The tug-of-war over the U.S. Postal Service’s very uncertain future hits the nation’s airwaves today with the kickoff of an American Postal Workers Union ad campaign that will run on national cable channels for up to two months. Contrary to what you might expect, given how testy the debate is becoming, the 30-second spot doesn’t bash anyone. Instead, it highlights the fact that the Postal Service generally operates without taxpayer support. While APWU members move millions of pounds of mail each day, the ad says, their work is “funded solely by stamps and postage.” So what’s the point? In a release, APWU President Cliff Guffey describes a two-fold…
Browsing: U.S. Postal Service
Even before he was officially in a position to do much about it, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., was adamant that the U.S. Postal Service needed to cut costs faster and deeper. After Issa became chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee this January, the looming question was just how he would push that agenda. The answer: Treat America’s biggest mail carrier like the District of Columbia. Back in the mid-1990s, the Republican-controlled Congress set up a “board of control” that essentially stripped the district of home rule with the goal of putting its problematic finances in order. Now, Issa wants…
Lest anyone forget, today’s the last day on the job for some U.S. Postal Service administrative employees who agreed to leave or retire early in return for a $20,000 buyout. It’s part of an organizational “redesign” aimed at cutting some 3,000 administrative positions, or almost 21 percent of the total. But that overall number masks some pretty big differences in how the reductions are being apportioned among different USPS organizations. At Federal Times’ request, the Postal Service provided a breakout of the impact on area offices, district offices and headquarters and HQ-related field units, such as the USPS accounting service…
Listen up, people: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor even the temptation of a yummy breakfast shall keep mail carriers from their appointed rounds. And anyone who suggests differently may be hearing from U.S. Postal Service lawyers. Burger King found that out the hard way after airing a television ad geared around a fictitious carrier who sang: “With pancakes and eggs on my plate, the mail has to wait,” according to an article posted on a USPS site. That didn’t sit well with the Postal Service, which probably has enough problems without the insinuation that your high-priority package is…
Yep, dogs do occasionally bite, and there are plenty of mail carriers who can attest to it, according to new U.S. Postal Service rankings that put Houston at the head of the pack (lame wordplay totally intended). For at least the fourth straight year, the Texas city led the country in hostile dog-carrier encounters with 62 in 2010. Runners-up were San Diego and Columbus, Ohio, with 45 each, followed by Los Angeles with 44 and Louisville, Ky., with 40. In all, 5,669 postal workers were attacked last year, and the medical expenses cost the Postal Service almost $1.2 million. If you’re looking…
In case anyone’s forgotten, tomorrow will be a big day for the American Postal Workers Union and the U.S. Postal Service. That’s when they find out whether APWU members have approved a tentative contract that would run to May 2015. Ballots were due back this morning at designated post office boxes; once they’re counted tomorrow at a Washington, D.C.-area hotel, the results will be posted on the APWU’s web site, according to the union. The tentative deal, which would establish a two-tier wage system, has been strongly endorsed by the leaders of both the Postal Service and the APWU. But…
When it comes to information technology projects, federal agencies have a reputation for tacking on so many one-of-a-kind requirements that the end product ends up over budget, behind schedule or both. The U.S. Postal Service, though, seems to have a contrary problem: its primary contract management system needs more customization, not less. That system is riddled with errors, the USPS inspector general concluded in a newly released report. Out of a sample of 139 contracting actions worth almost $2.1 billion, 137 had mistakes in such basic fields as “award type” and “contract effective date.” Some of the mistakes in what is officially…
Talk about the perfect Happy Friday story: It turns out that a recently issued postage stamp features a Statue of Liberty image taken from a replica in a Las Vegas casino. According to The New York Times, the Postal Service got the image from a photo service, unaware that its version of Liberty was a flashy stand-in for the iconic figure that has stood on Ellis Island in New York Harbor since 1886. By contrast, the replica at the New York-New York casino in Vegas has been around just since 1997. Linn’s Stamp News, a stamp collectors’ publication, broke the story. The…
Brace for a brouhaha: The U.S. Postal Service is seeking more freedom to close post offices with a package of sure-to-be-controversial proposals coming out in Thursday’s Federal Register. The half-dozen proposed rules changes will help the struggling mail carrier “responsibly address issues pertaining to declining mail volume, customer demand and revenue shortfalls,” USPS spokeswoman Sue Brennan said in an emailed statement Tuesday. “We look forward to the 30-day comment period,” she added. The proposals are already available online and postal officials have scheduled a Thursday media briefing to further explain the new approach. One can presume, however, that their overarching goal…
The news keeps coming on that newly unveiled American Postal Workers Union contract. But the latest installment will likely not be welcome to members of any of the Postal Service’s four unions. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has just scheduled an April 5 hearing on postal pay and benefits and it looks like the tentative APWU deal will be the start of a longer conversation on USPS workforce costs. With those costs comprising about 80 percent of USPS operating expenses, “the union contract renewals are the best chance to find new savings,” committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said…