PMG briefs employee organizations on financial situation
From NAPS:
Postmaster General, Jack Potter met today with the leadership of the three management associations and craft unions representing all craft employees and EAS employees of the Postal Service.
The meeting was scheduled to brief the leadership of the employee organizations on the current situation in the Postal Service and to request the cooperation from all of the representative organizations in working together to get through this difficult period.
While the members of all our organizations are well aware of the lack of mail in the system, we were briefed on the dynamics of the revenue losses and the impact that it is having on our ability to operate. PMG Potter advised the association and union leadership that the financial condition of the Postal Service was poor with revenue falling considerably short of our objectives due to the overall poor U.S. economy.
Potter added that the Postal Service would need the help of the unions and associations in working with the Congress as the Postal Service attempts to develop solutions to our problems that will involve discussions and Congressional approval. Specific plans were not discussed at the meeting.
Potter advised that there are meetings this week with the Board of Governors of the USPS followed by a meeting with the Postal Service Area Vice Presidents. Potter added that it was his intention to increase the frequency of meetings with the association and union leadership to keep everyone informed of future plans.
NAPS will keep our members updated on information that is received from the Postal Service.
NAPS Headquarters
September 22nd, 2008 17:05
Mr.Potter and his staff amaze me with their talent. They just now realize that we need to work together to get through this difficult time. What we need is a PMG that will clean house and get this business more customer orientated and business savy, Not the dummies that we have now. I guess we will get in line to get bailout along with everyone else. All employees should be worried and start thinking about what they would do if they lost their job. The unions are just as much fault as the PMG because we are some well paid employees and have it made. The problem is they continue to drive the post office down by filing grievence after grievence which cost more money from our revenuce. How about unions bosses salaries? I bet they make aren’t eating $1 cheeseburgers for lunch like most of us. I’m mad at all the postal staff from unions to upper management because nobody seems to care and we have to change now. Natural gas vehicles, Cost effective changes at each station from the employee and not management. The employee can make the changes but the post office will never allow it. Today the post office took my blue mailbox off my route. Now, it will force people to use the internet which in the long run will be lost revenue for the P.O. It the little things that add up and will mean the end to our jobs in the future. We can survive but PMG won’t listen to the employees on what we can do to make the change fast. Let’s invest in smart mail instead of dumb management choices. Just my rambles!
September 22nd, 2008 17:17
Well said Kent ,I have worked for the po for 23 years and not once have they asked for imput.I am told daily that volume is down and I agree,but I still get mail that is past the sale date because they are beening told to make there numbers or else so they curtail mail. They should remove service from USPS
September 22nd, 2008 18:19
So, speed-up the VERA, and let’s get rid of some of the dead weight, over-paid postmasters……like ME…!!
September 22nd, 2008 18:59
Kent, I agree with almost all you said , with the exception of stop filing grievances. If management would follow the contract and not abuse the employees there would be many many less grievances,
John I also have been with the post office 27 years, and Yes we as employees at one time did have input, the program was called employee involvement, which was heavily endorsed by management, and I sat on the committee for several years. and While we sat and discussed the changes that were needed and how to implement them . I don’t recall any one time that we were listened to or our ideas implemented.
So in My humble opinion , the Post office is not going to go anywhere, we are still to important to this nation to let it fail . and in fear of using a catch phrase we will be ” bailed out”.
and the heck with the self serving management of the Post office they are the ones who have driven it into the ground.
September 22nd, 2008 19:05
Kent, why is it better to leave OTD carriers home on their NSD when a substantial amount of OT is available? It would be much less expensive to pay the OTDL carriers to work their NSD than to pay grievance awards to the OTDL AND the non OTDL folks who win awards too. Upper management and their freaking PFP bonus’s are the main problems I think.
September 22nd, 2008 19:32
the last cola for carriers was over 1400.00 dollars and we eas got nothing. That was more than my pft by twice as much. People finding ways to not have to work are costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have my time but I hate to be known as the last employees of the P O that lead to its demise
September 22nd, 2008 21:13
Well Kent I agree with some of what you said I think the PMG should have thought of the money problems of the Postal service before he and his fellow managers took a nice pay increase and now he is crying poor.Mr.Potter why don’t you listen to the employees for a change. The first thing he needs to do is cut the overloaded and top heavy supervisors and upper management. They also should stop breaking the contract so that the union would not have to file all the grievances that they do that would save a ton of money. These are some of the things they need to do if the Postal service is going to survive.
September 22nd, 2008 21:16
The days of postmasters in every office has to end. The P.O. talks of labor costs lets give the PMG another 36% raise. lets create more V.P. positions in washington. You want to stop grievences make the supervisor pay out of his own pay check for violations of the contract. End the 5 PM window that cost the P.O millions in forced ot.
September 22nd, 2008 22:00
The PO is the MOST screwed up company in America . I am surprised they are still in business. After working there for over 21 years I had to get out. I could not take the BS anymore !! I wish everyone still working for those bozo,s plenty of luck.
September 22nd, 2008 22:13
I worked 21 years ,before my station have 30 rural routes and 20 city routes and 15 clerks only have 3 regular supervisors and one 204-B , now we have the new office for all the rural routes , the city routes increase up to 27 routes , but we still have 3 regular supervisors and two 204-B . LET YOU THINK ” how can we not lost money . * Management should REFORM themself , not the employees * . Another ” FUNNY ” i saw one supervisor her job only go around each station to checking any employees disply there ID . You see another $100,000 lost . Who waste this ” $ ” again .
September 22nd, 2008 22:43
New fiscal budget- bottom up. Delete all from top not necessary to make the budget for the field Recind PMG/& VPMG pay raises. Back to basics. Deliver the mail, ensure financial integrity. Institute 701 time. Delete all duplicate reports. Put OIG back to responsible for overall oversight as originally planned. Cut their complement- Reinstitute the Inspection Service to internal again. We are not governed by the SEC, recind SOX compliance, since our own regulations are tighter then SOX if you have compliment to comply. Quit selling off parts of the organization (Stamps Dot Com) PMG Runyon-conflict of interest. Hold upper management accountable. EEOC settlements become part of the responsible Managers’ performance and tied into his/her retirement. Review pay and procedures for all this outside auditing. Is it necessary with the IS, OIG and FC&S? Review computer programs and cost to maintain and required upgrades. What how much computer power is really necessary to do every day business? Review computer required reports-what are really necessary and what are duplicates or just out there creating something for a position not necessary in upper managment.
September 23rd, 2008 05:21
A look at your yearly “Statement of Wages and Benefits” clearly shows that the USPS actually saves about $9/hour by paying overtime versus straight time. The biggest advantage the USPS has over most any other Civil Service job is that once it’s employees go OT, they earn no additional benefits, they just get the cash. Work 30-years at 50-hours a week and you’ll earn no additional pension, no A/L, S/L, uniform allotment, health insurance, nothing. It makes much more sense to work every career employee to the max on REGULAR OVERTIME than it does to hire more career workers and fund their benefits for 30+ years. Only when you go into doubletime does the Post Office lose out. I think there should be created, in every office, 2-hour auxilliary routes equalling 10% of the total deliveries, and let carriers sign 6-month ‘contracts’ to service one of them on a daily basis. Any of these aux routes that are not bid on could be covered just as they do now. Just an idea, thinking outside the box. This would effectively allow a 10% RIF.
September 23rd, 2008 05:33
I can top all of that. I had a supervisor tell me , very seriously , that craft people needed to work a lot harder and increase productivity , and the best way to insure that was by increasing the number of supervisors. We already have 5 for 80 total craft.
September 23rd, 2008 05:45
See this is my point after reading alot of your responses. The employee has alot of great ideas to reduce costs but it upper management that is greedy. Why, because they have the highest paying jobs in the post office but never do much to earn their money. THe post office can’t act fast enough to gain new revenue so a bailout is just waiting to happen. My hat off to all employees and management that do their job. Not all managment is bad as two familiy members are superviser or station managers. So, I know alot of what happens is not their call but upper managment enforcing their rule over the populace. If the PMG was smart he would read these comments as he might learn something. Just my rambles!
September 23rd, 2008 07:23
There will be no give backs until fat JACK gives up the 39% he just took!!
September 23rd, 2008 08:17
The options are obvious:
1.Offer VERA by adding 3 to 5 years for all CSRS employees first, then FERS.
2.Restructure, then RIF – – reduce complement in HQ, Area, and Districts by 40%. Start with eliminating all areas. Restructure country into 2 sections/groups. If 40% bench mark to not met, begin Reduction In Force (RIF).
3.Eliminate Saturday delivery of mail.
September 23rd, 2008 08:20
If the Postal service is in such bad shape why is the Sales Department in Kansas City (I believe) for the week? This money could be better spent on other important issues such as the delivery of the mail.
September 23rd, 2008 11:18
While I agree that the PO has it’s problems, so do the rest of America. I’ve been around for 25years and have seen management do whatever they want. We as an agency of the government are constitutionally mandated to give service to the American public- NOT MAKE A PROFIT!
Big business is trying to do to the PO what they did to Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, and the US military- PRIVATIZE US!! All this talk of losing money is just so much BS, we a not a business, but an agency of the federal government. When I hear Mr. Potter talking about the agency losing money, but that will not stop the privatization efforts- spending money to buy FSS machines and gut the BMC network- it surely doesn’t make me believe.
All of this is an effort to skim the profitable operations from the PO and turn them into private businesses. This process will reduce the wages of postal workers and give big business more control.
Watch out, this is just another form of control!!!
September 23rd, 2008 12:25
Hey, you got you $$ payraise and took it without any guilt-knowing the numbers for the operation was weak to poor!
They the (P.O.) is setting the ground work for a bail-out I can read between the lines already!
Sorry Jack, No more money to go around!
September 23rd, 2008 12:36
Just think if the Democrats go through with the “do not mail”… Then all junk mail and direct mail will go away and there will really be a problem. I hate junk mail just like everyone else but we all know that this direct mail supports the postal system. Just like the “do not call” people are going to continue loosing jobs. I am afraid that the postal system is next.
September 23rd, 2008 13:04
STOP raising rates and KILLING mail volumes! As a life long Direct Mailer I can honestly say after every postal increase we have lost mail volume, as postage prices have increased mail volumes have shrunk. Our customers cut budgets and find other ways to advertise and use internet to send invoices and related communications. The decrease in Mail volumes is larger in dollars then the increase in postal revenue. The catalog business alone is down well over 50% nationwide after the USPS raised FLAT mail rates 100% last year. What good was that? Double the rate , lose over half the volume, the USPS needs to STOP raising rates on Automated , prebarcoded , drop ship mail, Standard rate AND First Class. They are killing not only the USPS they are hurting the printing, direct mail and catalog busineses at same time. It is out of control. Mark my words “emergency rate increase” is in the works and it WILL hurt mail volumes even more. Millions of American jobs and livliehoods are at stake here. Stop the rate increases!
September 23rd, 2008 16:01
Face it, the PO is a business that has a lot of overhead and fixed costs. When fuel goes up 40% within a given year, it is going to hurt (penny increase in retail fuel cost equals to $8 mil. in overall increase to the PO). We have big problems coming down the pike if the PO can’t address this issue.
September 23rd, 2008 21:11
Don’t blame it on the Union’s for filing grievances. Management has been taking a blood bath on C.I.L.O. cases for years. Maybe if Potter started holding them accoutable for their actions then maybe you would see a change.
September 23rd, 2008 21:45
My supervisor tell us need support the postal service .
But the supervisor tell us ,he was no longer using any stamp to send bills , he only use EPAY now . all the stupidvisor should not the postal service .
September 24th, 2008 12:49
Have I ever told you this job sucks.? After 35 1/2 years carrying mail this is my standard question in my office. No I don’t have a bad attitude. This is just my way of poking fun and finding humor in an other wise unpleasant environment. My greatest satisfaction as a carrier has always been giving the customers what they deserve, good service. No one can beat that into me no matter how manny L. O. W. ’s you want to give me. It is something that comes from within and I think most carriers would agree and strive to do the same. The problem I have with the present PO is that service has been thrown out the window. Yes we all hear about external this and exteral that, but that’s just statistics and statistics don’t mean anything if management has to fudge on everything just to make the numbers. That just makes the statistics a bunch of lies to make upper management feel good and those of us that have to suffer the bull crap solutions in the field to meet these statistics frustrated. For instance, fitst class overnight mail stats were too low. So the solution was decided to inform all carriers that no first class missorts on your route could be brought back from the street. We must now deliver all these errors so that when we come back to the station we only have in station and out of station non deliveris but all first deliverirs on your route are100 % delivered. How wonderful, our stats are looking great. But since no one is resolving the problem at the DPS operation, this band aid approach does nothing to resolve the missort problem. What it really does is frustrate the very people who carry this entire outfit on our backs everyday. Gas is killing the postal budget at present, but in my office as we drive all aroud our districts on our merry way we are improving those dam stats. Don’t mind the fact we are putting extra wear and tear on our postal vehicles. Did I mention the LOW we are threatened with if we don’t get done on time as we do this before we head out to do our pivots. Oh bye the way, did I remember to hit all my MSP scans and delivery confirmation scans. Oh well, another LOW. But boss my pivot was not ready when I left the office and I had to go back to the station to pick it up. Did I mention I left the station late because the clerks couldn’t get all that light mailed filed up because you reduced their compliment. And the rated mail wasn’t ready on time and the clerks couldn’t get all the parcels scanned on time, and I know , a L.O.W. . Well I have to run now because a team of clip boards are coming to the station to see if in my hurry I missed a bulk piece of mail when I pulled down or if they found some rubber bands on the floor of my truck last night when I was hurrying to get off the clock before I get a LOW. Oh yeah, I forgot, all forty carriers have go through their DPS mail everyday, all together before morning break for ten minutes to make sure all trays are ours and to riffle through the mail to pick out missorts. Of course if we don’t pay attention we run into our break because management doesn’t believe in calling out break, just break over. The point is, while carriers are running all over the place to do all this idiotic stuff, the customers get less and less service because the carrier has less and less time to give them service. I hear it all the time now when I have had a day or two off. The carrier that replaced you was rude, he wouldn’t stop and anwser my question and so on and so on. Give it a while and the high marks the public gives the PO in comparrison to other government agencies is going to drop dramaticly because the carrier is, and always was, and always will be the PO’s best example of service. The proof is in the pudding and unfortunely we aren’t making the pudding. By the way, Have I ever told you this job sucks?
September 27th, 2008 19:36
Len: They should also close the Westport Station since Mr. Mahoney and his band of incompetent morons can’t get anything right. What a mess. That alone would save several hundreds, and make the customers happy that won’t have to put up with rude clerks, and poor delivery service.
October 20th, 2008 19:56
I would like to offer my common sense approach to the usps, I think that is the main ingredient missing in most of the decisions that are made now days.
October 26th, 2008 11:50
I love my job and my customers. I hate all the BS about how poor the P.O. is. If our mail volume keeps dropping no one will have a job. Without mail Jack you will have to find another job. I suggest start at the top of the highes paying jobs and start thinning out all these bs jobs. What are you paying a team to check our cases for mail when there a 2 or 3 sup & a P.M.? Why are we worring about the .42 cent letter when prority mail is late and expess cannot be del on time because of a stupid contrator does not give a damn if it gets there or to supid to know what to do. Jack you really need to look in to all the things us employees are saying. Forget your numbers on paper because they aint working.