PMG briefs employee organizations on the USPS’s current situation
TweetPostmaster 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.
July 17th, 2009 04:52
Where’s the plan to downsize management?
July 17th, 2009 04:53
Where’s the plan to downsize management? A 50% reduction is needed.
July 17th, 2009 05:26
what about that advertising we can sell on pvi’s or on sides of our trucks
July 17th, 2009 05:52
why not another VERA with no reduction!
July 17th, 2009 06:47
Why are the numbers of INCOMPETENT POSTAL MANAGERS increasing instead of decreasing? Potter keeps creating V.P positions!!
July 17th, 2009 07:15
5 day delivery will be the beginning of the end for the postal service. Good luck.
July 17th, 2009 07:28
Adam Smith
“• Further reductions in administrative positions”
Where did you learn to read?
July 17th, 2009 07:50
Don H
you do not need a VERA to retire .. you just say you want to retire & go .. what do you mean by “no reduction” isn’t that the purpose to reduce the amount of employees
July 17th, 2009 08:01
5 day will be no great savings to USPS, except that we will definitely lose customer satisfaction, customer base. Getting rid of Saturday delivery might be good for businesses that are closed, but we are here for the Public as a whole. More people are home and available to receive certain types of mailings and redeliveries on Saturdays. And what about all the RCAs/TEs/PTFs this will affect? Getting rid of their time will only make them more unavailable to work when needed. Did you really do your homework on this one Mr. PMG? Want to save money and jobs…how about renegotiating EVERYONES pay from the top down! Seriously, this is the only way that we can possibly dig out and keep people working.
July 17th, 2009 08:41
senior RCA-what part of “temporary” and “part-time” do you not understand ? Look at the newspapers, read the web, or watch the news, no job is guaranteed anywhere ! It is survival mode for all. I know you want to climb to the top immediately, but ya gotta pay your dues ! You want us ALL to go down with the ship, or do you just want us old-timers out of your way ? Good luck, we are all gonna need it !
July 17th, 2009 09:16
I guess you didn’t read the part about Admin cuts and unit consolidation. At least read the article before flamming.
July 17th, 2009 10:31
Maybe the National Assocication of Lazy Carriers can have a food drive for their unemployed stewards soon.
July 17th, 2009 10:34
City and rural carriers will get Saturdays and Sundays off EVERY week? That will make those jobs look very attractive. BTW Canadians adopted 5-day delivery years ago with no ill effects.
July 17th, 2009 10:41
If people are concerned about non delivery on Sat. have them rent a PO Box that service will continue and it would bring in more revenue….
July 17th, 2009 10:49
[...] PMG briefs employee organizations on the USPS’s current situation [...]
July 17th, 2009 11:34
The benefits of the Flat Rate Boxes SUCKS! They are so small. The largest being just 13 inches!
Anything larger goes by the Diminsional Weight classification which is a ripoff!
Example: I had a box that weighed less than 5 Pounds. Under regular weight pricing the cost was a little of over $10 dollars for shipment by Priority Mail.
BUT NOOOOOO! Since it was a larger than 13 inches (22 X 15 X 8 inches) the cost was $26.45 based on Dimensional Weight Guidelines.
$26.45 to mail a box under 5 Pounds to Florida from Pennsylvania.
WHAT A SCAM! Since the creation of the Postal Service all pricing was based on weight UNTIL NOW!
July 17th, 2009 12:22
I had to ship a defective ceiling fan to Hunter so I priced the cost to ship at USPS, UPS, and Fedex. It’s very easy to do on the web.
USPS wanted $35 for priority mail, USP $29 for ground, and Fedex $21 for 3 day. Guess which one I choose.
I took the last VERA from the Post Office, but feel no loyalty to the organization. It’s all about saving what you can these days.
July 17th, 2009 16:15
He says retail will stay open on Saturday in my large city they are all closing except 3 even the main office willbe closed on sat. real smart
July 17th, 2009 17:02
i won’t take this serious until all the hispanic coordinators and black coordiantors are returned to the workroom floor.
July 17th, 2009 17:13
anyone copying and pasting “further reduction in administrative positions” isnt reading between the lines – not one manager has been laid off. the positions are eliminated, but they just move them around or create a temporary one.
July 17th, 2009 17:23
Hey Mike….all the lazy carriers, as you call them, went into management….You must be one of them.
July 17th, 2009 18:15
If all of you would commit to become part of the solution rather than attacking each other. The union needs to work with management for fair and logical solutions and not preaching to their members that there is no problem that management just wants to scare them into more work. Stop fighting for poor performers, thieves, and trouble makers. Management needs to communicate with the workforce in these troubling times. Tempers and anxiety are high when livlihoods are threatened and management should be able to be understanding, and reliable to employees facing uncertainty within the Postal Servie. If we continue this bickering between labor and management rather than working together you can be assured we will argue ourselves right out the door.
July 17th, 2009 18:45
Thank You Marty. If there is one thing I’ve learned working for the USPS is that we are constantly changing. It has taken over 200 years for this great organization to reach the level of committment we have to our public. I like to say we have “evolved”. One of the biggest reasons we have survived this long is because we have embraced change when it was needed. Well yes we are seeing a lot of changes and yes, once again we are rolling with the punches and yes, once again we will survive because we are taking the actions needed for us to be here for our citizens in the future.
July 17th, 2009 18:49
simple solution
offer an additional 5 years of service time to all csrs craft employees and watch them retire in one huge sunami wave
July 17th, 2009 18:51
Our station eliminated a route and made an extra supervisor
July 17th, 2009 18:54
With all of the complaints I see about wait times in the lobby, is the post office going to increase the number of window clerks to help with the Saturday crush of people wanting to mail stuff? I doubt it. If they want to get rid of Saturday letter delivery, OK. But keep package delivery or UPS and FedEx will eat our lunch and take away even more business. That would help some of the RCA’s since a few hours on Saturday is better than no hours.
July 17th, 2009 19:11
LOLOLOL……
Slug…YOU ARE SOOOO RIGHT…
Can you imagine how much cash could be saved by ridding the PO of the UNPRODUCTIVE DIVERSITY SCAMMERS.
This financial meltdown may be a blessing after all.
July 18th, 2009 00:48
Might as well shut her down boys and girls. I guess cutting costs and becoming efficicient means more sorry @%! management and computers. I have never seen such foolishness in my entire life. My station of 30 carriers now has 4 supervisors and a station manager! Two of them can’t even count the mail! One of them didn’t even know what bulk mail was! And she is making $55,000 a year.
July 18th, 2009 01:33
Make sure EVERYONE is working. Get rid of all light duty people. There should be a limit as to how long you can milk it on light duty. Light duty people bring moral WAY DOWN!
July 18th, 2009 05:41
Poor clerks, they don’t have to deal with the weather, but they still have to deal with Saturdays!!!!
July 18th, 2009 05:57
Since Mr. Potter has been the PMG, he has created more than 400 Vice President Positions, don’t know if they’re all in D.C., but what a waste of money.
July 18th, 2009 08:44
What about this bull$hit , again no COLA’s, you mean to tell me the economy has not risen in 2 years?
July 18th, 2009 10:29
a buyout of some sort is needed, get all of the older employees eligible to leave out the door…then there would be plenty of room and opportunity for the PTF’s, TE’s and T6′s, no layoffs would occour…costly yes in short run, but well worth USPS long term health and survival
July 18th, 2009 10:58
The problem with the post office is fat boy Potter. Him and his wife are both leaching off the taxpayers. Why not cut her job? The post office is it’s own enemy. It let UPS take it’s package delivery now it want it back. Postal workers who are always blaming management better be care of what you wish for. Obama is the first president who is tech savvy. Don’t count on him for help. He sees it like the rest of America,over paid workers doing nothing. The post office is on it’s way out.
July 18th, 2009 11:04
By the way to the unions you can kiss no layoff clause goodbye next contract.
July 18th, 2009 16:18
I have to agree with many of the comments on this blog. There is not any mention of cutting management positions, that I have heard or read about, since I have begun to track the Postal News, cuts, etc. The Unions encouraged the Postal Employees to vote for Obama, I am beginning to wonder why? Yes, I think the no layoff clause along with many other things are going to be “kissed goodbye” with the next contract.
July 18th, 2009 20:05
Okay everyone lets keep passing the greasy football.Recall the 80s when management and craft at ends.umps teams were overloaded.Then came the kindler gentler post office.
Here we go again.The only thing good back then was the early out with incentive.Post office caught with pants down alot of people left.Thats why no incentive now.Go figure
July 18th, 2009 20:05
The no-layoff clause will be gone, reduction of night differential, and loss of Sunday differential. Count on reduction of annual leave to 160 hours per year, and
80 hours of sick leave per year.
July 18th, 2009 21:23
I can’t wait for Saturdays off. I’ve worked them for 28 years while my neighbors do all they’re weekly chores, go to sporting events with their children or lay around the house waiting on the mailman to have someone to talk too and slow down from getting his/her work done. Traffic is bad, dogs are out, We refer to Saturdays as Dog bite Saturday’s because that is typically when most carriers get bitten, Homeowners love to have the dog running loose with the kids in the front yard on Saturday. They prod you for information about they’re neighbors as if you’ve got all day to stand around and talk in hot weather with a satchel load of mail. Saturday’s are A BIG PAIN IN THE ASS!! If someone wants Saturday delivery they should pay a premium rate as they do for other services they want on Saturday! Try getting a plumber, cable-guy, phone-man, A/C repair or many other services done on a Saturday. What other government agency is open on Saturday? Not to mention all the extra staffing and fuel we use on Saturday trying to deliver to businesses that open late or close early or decide not to open at all! SATURDAY’S ARE A PAIN IN THE ASS !!! You want to whine about lost jobs? People are losing jobs every where. It’s the Economy not just the POST OFFICE! Have you ever checked out whats happening with FEDEX or UPS? They’re struggling too! Consolidating routes, cutting benefits, laying-off employees! Things are tough for everyone and we can’t change that or change our business model fast enough to adapt. As far as T-6′s are concerned, I can’t get mine to carry my route on my day-off! Management lets them opt for the easiest work on they’re string. That’s frustrating as hell! My route always suffers on my non-scheduled day-off and I have to pick-up the slack/catch-up every week. It pisses me off when they only take the pref. mail. I’d like to get paid for a easy day everyday! These are the young people that are going to save the Post Office? HA HA HA That’s NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! I’m sorry if you started your Post Office career late but that’s life! You roll with the punches! And don’t worry you’ll have plenty more to deal with as you grow older! ROLL WITH IT AND MAKE THE BEST OF WHAT YOU GOT! SEE YOU AT THE GAME ON SATURDAY! YEAH BABY! YEAH!!!
July 18th, 2009 21:24
I look forward to getting my mail on Saturday more than any other day. Suggestions to cut one delivery day of service is equal to suggestions to abandon our automobile industry: stupid and short-sighted.
This is another indication of our inferior managers and politicians. If not confronted, these inferiors will lower our quality of life.
The issue here is how can we enhance the quality of service, and that takes intelligent managers, not the dullards we have.
We must focus on management fools and their cronies. The press has to out them and their self-serving decisions.
Advancing people just because they are stupid and won’t pose a threat to your future advancement has to be stopped and exposed. We must advance the most able and gifted. That is the only way we can get out of this mess.
July 18th, 2009 22:43
What about cutting mgmt. pay, starting with the postmaster general. He makes more than President Obama. Why cant he sacrifice some of his pay to help the post office. We as craft workers have been sacrificing. Most of us still work very hard each and every day, and take pride in our work. We do the physical part as carriers, not an easy task most days. We have taken a cut in pay, we cant work our days off anymore, we rarely work ot on our scheduled days, for those of us on the ot list. Even on our regularly scheduled days most of us feel pressured to leave early and use our leave. We could save lots of money if our top mgmt. took a pay cut and contribute to the future of the post office. Let us lead by example.
July 19th, 2009 08:07
Randy, I have NEVER used AL when theres not enough work.NEVER
July 19th, 2009 10:32
Business operates six days a week in this free enterprise country. Only delivering mail five days a week will not serve our customers. If we do not serve our customers, someone else will. Turn out the lights Jack (Henry) Potter. You’e living in fantasyland.
July 19th, 2009 19:39
DO ANOTHER VERA WITH NO PENALTY, OR WITH A NICE INCENTIVE TO GO! THE USPS CANNOT HAVE A FUTURE WTHOUT THE YOUNGER CARRIERS MOVING UP THE RANKS & SOON!!!!!!!!
July 19th, 2009 19:52
There’s money floating around when the Post Office puts the carriers in a larger consolidated office and then keeps a postmaster position instead of making the small retail office a part of the larger office the carriers went to in order to keep a job for a manager to babysit two clerks. There is plenty of money floating around for a $65,000 a year job for a manager. Imagine how many other places they are doing that in the US consolidating, but keeping the management jobs. Folks, wake up! It is all smoke to cut union jobs and take care of management positions.
July 19th, 2009 23:44
its sad that alot of veteran carriers really like to milk it when it comes to their workload. seriously, who asks for OT on their route on a non-coverage day. time and time again standups are held telling carriers not to case the coverage and they still continue to do it. if you like milking it, you should be a farmer.
July 20th, 2009 03:06
Honest hardworking mailman? I believe you really meant to identify yourself: Dishonest Nonworking Supervisor!
July 20th, 2009 21:36
The first thing that needs to be done to “save” the postal service is to get a new PMG. They fired the head of GM, send Potter out the door too.
July 20th, 2009 21:40
the union has to quit working to keep the slackers the 18/8 ratio is just a joke joe blow off thestreet could do that how can a person on a route for 10 years look like they dont know what they are doing. or on walking routes strolling down the street like a snail but then race to their cars to go home the slugs need to be abolished and let real carriers keep the jobs
July 21st, 2009 10:33
A VERA with no penality and we would see 50,000 people retire…
July 21st, 2009 19:28
All I want from the service is for them to buy me out, 6 months of my salary will do it, easy they save 26 thousands this year, you know how many of my coworkers are willing to take this offer? I believe a lot, so USPS wise big boys go for, make the offer
July 21st, 2009 21:30
i am not a fan of management by any means. most i wish terrible things on. however, talked to a very informed expostal employee. post office is in tough spot. hr 22 will pass with relief for 3 years not 8. this will help but wont solve the issue. consolidations will help as some who will be excessed far away may have to resign rather than take transfer. post office closings will help reduce force but that the same time hurt service. all of the above will not get rid of the senior people they want. soooo an incentive of some sort looks like the logical thing to do. unfortunately, several issues with this also. done in the early/mid 90′s with incentive too many left and some of the wrong people. crafts have been cut to the bone now, if many leave with incentive staffing becomes a serious problem. and hire new employees after you offered and incentive to retire??? wont happen. congress, bog wont let it. so you see its a tough issue. management is so bloated and top heavy its almost criminal but they will go to the ends of the earth to save themselves. just like any other large corp. only way they get hurt is if congress and obama oversee it. time will tell. not keeping my fingers crossed about any of it. if they structure the early out right they can pull it off but dont think they are interested in that. biding their time till contract is up.. then we are all screwed..
July 22nd, 2009 09:26
Hispanic and Diversity Coordinators are great indicators. As long as these goofball positions exist you know the Postal Service is not serious about its financial situation. Of course, nation wide there is thousands of these 65K to 100K a year do-nothing administrative positions.
July 22nd, 2009 16:14
While the USPS ship is slowly sinking, management in the Southwest Area is dong nothing but making matters worse! Case in point, our TE’s are kept to anywhere from 5 – 6 hours daily, absolutely no more than 36 – 38 hours per week while non-ODL carriers are mandated to work penalty overtime on other routes. The NALC has no problem with capturing under-time but when management’s own figures show that a route is projected to be 7:42 total and that non-ODL carrier is given a hand-off projected to be 3:00 hours, DUH, that’s not capturing under-time! Much cheaper to pay the TE at the regular rate of pay than to pay a senior carrier at the penalty overtime rate!!! Doesn’t the SWA Vice-President have a calculator?
July 24th, 2009 11:37
If employees would just do their jobs to the best of their ability everyday you wouldn’t need so many supervisors. The more craft tries to get something for nothing, the tamers they add to the zoo!
July 26th, 2009 13:53
If you want to get mail volume up to 2003 levels, drop rates to 2003 levels. Advertisers have a budget. Their budget will not mail as many pieces as it used to.
If you want to cut costs, pay carriers solely by the piece. This will reward good carriers instead of encouraging long lunches, hiding in alleys and other ways of wasting time.
Potter is a lying SOS. By eliminating some classes of mail, his 7% rate hike turned into 22% for some categories, yet he managed to get it through the commission AND added an automatic increase every year. What a concept, not enough customers so lets raise prices? WTF Name one other business that does that.
August 4th, 2009 16:28
the pmg talks about reducing management but its ok he just hides them. They will cut grass or clean toilets for 80gs a year until they find a new program for them to run this place into the ground even more!
August 5th, 2009 21:33
What is more amazing is to see that no one even mention that we are one of the largest and trustworthy employees in the USA. Or at least I know if every employee would use that stamp to pay their bills or order the discounted offers of 2 for 1 price magazines or insist on companies to mail out packages they order by mail to be delivered by the USPS or just reach out to friends, families and acquaintences then the revenue would increase. That is a start. TO sit here and bash eachother it doesn’t resolve anything. I agree with some of these comments. I believe that each employee (from top to bottom ) be made accountable for their performance but there should be some incentive .The salaries should be receive for work achieved. A decent living for decent living wages. The USPS and its unions need to continue to work together to have contracts that keep order in some chaotic situations. In the private sector that system does work. It keeps the qualified with good credentials perform at their best. This creates a growth in business. I believe that the seniors have as much right to be there as the young (and I have only 11 years). We need to learn from the experienced but bring in the young for the future. As for the five day service, I too would love to be home but “think business” this would allow some other company to snatch our only monopoly. Think bigger what 5 day would create on the financial world. Think about your customers…the poor single mom waiting on her child support, the unemployed waiting on the check, the struggling business waiting on checks to deposit on saturday so when monday roles around the paid bills won’t bounce. Think bigger than self.
It takes all of us in this business to keep this business going. The GAO (Gov’t Accountability office) placed the USPS in the “High risk list” and should work for RESTRUCTING the USPS. This in no means meant to abolish the business. Work together, work smart, work with the attitude that we will overcome this hurdle and work for business to be here for the future.
You get rid of the postal service then the unemployment will become larger and recession will become a depression.
August 9th, 2009 20:43
The post office is business and even more an institution epitomizing the American culture. The people who work for USPS are honest hardworking family people who in this economic climate have their backs up on the wall. I know this because the mother of my child is a regular clerk after waiting eight years as a temporary flexible clerk as well as my short summer job as sub clerk after high school. My family has been tortured with the threats of losing her job or losing hours or the threat of being transfered to a far away job location. The management is so insensitive to the workers plight.
August 11th, 2009 20:44
Do you want to fix the postal problems or at least save millions of dollars?First the postmasters should have 5 separate stations Monday through Friday insted of staying in the same delivery unit 5 days a week. Tha t would eliminate 4 postmaster positions, and take into consideration how many postmasters there are nationwide.Second bonuses should be terminated, were losing money and craft jobs yet management has seen little to no decrease in size,and their salaries are going through the roof.Third it would take me 3 years to make what the PMG recieved in his bonus this year,is it me or does management seem to get more corrupt with every working day.And don’t forget to maintain your 8 hour day along with the ridiculous pivot you get,postal math never makes sense. I would like to see management start to pivot in other offices.
August 20th, 2009 17:42
USPS needs to make changes to the services it offers to consumers instead of complaining about the internet technology taking business away. They should be looking on ways to offer consumers to make online payments either by utilizing the USPS website and/or personally making the payments at the post office. Currently there are a large number of people making payments online through a bank website, however not everyone has access to a bank account (checking or savings) and for the people with limited or no knowledge on paying online the option to go to the post office to make an electronic payment is a great choice. Today such services just started to be offer by check cashing companies and believed me they are making a bundle.
September 8th, 2009 14:29
If we do go to 5-day delivery, what happens to the T-6′s? Are they eliminated or do they take the place of some other carrier with less seniority?