postalnews.tv/postalnews blog

Subscribe to Postage Due:

Subscribe to Postage Due:

Subscribe to Postage Due:

Cliff Clavin may have been violating postal service rules by hanging out at the Cheers bar in is letter carrier uniform all those years, but if he’d patronized his local VFW post instead, he’d have been in the clear. That’s the gist of a Federal Appeals Court decision handed down earlier this year, and confirmed this week by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

The case involved Ohio letter carrier Gary Gose, who was terminated ”on a charge of unacceptable conduct for consuming alcoholic beverages while wearing his Postal Service uniform at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post 9927 in Kettering, Ohio”. The Postal Service claimed that this violated section 661.54 of the ELM, which forbids the consumption of “intoxicating beverages in a public place while in uniform”.

Gose, who was on a Last Chance Agreement (he was to have been removed for ”failure to use a satchel in the delivery of mail”), appealed his dismissal to the MSPB, which backed the Postal Service. He then took his case to the Federal Appeals Court. The Court found that the Postal Service interpreted the term “public place” to mean “every place where there is a Postal Service customer and, further, that it considered every citizen to be a Postal Service customer”. Since that would mean that even the employee’s own home was a “public place” if just one other family member was there, the Court refused to accept the USPS interpretation:

… the problem with this interpretation is that it effectively reads language out of the regulation.  If the agency had wished to promulgate a regulation that prohibited drinking in uniform while “in the presence of others,” it might have done so.  However, it did not.  Instead, it promulgated a regulation that specifically forbade such activity only “in a public place.” (emphasis added).  An agency interpretation that effectively eviscerates regulatory language is per se inconsistent with the regulation and may be accorded no deference.

The Court ordered Gose reinstated, with full back pay and benefits.

Subscribe to Postage Due:

Subscribe to Postage Due:

Subscribe to Postage Due:

The Postal Rate Commission yesterday issued its “Opinion and Recommended Decision” in the Evolutionary Network Development (END) proceedings. The PRC found that the USPS had ”not provide assurance that the proposed realignment program, as currently envisaged, will meet its declared goals.  In particular, the record reflects flawed or absent information on certain crucial aspects of the Postal Service’s plan for network realignment.”

The PRC found that the plan’s flaws included:

• Questionable or Incomplete Cost and Service Estimates
• Inadequate Review of Local Impacts
• Insufficient Provisions for Public Participation

The commission analyzed the Area Mail Processing (AMP) process for evaluating individual plant consolidations, and found that:

• AMP Reviews Lack Consistency
• AMP Process Lacks Criteria for Approval
• The Post Implementation Review Process (PIR) is Flawed

The commission also criticized the USPS for failing to fully consider the service implications of plant realignments:

The Postal Service is a service organization, perhaps the largest such organization in the country.  It does not seem prudent, in the Commission’s view, for an organization of its size and economic importance to commit itself to a logistics network restructuring program of this magnitude, without first having a full grasp of its likely effect on the service that it provides its customers.  If the Postal Service’s representations in this docket are accurate, however, that is what the Postal Service is considering.  The Commission recommends that the Postal Service choose a “most likely” network realignment outcome for planning purposes, and estimate the full range of service impacts that would result from that outcome before it commits further resources to this program.

Commissioner Ruth Goldway wrote in a concurring opinion that the Commission’s opinion “fails to express sufficiently serious concern about the problems that have arisen in initial stages of the Postal Service’s consolidation efforts, in places such as Southern California, El Paso, Texas and Las Vegas, Nevada.”

I am concerned that unless the Postal Service management is truly attentive to improving the AMP change process, implementation of network realignment is likely to result in substantial, unexpected, and potentially expensive service disruptions throughout the nation.  A clear example is that the AMP change analysis performed prior to the recent consolidation of the Marina Del Rey facility into the existing Los Angeles facility totally failed to predict the myriad of service disruptions that occurred in the weeks and months after implementation.

…Before the Postal Service implements the dozens of consolidations required by network realignment, it should improve the AMP change process to insure that service disruptions are minimized.  The best way to improve that process is to fully review each consolidation that has already occurred. It should honestly face and thoroughly analyze mis-estimates and determine the lessons learned.  Going forward, the Postal Service should require forecasts of possible changes in service levels to the end users in planning every AMP change, require measurement of customer feedback in any post implementation review, and then accurately measure the net cost savings by including changes in post-implementation workforce, transportation or other adjustments.

ADVISORY OPINION CONCERNING A PROPOSED CHANGE IN THE NATURE OF POSTAL SERVICES

Press release: 

HP has been awarded a five-year contract extension by the United States Postal Service to deploy a breadth of products and services, including HP servers, desktops, notebooks, printers, and integration and warranty support services.

This indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract that dates back to 1994 builds upon a long-term mutually successful relationship. HP has delivered more than $1.8 billion worth of products and services to the Postal Service from 1994-2006.

“Our goal at the Postal Service is to become more streamlined and efficient while continuing to increase the number of innovative services we offer our customers,” said Bob Otto, vice president and chief technology officer, United States Postal Service.

HP will deliver a wide array of hardware, software and services to upgrade the Postal Service’s distributed computing environment and support more than 3,000 servers and 140,000 client systems.

“With more than 700,000 employees, 37,000 post offices and an extensive network of processing and distribution facilities, the Postal Service is a complex enterprise with evolving technology needs,” said Jack Novia, managing director and senior vice president, Technology Solutions Group – Americas, HP. “HP is building on our partnership with the Postal Service by delivering the infrastructure and support needed to enable continuous change.”

Subscribe to Postage Due: