As it appeals the denial of an “exigent” rate increase request, the U.S. Postal Service is arguing that the Postal Regulatory Commission’s turndown was “arbitrary and capricious,” according to a brief filed late this afternoon with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Among other points, USPS lawyers contend that the five-member commission established “new requirements that were not shared with or explained to the Postal Service,” according to an agency summary. “Instead, the PRC simply denied the request as a whole and punted the Postal Service’s entire financial crisis to Congress,” the brief concludes. The…
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The U.S. Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union have agreed to keep negotiating until Dec. 1, following the expiration of an earlier extension of contract talks at noon today, USPS spokesman Mark Saunders said this afternoon. In a release posted soon after on the union’s web site, APWU President Cliff Guffey confirmed the extension and said that bargaining would resume Monday. The union remains hopeful that a settlement can be reached, he reiterated. The union’s contract had originally been set to expire at midnight Saturday, but both sides had agreed to the initial Tuesday extension. An impasse has…
After an initial bargaining deadline passed Saturday, the U.S. Postal Service will keep talking to the American Postal Workers Union for at least another two days, but said that negotiations with the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association had reached an impasse, thereby potentially leaving it up to arbitration to decide the outcome, according to a USPS news release. Contracts with both unions had been set to expire at midnight Saturday, but the Postal Service and the APWU agreed to an extension until noon Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, the union said in its own release. “We do not have a new contract,…
The U.S. Postal Service may be struggling, but outgoing Postmaster General John Potter can count on a comfortable array of benefits to sustain him after he steps down Dec. 3, according to a rundown included in the U.S. Postal Service’s 10-K report made public Monday. Chief among them is almost $3.1 million in pension benefits accumulated during his 32 years with the Postal Service. In that respect, Potter would appear to be no different from any other USPS employee with a similar salary history and tenure in the Civil Service Retirement System. But he will also be able to tap…
The U.S. Postal Service’s net losses widened to $8.5 billion in fiscal 2010, more than twice the total for the preceding year, according to figures released at Friday’s board of governors meeting. Of that amount, $2.5 billion stemmed from accounting adjustments related to workers compensation liability. The remaining $6 billion is identical to a preliminary figure cited by outgoing Postmaster General John Potter at a news conference last month. For fiscal 2010, operating revenue totaled $67.1 billion, down $1 billion from the preceding year. Overall mail volume fell from 176.7 billion to 170.6 billion pieces. In fiscal 2011, the agency…
Postmaster General John Potter is standing by his agency’s policy of paying the full cost of health insurance premiums for senior executives. According to a recent audit, the U.S. Postal Service could save about $567 million in fiscal 2011 if its employee contribution rate matched that of the federal government. For most employees, the Postal Service contributes 79 percent, compared to 72 percent elsewhere in the government. But postal executives don’t do as well as feds in other ways, Potter suggested at an end-of-the-fiscal-year news conference Friday. “Postal managers do not get locality pay,” he said. “Postal managers only get…
It’s down-to-the-wire time again for the U.S. Postal Service as it seeks congressional help in dodging much of a $5.5 billion payment due next Thursday into its retiree health benefit fund. “We’re in discussions with committee staff,” USPS spokesman Gerry McKiernan said today. While a continuing budget resolution is a likely vehicle for a partial waiver, he said, “there’s nothing definitive yet.” Last month, the Postal Service warned of a cash crunch if it had to make the full payment, which is required under the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. Under similar circumstances last year, Congress allowed the Postal…
Unenthusiastic about the U.S. Postal Service’s proposal for five-day-a-week mail service? Consider the possibility of every-other-day delivery. That’s today’s deep thought, courtesy of the USPS’ inspector general’s blog. We won’t even begin to list the politically influential groups that would pounce on the idea if the Postal Service sought to pursue it, but for the sake of argument, here goes: As the IG notes, a study earlier this year predicted that the average amount of daily mail per “delivery point” will fall from 3.8 pieces to 2.8 pieces by 2020. If that prediction holds good, then more households will receive…
Despite an ugly financial backdrop, the U.S. Postal Service kicked off talks this afternoon on a new contract with the largest of its four unions with an official note of optimism. “We have worked successfully with our unions in the past to help transform the Postal Service and we hope to maintain this momentum during these negotiations,” said Anthony Vegliante, USPS’s chief human resources officer, in a news release marking the start of negotiations with the American Postal Workers Union, which represents some 211.000 clerks, mechanics, custodians and other workers. That chin-up attitude was matched in a separate statement by…