The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) today applauds the initiative and creativity of the United States Postal Service (USPS) and commends the diligent and expeditious endorsement of the USPS Summer Sale by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC).

“The Summer Sale provides an opportunity for marketers and the USPS to create an independent and much needed stimulus to their businesses and the nation’s economy,” said John Greco, DMA President and CEO.

The potential benefits from the program will accrue to the entire supply chain from creative entities to paper suppliers, printers and private sector common carriers.

The Postal Service estimates that they will realize between $38 million and $95 million in additional net revenue from the expected increase in mail volume.

Direct mail and catalog remain significant contributors to the US economy, accounting for over $56 billion of advertising spending last year and sales of more than $702 billion – including nearly $155 billion in catalog sales. The Summer Sale program will buttress this important segment of the economy.

By endorsing the Summer Sale, the PRC is allowing the USPS to take advantage of the pricing flexibility that DMA worked so hard for in the passage of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. DMA has long advocated seasonal pricing. At the Postal Regulatory Commission/Postal Service Summit in 2007, then DMA Chairman Markus Wilhelm urged the Postal Service to offer seasonal rates and even daily rates to grow mail volume during slower times. DMA endorsed cooperation between the USPS and mailers then, and will continue to do so in the future.

The basic outline of the sale is that any mailer with over 1 million pieces of annual volume is entitled to a 30 percent rebate on the incremental increase in volume mailed between July 1 and September 30, 2009, over previous years. These numbers are subject to a series of calculations that adjust for current mailing trends and any shift in October 2009 volume. You can learn more about the details of the sale here http://www.the-dma.org/postal/.

To inquire about your company’s eligibility email summersale@usps.gov. Please click here to view the PRC Summer Sale approval.

DMA looks forward to a successful execution of this initiative and encourages the USPS to continue the use of flex pricing in 2010 with the ability of a broader base of mailers to qualify.

Postmaster General Briefing
July 14, 2009
USPS Headquarters

On Tuesday, July 14, 2009, Louis Atkins, NAPS Executive Vice President, represented NAPS at a briefing with Postmaster General Jack Potter. Also in attendance were the leaders of all of the craft unions and the other two management associations.

Postmaster General Potter briefed the attendees on the current situation facing the Postal Service:

Continued losses in volume are crippling the finances of the Postal Service. Between 2008 through 2010, the Postal Service expects that it could lose as much as 25 – 30 billion pieces of mail volume. Every time the Postal Service loses a billion pieces of mail, the Postal Service looses $ 360 million dollars in revenue at current rates.

Employees need to know that the Postal Service has already taken steps to bring our Health Benefits in line with the rest of the federal government by the agreements that were reached with the unions and management association in the last round of pay agreements by increasing the employee contribution by 1% each year.

There are no plans to have any new equipment deployments in the near future. Right now the Postal Service has enough equipment power to process all of the world’s originating mail in just six hours time.

The “Summer Sale” was explained to the attendees. Mailers who use this opportunity will be required to maintain their expected volume of mailings through October, 2009 to earn a rebate on summer mailings. Customers who simply advance their mailing cycle will not get the discount rebate.

PMG Potter then provided information on the Postal Service’s strategies for FY 2010 and beyond:

• The Postal Service needs to continue to cut costs

• Grow the Business

• Protect Liquidity

Key Strategies are expected to include:

• Continued freeze on hiring

• Additional Tour compressions

• Restructuring Delivery Routes

• Continued integration of Network Distribution Centers

• Flat Sequencing

• Station and Branch consolidations

• Further reductions in administrative positions

The Postal Service continues to stress that relief from the passage of HR 22 alone will not bring the Postal Service the financial relief that it needs and the implementation of five-day delivery is vital to the future solvency of the Postal Service.

Although there has been much discussion of the change to five day delivery, and that the change must have congressional approval and a change to the current law, it now appears that Saturday would be the day that delivery would be eliminated. In a five-day proposal, retail units would remain open on Saturday to provide service to customers.

Post Office boxes and Caller Service would also be maintained under the Postal Service’s plan. Remittance mailers could use Post Office boxes and/or Caller Service to maintain their cash flow.

Under the Postal Service’s proposal, there would be no delivery or collection of mail for city routes, rural routes or contract routes. Express Mail would continue to be delivered as it is currently.

• Mail processing would process originating mail Monday – Friday.

• Mail processing for destinating street addresses processed Monday – Friday.

• Mail processing for destinating PO Boxes and Callers Monday – Saturday.

• Mail processing for destinating remittance mail Monday – Sunday

The Postal Service is also considering options to increase the sale of non-postal items in retail units. As these plans are finalized there will be information provided to employees and the public.

PMG Potter stated that the new Priority Mail initiative with flat rate boxes is performing well and helping us improve our revenue. Employees should tell everyone they know about the benefits of the flat rate boxes.

WASHINGTON, July 15 — Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. (4th CD), issued the following news release:

Congressman Chris Smith today blasted the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) ill-conceived plan announced Monday that it intends to close the Freehold Downtown Station in the borough that serves over 25,000 people.

“The data is lacking and the timing suspect,” said Smith, who met with USPS officials in March. “It directly contradicts what they told a group of local leaders in a meeting we co-hosted in borough hall in March. Postal officials specifically promised that no decision would be made before they answered some basic inquiries about the costs of closure, and until they conducted a second meeting with community officials to discuss those costs. Those promises are being broken.”

Smith fired off a letter to the regional head of the USPS in Pittsburgh, Vice President of Operations Megan Brennan, requesting that she step in.

“The USPS needs to make good on its word and put off a final decision until it fulfills the commitment it made to the community,” Smith said.

USPS South Jersey District Manager Joe Diglio confirmed Monday that he plans to steer postal customers to the heavily used Freehold Township Post Office on County Road 537, which is 2.4 miles away to the west in the Raintree Towne Center. Residents from the eastern areas of Freehold Township would have an even longer drive. That center is extremely congested, with little parking available in a narrow, bottleneck configuration.

Borough Mayor Michael Wilson, speaking on behalf of the Freehold Governing Body, said he was appalled with the announced closure of the Freehold Downtown Post Office.

“This announcement lacks foresight and understanding of the greater Freehold area,” Wilson said. “It had been clearly conveyed to the appropriate postal authorities that Freehold Borough, the county seat, serves as the focal point of commerce, law, government, and social services for the entire County of Monmouth. Moreover, Freehold Borough has a significantly large amount of pedestrian traffic. I demand that the Post Office reconsider this action. The Freehold Postal Facility consists of nothing more than a trailer and is efficiently managed. I am unaware of any county seat in the State of New Jersey that does not have a post office!

“The news of the closure was solemn enough,” Wilson continued. “However, the method used to finalize the closure was equally bad. When we first met in March, there was a promise by postal officials for future meetings and dialogue on the planned consolidation order. Unfortunately, there were no more meetings, no telephone calls, no e-mails, and unanswered requests for meetings and updates. Their lack of responsiveness and cooperation clearly points to a complete abuse toward the citizens who avail themselves of this facility. They even lacked the common courtesy of advanced notice to Borough officials of the closure. I certainly appeal to the postal officials to reconsider this potentially disastrous decision.”

Freehold Township Mayor Anthony J. Ammiano, speaking on behalf of the Township Committee, expressed shock and anger over notification of the closing of Borough post office.

“At a March 2009 meeting, we were told no decision would be made until further discussions and meetings were held on the issue with representatives from the State, County, Freehold Borough, Freehold Center Partnership and the Township of Freehold,” Ammiano said. “This bad decision not only impacts the residents of Freehold Borough but also the 15,000 Freehold Township residents that live on the east side of the Township. This closing will add an additional 25,000 customers to the Raintree Postal facility. This plan, which was obviously based on economics, is bad for Freehold Borough and the residents of Freehold Township.”

The 800-square-foot Freehold Downtown Station facility has over 400 rented P.O. boxes, and has been open for nearly eight years on land provided free of charge by the county. It has a spacious parking lot, but is utilized by significant pedestrian traffic from the nearby county administration offices, the Superior Court complex and municipal offices, plus the businesses and offices along Main Street in a two-square mile town which has over 11,000 residents. Thousands of more residents of the eastern side of Freehold Township would have an even longer drive.

The proposal to close the Freehold Downtown Station and shifting its business to Freehold Township is a mistake, Smith said. It makes borough residents and employees from surrounding offices who now walk to the station drive a nearly five-mile trip to check their P.O. boxes or purchase stamps or services. The proposal puts a lot of cars on the road and sends them to an overcrowded, congested facility.

Smith noted that Freeholders Barbara McMorrow and Lillian Burry, State Sen. Jennifer Beck and Assembly Members Declan O’ Scanlon and Caroline Casagrande have also expressed concern about the proposal to close the Freehold Downtown Station.

He noted that in all of the 21 counties in New Jersey the town which hosts the county government has its own postal facility, some more than one. Additionally, more than one-third of those are in towns smaller than Freehold Borough, he said.

“Monmouth County is the fourth most populated county in the state, and Freehold Borough as its seat of government should have its own postal facility,” Smith said. “I think the postal service will lose a lot of customers if they follow through with this misguided proposal.”

SEATTLE — The U.S. Department of Labor has filed suit against the U.S. Postal Service, alleging that a former Seattle Processing and Distribution Center employee was discharged in violation of the whistleblower provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Act of 1970.

The complaint alleges that the former employee was terminated for reporting a work-related illness to her employer and refusing to work with equipment that caused her illness. The former employee filed a complaint with the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) alleging retaliation by the defendant in violation of Section 11(c) of the OSH Act. OSHA investigated the complaint and determined it had merit.

Section 11(c) of the OSH Act prohibits discharge or other discrimination against an employee for reporting a work-related fatality, injury or illness. It also prohibits retaliation against employees for filing a safety or health complaint, or for exercising a wide range of other rights afforded to them by the act.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, the complaint seeks to reinstate the employee and to secure back pay, interest, punitive damages, other relief and an order permanently enjoining the U.S. Postal Service from violating the anti-discrimination provisions of the OSH Act.

“This case sends a clear message that OSHA will not tolerate retaliation against whistleblowers,” said Richard S. Terrill, OSHA’s regional administrator in Seattle. “Employees need to be able to report on-the-job injuries or illnesses without fear of reprisal.”

OSHA enforces the whistleblower provisions of the OSH Act and 16 other statutes protecting employees who report violations of various securities laws; trucking, airline, nuclear power, pipeline, environmental, rail, workplace safety and health regulations; and consumer product safety laws. Detailed information on employee whistleblower rights, including fact sheets, is available online at: http://www.osha.gov/dep/oia/whistleblower/index.html.

Under the OSH Act, OSHA’s role is to promote safe and healthful working conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and providing training, outreach and education. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.

Editor’s Note: The Labor Department does not release names of employees involved in whistleblower complaints.

Washington, DC – The Postal Regulatory Commission today issued Order No: 244 establishing Docket N2009-1 to provide a public hearing and issue an advisory opinion on the national service implications of a U.S. Postal Service “Station and Branch Optimization and Consolidation Initiative.”

The Postal Service has advised it will examine approximately 3,200 postal stations and branches nationwide for possible closure or curtailment and that an additional 1,600 stations and branches could likewise be reviewed depending on the outcome of the initial examination.

The Commission proceeding provides a transparent on the record process to ensure that any nationwide changes in postal service are consistent with the Postal Service’s obligation to provide prompt, reliable, and efficient postal services to customers in all areas and to all communities.

The Commission invites interested parties to participate in the process in accordance with CFR 39 §3001.20(b). Requests are due on or before July 28, 2009. A prehearing conference is scheduled for July 30, 2009, at 9:30 a.m. in the Commission’s hearing room.

The Postal Service announced today that the New York Metro Area based in Flushing NY is to be merged into the Northeast Area, which has offices in Windsor CT. NY Metro is responsible for New York City, Long Island, Westchester, and part of New Jersey. The Northeast Area office currently handles the New England states, and upstate New York.

Northeast Area VP Tim Haney will serve as Acting VP for the NY Metro Area starting Monday, with the goal of completing the consolidation of the two areas by the beginning of the new fiscal year on October 1, when he will return to Windsor as AVP of the combined area.

In the interim, Linda Kingsley, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Transition,will serve as acting VP for the Northeast.

The announcement also states that “With responsibilities for a significantly increased geographic area, the Northeast Area office will maintain a presence both in Connecticut and New York.”