” The freeze will last until early next year, according to a news release, and comes after some state election officials had reacted with alarm to the possible disruption to vote-by-mail balloting. But today’s announcement also raises the odds that the planned downsizing (in which 223 of 461 processing plants would ultimately be closed or consolidated for a predicted savings of more than $2 billion annually) will be shelved for the rest of this year.…