WASHINGTON, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The U.S. Postal Service is modifying mailing regulations of tobacco shipments from the U.S. to APO/FPO/DPO destinations by expanding shipping options to include Priority Mail service with Delivery Confirmation.

Beginning Aug. 27, customers mailing these items to Army Post Office (APO), Fleet Post Office (FPO) and Diplomatic Post Office (DPO) destinations where tobacco shipments are permissible will have Express Mail Military Service and Priority Mail service with Delivery Confirmation as shipping options.

The addition of Priority Mail service with Delivery Confirmation for the shipment of tobacco to APO/FPO/DPO destinations enables shipments of small amounts of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to service members in war zones and other destinations where Express Mail Military Service is unavailable.

The “Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act” went into effect June 29, and subjects the mailing of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to new mailing regulations. Today’s announcement modifies only tobacco shipments to APO/FPO/DPO destinations. All other restrictions of the PACT Act remain unchanged.

Packages containing tobacco items addressed to APO/FPO/DPO destinations are restricted to a total weight of 10 ounces or less. Mailers must show proof of legal age to purchase tobacco at the time of mailing and confirm the addressee is at least 18 years of age.

Click here to see comprehensive details of current mailing regulations for cigarette and smokeless tobacco mailings that will be updated Aug. 27 with the new APO/FPO/DPO shipping option.

With only a few limited exceptions, the Postal Service no longer accepts or transports packages containing cigarettes or smokeless tobacco products. The general mailability ban extends to cigarettes, “roll-your-own tobacco” and smokeless tobacco. With the exception of tobacco shipments to APO/FPO/DPO destinations and those entirely within Alaska and Hawaii, tobacco shipments are permitted only via Express Mail service.

Click here to download this week’s podcast, or click the play button below to listen online. [audio:http://postcom.org/postalweek/08.20.10.twip.mp3]
Previous podcasts in the series are at thisweekinpostal.info.

Does Leo Raymond really think the mailing industry should unionize?

Well, probably not- but you’d be forgiven for getting that impression from today’s “This Week in Postal” podcast. During today’s podcast it was suggested that the mailing industry has probably cut as many employees because of the recession as the USPS would cut if it went to five day delivery. At that point (about 29 minutes into the podcast) Leo Raymond, Vice President of the Mailing & Fulfillment Service Association, says “Congress does not worry about these people because they don’t have a PAC to support Congressional candidates. These are just individual company’s employees who again, don’t have leverage that the postal unions have. If the postal unions don’t like something they go marching up the hill, checkbook in hand, and they say look- don’t support us on this and we’re not your friends any more. That gets attention.”

Sounds like a glowing endorsement to me!

The Postal Regulatory Commission will begin consideration of the US Postal Service’s request for an “exigent” rate increase on Thursday September 9. On the next day the PRC will hold its regular monthly closed session- there will be no open meeting in September. The commission will then continue to meet on weekdays as needed until it comes to a decision on the request. The latest possible meeting date would be Friday, October 1.

CONCORD, N.H. – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited the U.S. Postal Service for five alleged willful violations of safety standards following an inspection at the Portsmouth, N.H., Processing and Distribution Center. The Postal Service faces a total of $350,000 in fines, chiefly for exposing workers to electrical hazards.

OSHA’s inspection, conducted in response to employee complaints, found untrained or inadequately trained employees at the Portsmouth distribution center performing troubleshooting and voltage testing on or near live electrical equipment and wiring that had not first been de-energized. The workers also lacked personal protective equipment and were not instructed on proper electrical lockout/tagout procedures.

As a result of its inspection, OSHA has issued five willful citations to the Postal Service for the conditions at the Portsmouth facility. OSHA defines a willful violation as one committed with plain indifference to or intentional disregard for employee safety and health.

"These citations and the sizable fines proposed here reflect the Postal Service’s ongoing knowledge of and failure to address conditions that exposed its workers to the severe and potentially deadly hazards of electric shock, arc flashes and arc blasts," said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Dr. David Michaels.

The Postal Service has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to comply, meet with the OSHA area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. This inspection was conducted by OSHA’s area office in Concord; telephone 603-225-1629. To report workplace accidents, fatalities or situations posing imminent danger to workers, call OSHA’s toll-free hotline at 800-321-6742.

The Labor Department has filed an enterprise-wide complaint against the U.S. Postal Service for electrical work safety violations. The complaint asks the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission to order the USPS to correct electrical violations at all of its facilities nationwide. This complaint marks the first time OSHA has sought enterprise-wide relief as a remedy.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHA’s role is to assure these conditions for America’s working men and women by setting and enforcing standards, and providing training, education and assistance. For more information, visit http://www.osha.gov.

FAIRBANKS — A postal worker who stole $100 worth of Wal-Mart gift cards from a customer on her mail route received a suspended sentence Wednesday.

Brenda Janak, 50, of North Pole, pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree felony theft as part of a plea agreement.

In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped four additional theft charges and a charge of fraudulently using an access device. She will be on probation for one year, during which she must complete 50 hours of community service and pay restitution to the victim.

Full story: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – Postal worker pleads guilty to theft.

NEW ORLEANS – TAMARA BERNARD, age 37, of New Orleans, Louisiana, pled guilty in federal court today before U. S. District Judge Lance M. Africk to theft of mail, announced U. S. Attorney Jim Letten.

According to court documents, BERNARD was an employee at the United Parcel Service (UPS) store located on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. BERNARD admitted that she stole a letter containing cash and other items that was deposited in the collection slot for U.S. mail at the UPS store

Full story: New Orleans Woman Pleads Guilty To Mail Theft – WGNO.

The USPS doesn’t appear to be pleased that its former Chief Financial Officer Mike Riley testified on behalf of the NALC in opposition to the service’s plan to eliminate Saturday delivery. It has filed interrogatories with the PRC asking that Riley back up some of his opinions with “analyses and studies”. For example: Riley stated that elimination of Saturday delivery “would also send a signal to customers that their needs and preferences no longer matter to the Postal Service.”

While the statement seems to be a matter of opinion, the USPS requests “copies of all data, analyses, market research studies and other documents, aside from any documents filed by the Postal Service in this docket, upon which this conclusion is based.”

The USPS makes the same request in response to Riley’s suggestion that eliminating Saturday deliveries “would reinforce the negative stereotype of the Postal Service as an inefficient government entity rather than a vital service-orientated service. Such a negative stereotype would not only dampen the public’s demand for postal services but would erode its support for the Postal Service as an institution.”

Finally, in response to Riley’s assertion that “We live in an era where service companies are increasing days and hours of operation to appeal to their customers.”, the USPS asks Riley to “specifically identify the service companies to which you refer, describe the products and services they offer, and specify the increases in days and hours of operations to which you refer.”

While the questions are par for the course in rate setting deliberations, they are somewhat ironic given the USPS admissions in the exigent rate case last week that it had no specific analyses or studies to back up its own assertions on the price sensitivity of first class mail or the health of the periodicals industry.

At first glance it would seem the height of presumption for the Mailhandlers’ Union to attempt to instruct Senator Susan Collins, the self-proclaimed author of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), on the legislative history of that law. But that’s exactly what the union did in comments filed yesterday with the Postal Regulatory Commission.

The mailhandlers point out that the exigency language Senator Collins included in her original Senate bill never made it into the law that was finally passed and signed into law in 2006. Collins had called for any exigent increases to be based on “unexpected and extraordinary circumstances”. When it came time to reconcile her bill with the House version, the requirement had been lowered to circumstances “either extraordinary or exceptional.” The change eliminated the requirement that the circumstances had to be unforeseen, and made the requirement an either/or proposition- the circumstance didn’t have to be both extraordinary and exceptional- just one or the other. The mailhandlers point out that all of the history Senator Collins presented to the PRC referred to the earlier more restrictive language, not the lower standard that was actually enacted. Read the rest of this entry »

The Affordable Mail has filed additional comments with the Postal regulatory Commission, opposing the USPS request for an “exigent” rate increase. In its comments, the AMA cites last week’s testimony by postal executives, which it says bolster its case by demonstrating that the proposed rates are not necessary for the service to continue in business, and are in reality a reaction to a long term reduction in mail volume that has been predicted for many years.

Then the AMA attacks the USPS position that it is unable to do more to cut costs without action by the PRC or Congress- here’s the AMA’s summary:

• The Postal Service maintains an inefficiently large network of undersized and obsolete mail processing facilities.
• The Postal Service has an oversized work force, inflexible work rules, and low productivity.
• The total compensation of Postal Service employees—more than $80,000 per employee on average—is well above the amounts paid in the private sector for comparable work. According to the Postal Service’s own experts, this compensation premium is probably more than 30 percent. This inefficiency costs the Postal Service and the public $10 to 14 billion or more in needless costs annually.
• The loss of mail volume to the Internet was not an unforeseeable surprise. The Postal Service had notice of this threat years before significant volume losses occurred.
• The Postal Service’s failure to cope effectively with the 2008-2009 recession is further evidence of structural inefficiency. The average firm in the private sector saw its revenues collapse by nearly as much as the Postal Service; and many large firms saw their revenues collapse by 20 percent or more. Well-run private firms, including the Postal Service’s competitors, responded to the downturn with immediate headcount reductions and other aggressive and painful austerity measures that resulted in a return to profit relatively quickly, even while sales volume and revenue remained depressed. The Postal Service, by contrast, contented itself with a business-as-usual incremental approach to cost cutting that allowed productivity to plummet and unit costs to get further out of control.
• The Postal Service’s financial loss projections in this case assume no major improvements in cost control in the future.

Read the entire AMA statement

CORBIN — By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

John Henry Sears and Alyssia Lynn Adkins, U.S. Postal Service employees, have been charged in separate indictments with embezzling mail.

Sears, who is scheduled for arraignment in U.S. District Court in London on Aug. 23, is charged on two counts.

Full story: Local area postal workers charged with embezzlement » Local News » TheTimesTribune.com, Corbin, KY.