An ex-Postal Service employee in Ft Payne has pleaded guilty to stealing mail. 32 year old Dutton resident April Long pled guilty to charges of Federal Mail Theft by a U.S. Postal Employee and was sentenced to five years probation – she was also ordered to pay a fine of $100 – and a total of $4,842 in restitution. According to court records, restitution payments made by Long will be transferred to an unspecified number of victims. Long had stolen an unspecified amount of mail between September 1st and October 19th of 2009 – in November of that year, Ft Payne Postmaster Mary Jo Crabtree, said that a former postal worker was being investigated on suspicion of taking mail, but would not release the name of the worker. Crabtree stated they had quite a number of customers calling to report missing mail in the area, with the targets appearing to be birthday, get-well and anniversary cards – items which often contain cash or checks as a gift. Postal Service Investigators, subsequently recovered about 2,500 pieces of missing mail, apparently taken by Long – and sent them out.

via WEIS-AM.

The US Postal Service is at risk of under-charging for its business mail delivery services because of poor financial record keeping, federal auditors have warned.

The Office of the Inspector General carried out unannounced checks on 96 of the Postal Service’s Business Mail Entry Units (BMEUs) from October 2009 to September 2010, finding there was a “unacceptably high degree of noncompliance” with key financial controls.

The audited sites represented $2.5 billion in annual revenues for the USPS, which last year reported an $8.5 billion loss.

Gaps in the USPS mail acceptance and verification process at its BMEUs, where mailers take presorted mail and pay the USPS for delivery, meant that business mailings may not be accurately accounted or billed, the OIG said.

Full story: Auditors raise concerns over USPS bookkeeping | Post & Parcel.

At post offices in Browns Valley, Smartsville, Dobbins and other small Yuba County burgs, residents stop in for their mail, and a chat.

Sometimes it’s with the clerk, sometimes it’s with neighbors. The topic can be the weather, where to get firewood, or general gossip.

But officials of the U.S. Postal Service, which continues to face financial woes and a mandate to cut costs, is mulling whether such post offices still make sense in a time when bills can be paid online and most people can’t recall when they last sent a letter.

Beginning in March, the Postal Service will begin closing 2,000 offices nationwide, and postal officials are reviewing up to 16,000 more operating at a deficit.

Full story: Rural post offices under threat | offices, postal, service – Appeal-Democrat.

MANSFIELD — The closing of a local post office has attracted the attention of a national news program.

The Emmy-award winning show "60 Minutes" spent Thursday and Friday at sites throughout Richland County, including five Mansfield post offices and AngelWoods Hideaway Bed and Breakfast, in Lucas.

"We’re doing a story about the U.S. Postal Service, which is in the process of closing a couple thousand post offices," producer Clem Taylor said. "We’re here in Mansfield looking at the Lincoln branch as an example of what’s going on across the country."

Full story: ’60 Minutes’ visits Mansfield post office | mansfieldnewsjournal.com | Mansfield News Journal.

It’s getting to be a daily routine- another day, another commentator misstates the facts about the US Postal Service for political reasons.

Today it’s the turn of “G.W. Pomichter”, who bills himself as “a conservative political consultant and member of the Brevard (FL) Republican Executive Committee”. Here’s what G.W. had to say in Florida Today:

In fact, with emerging private sector competitors, the nation’s once premiere postal carrier lost more than $7 billion and spent nearly $5 billion on retiree health benefits alone.

Of course, that is not a “fact”. First of all, it was MORE than $5 billion- about $5.5 billion. And it didn’t go to “retiree health benefits”. It went to a congressionally mandated trust fund supposedly intended to finance future retiree health benefits, but which has been shown to be unnecessary. The real reason Congress wants the money is to artificially decrease the federal budget deficit.

But it gets better- G.W. goes on to claim that

The closure of the USPS would mean private carriers could thrive. More than 30,000 federally protected commercial sites would become available to private interests.

It’s a conservative article of faith that businesses everywhere are just itching to get into the mail delivery business- despite the fact that both FedEx and UPS use the postal service to deliver a large percentage of their package volume, a service that the USPS doesn’t have a monopoly on. (Click here to read about the right wing’s favorite “privatized” postal service) But the real howler is the idea that all those post office sites “would become available to private interests”. Yes, G.W., I’m sure most small towns in this country would just love to have yet another vacant storefront on their Main Street.

via Technology, large deficits outdate it Jan. 30 | floridatoday.com | FLORIDA TODAY.

Thomas Tang, a postal employee since 1994 and based in Corona, Queens, is charged with pilfering more than 7,000 discount coupons between October and January and then putting up bundles of the stolen circulars on eBay for bidding, from his home computer in Baldwin on Long Island.

“He might package five or 10 and put them on eBay and people would bid on them — 10 for $35 or $40 — a profit for him,” Nassau County Police Det. Vincent Garcia said.

Tang’s pregnant wife and sister rushed out of the courtroom as a judge held the mailman on $10,000 bond. Prosecutors had asked for five times that but would not reveal how much the letter carrier allegedly made off the scheme.

“They’re alleging Mr. Tang took some circulars. I’m not going to minimize it but it is a little strange, not your typical case,” attorney Robert Parker said.

via Police: Long Island Postman Accused Of Stealing 7,000 J.C. Penney Coupons Before Selling Them On eBayCBS New York.

From Fox Philadelphia- click here for Part 1

Fox 29 Investigates: Drinking Postmen : MyFoxPHILLY.com

The APWU has expressed outrage over the Postal Service’s unilateral decision to shut down online bidding from Jan. 28 until Jan. 31, and for giving the union only 24-hour notice of its plans. The bidding “outage,” as the USPS called it, was prompted by an upgrade to the computer system.

“Please be advised that 24-hour notification to this Union of a scheduled upgrade and anticipated shut-down of the HCES system is absolutely intolerable,” Director of Industrial Relations Mike Morris wrote on Jan. 28. “You should be aware that regardless of your notification, the provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement as well as many Local Memorandums of Understanding remain in effect as agreed to. You may not unilaterally abridge these requirements simply by notifying the Union of your intent.”

In the past, when computerized bidding was unavailable, the USPS has made manual bidding or some other alternative available, Morris said.

A letter [PDF] announcing the outage of the Human Resources Enterprise System was faxed to APWU President Cliff Guffey on Jan. 27, advising the union that bidding would be unavailable for Clerks, Letter Carriers, Rural Letter Carriers and Mail Handlers beginning at 12:01 p.m. the next day and throughout the weekend. The upgrade is expected to be completed by 6 a.m. on Jan. 31.

“It is expected that employees whose contractual rights were abrogated by the employer’s failure to properly post and/or award bids on vacant assignments consistent with the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Local Memorandums of Understanding, and past practice will be made whole,” Morris said.

via APWU Protests Bidding ‘Outage’.

Union Asks for Members’ Continued Support

“Although progress in contract negotiations is slow, bargaining is ongoing,” APWU President Cliff Guffey reported on Jan. 28. Representatives of the Postal Service and the union are meeting almost daily, he added.

“I know that many of our members are eager to hear details about our exchanges,” Guffey said. “Unfortunately, while talks are ongoing, it is not feasible to elaborate on specifics. Unless and until we reach agreement on all of the outstanding issues, the concepts the parties have been considering are just that — concepts. They will only have meaning if we reach agreement on a complete contract.

“The APWU negotiating team is determined to work for a contract that benefits union members and that will enhance the long-term viability of the Postal Service,” he said. “I ask members for their continued support as the process goes on,” he noted.

The union has outlined its goals many times, he said. “We are seeking to preserve jobs and reduce the pain of excessing for our members,” he said. In December, the APWU and the Postal Service agreed to a moratorium on excessing, which applies to excessing outside of a craft or installation. The moratorium will remain in effect as long as bargaining continues.

One of the union’s top priorities is to regain duties that have been contracted out or given to supervisory personnel.

“The proposals we have submitted to achieve these objectives also would benefit the Postal Service,” Guffey said. “They would reduce USPS costs, because our members can perform the work more efficiently and at a lower cost.”

In addition to job security and excessing, the parties are discussing wages, benefits, and issues related to workforce structure.

The Process

The contract was originally scheduled to expire Nov. 20, but the union and management agreed to extend bargaining. The 2006-2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement will remain in effect until a new agreement is reached through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration.

Under the terms of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, when the union and management fail to reach agreement on a successor contract and do not agree on an alternate procedure, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) appoints a mediator. If a settlement is not reached within 60 days of the expiration of the contract, both parties submit all outstanding issues to binding arbitration.

The extension of bargaining qualifies as an “alternate procedure,” so the FMCS has not appointed a mediator and the 60-day period for submitting issues to arbitration has not begun, Guffey explained.

If arbitration becomes necessary, the APWU will appoint an arbitrator, as will the USPS. The two party-appointed arbitrators will work with a neutral arbitrator to ensure that each side’s interests are clearly understood.

via With Slow Progress, Contract Talks Continue; Union Asks for Members’ Continued Support.

In a blog post mostly devoid of actual facts, radio personality Clark Howard suggests that the USPS needs to be privatized. Howard claims that the USPS lost “almost $9 billion” last year. The actual figure was $8.5 billion, but Howard seems oblivious to the facts behind that number. As most readers will know, $5,5 billion of the “loss” was due to the annual “trust fund” payment mandated by Congress since 2006. A further $2.5 billion resulted from the required revaluing of the USPS’s future workers comp liability- a non-cash accounting entry caused, not by anything the USPS did or didn’t do, but by changes in long term interest rates. The USPS’s actual operating loss was about $500 million.

Like the Washington Post and numerous other news outlets, Howard isn’t interested in the facts, especially if they don’t fit his preconceived solution- what else- privatization!

The USPS has really taken it on the chin in so many ways in the past. Last year, the postal service lost almost $9 billion. The business model is simply not sustainable any more.

So I expect you’ll be seeing a big fight with politicians grandstanding and saying that you can’t close this post office location or that one. But I think the whole entity should be sold off to a private vendor, period.

Now, don’t get me wrong. What we pay for postage is actually very reasonable. But I still think the answer is to sell the postal service off and get rid of it being an obligation of the federal government. Let the free market figure out how to best deliver mail.

Howard and the others cling to the belief that private companies are just dying to get into the mail delivery business. It doesn’t make sense, of course- why would investors be interested in a business that you claim is not sustainable?

via Postal service’s budget deficit could be remedied by privatization | www.clarkhoward.com.