The NALC has learned that 218 House members from both parties—a majority—have now signed on as co-sponsors of H.Res. 137, the measure introduced by Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO) that expresses the sense of the House that the USPS should take “all appropriate measures” to ensure continuation of six-day delivery. “Our members’ hard work continues to pay off,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said. “This level of support will shore up our defense against the attempts by Congressman Darrell Issa and others to ‘save’ the Postal Service by cutting service—a counterproductive proposal that would surely fail if implemented.” Click here to find out whether your representative is among this majority, and if he or she is not, click here to find out how you can ask your House member to become a co-sponsor of H. Res. 137.
Thank you for signing a petition about the U.S. Postal Service. We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov and your concerns about the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) in a challenging economy. The Postal Service is vital to the Nation’s commerce and communications, which is why we must act quickly to make the changes necessary to ensure its viability for years to come.
Postal volumes have dropped precipitously in recent years due to longer-run shifts in communication technologies and other economic factors. As a result, USPS accrued losses of $8.5 billion in 2010, and faced financial insolvency on September 30th. Without reform it is forecast to sustain greater losses this year and next.
However, the Postal Service needs more than just short term financial relief at this time; it needs a comprehensive plan for reform to ensure that it can be flexible and competitive in a changing marketplace. There are multiple ways to provide relief and reform, but the Administration’s proposal in The President’s Plan for Economic Growth and Job Creation [PDF] represents a balanced approach for postal workers, USPS, consumers, and taxpayers.
More specifically, the proposal includes a set of near-term financial relief measures that will provide the Postal Service with the time necessary to restructure its operations and take advantage of flexibilities in the proposal, such as the ability to cooperate with state and local governments and modest pricing flexibility.
In the longer term, we are proposing to help the Postal Service reduce its excessive operating costs by providing the flexibility to gradually move to 5-day delivery, beginning in 2013. Under USPS’ plan for how it would use this authority, post offices would still remain open on Saturdays, Express Mail deliveries would still be made 7 days a week, post office box deliveries would still be made on Saturdays, and USPS would continue to make Saturday deliveries in the busy weeks leading up to the winter Holidays. These and other cost structuring actions will ensure that the Postal Service remains viable for the medium- and longer-term.
We believe USPS’ financial situation demands such reforms and the Administration’s package includes provisions to reduce the impact for USPS workers and customers. We share petitioners’ concern for the health and viability of the USPS and developed this plan with the best interest of this vital institution in mind.
As we work to get our Nation back on a sustainable fiscal path, the Administration is making tough choices across the Federal government and asking everyone to do their fair share. These shared sacrifices are not easy, but together with investments in our economic growth and job creation [PDF], they will make us stronger and more competitive for the future.
Dana Hyde is Associate Director for General Government Programs, Office of Management and Budget
About one-quarter of letter carriers have served in the military. Your carrier might be one of them.
Of the 280,000 members of the National Association of Letter Carriers, about 70,000 are veterans of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines or Coast Guard, including recent service in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This Veterans Day, the NALC recognizes these brave men and women for the vital service they have provided—and continue to provide as letter carriers.
“Six days a week,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said, “letter carriers help bind this vast country together while also unifying individual communities, serving the needs of small businesses that provide two-thirds of new jobs and helping residents keep in touch with loved ones.”
This TV commercial to honor NALC’s veterans was scheduled to air nationwide on a number of cable TV networks the week of Nov. 7-11, 2011.
But proposed cuts—including eliminating Saturday delivery and most door-to-door delivery—would deprive businesses and residents of needed services.
“Reducing and degrading service would amount to a new tax on Americans,” Rolando said. “Since the Postal Service is funded by its own revenue, not by taxes, taxpayers and businesses won’t save a dime if Saturday delivery is eliminated. In fact, this would cost them money – not only would they have to use more-expensive private carriers, they’d be on the hook for unemployment benefits for some two hundred thousand postal employees.”
These cuts would lead to the layoffs of tens of thousands of veterans, at a time of mass unemployment.
“With President Obama having announced that thousands of Iraq War troops will soon come home, they deserve jobs to return to, and the last thing Congress should do is take away decent jobs from our veterans,” Rolando said.
The Postal Service is the core of a $1.3 trillion mailing industry that employs 8 million Americans, and dismantling the Postal Service would jeopardize those jobs—at the worst possible time for our economy.
Letter carriers do far more than deliver the mail. They serve as the eyes and ears of communities around the country, saving elderly residents, finding lost children, stopping crime and putting out fires, often aided by their military training. And, under a program started by former President George W. Bush and the Department of Homeland Security, letter carriers have set up—on a volunteer basis—pilot programs in five major cities to deliver medicines to residents in the event of a biological attack.
For 200 years, the Postal Service—an agency rooted in the U.S. Constitution—has adapted to technological change, and it can continue to do so if lawmakers act responsibly.
President Guffey is asking APWU members to collect signatures on a petition to Congress urging senators and representatives to oppose USPS plans to close post offices, shutter mail processing facilities, and drastically degrade service to the American people.
In a letter to state and local presidents dated Oct. 26, 2011, President Guffey wrote, “It is urgent that we bring as much political pressure as possible to bear against the Postal Service’s plans to dismantle its network of processing, distribution and retail facilities.”
In addition to the petition, the letter includes a flyer with the message, “ Closing Post Offices & Mail Processing Centers and Cutting Service is Wrong.”
“No company can grow or even maintain its business by cutting its service. But that’s exactly what the Postal Service is proposing to do,” the flyer says.
In July, the USPS announced plans to close 3,700 post offices; in September, management announced plans to close 252 of approximately 460 mail processing centers.
In early October, the Postal Service posted a notice in the Federal Register announcing its intent to revise service commitments, eliminate overnight delivery of first-class mail and change two-day delivery to three days.
The proposed change in service standards acknowledges what the Postal Service has repeatedly denied: Slashing the mail processing network will result in drastic cuts in service to the American people.
“Reducing the scope and quality of service will not restore the Postal Service to health. It would likely drive mailers away and therefore worsen the Postal Service’s financial problems,” Guffey said.
“If every APWU member filled up one petition, we would have nearly two million signatures,” the letter notes.
The APWU is requesting that locals act at once to make this petition drive a success. Completed petitions should be sent by Nov. 14 to:
Save America’s Postal Service
American Postal Workers Union
1300 L Street NW
Washington DC 20005.
The national union will make sure that House and Senate members receive petitions collected in their districts or states.
The APWU has launched Phase 2 of its television ad campaign, in conjunction with the National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, APWU President Cliff Guffey announced. Spots will air on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News. The ad will run for approximately two months.
This APWU TV ad will air on CNN, MSNBC and Fox.
The ad is designed to explain – in just 30 seconds – the true cause of the Postal Service’s financial crisis.“The Postal Service has been recording financial losses, but not for the reasons you might think,” the ad says. It quickly identifies the problem – a 2006 law that imposes a $5 billion annual burden on the Postal Service that no other agency or company bears. At the same time, the Postal Service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts, it says.
The ad concludes with a simple message, “Congress created this problem, and Congress can fix it.”
“The USPS’s difficulties have gotten the attention of legislators and the news media,” Guffey said. “But, unfortunately, the cause of the problem is frequently misunderstood. It is crucial that we tell the real story.”
The ad is intended to help win support for legislation that would address the Postal Service’s crisis. H.R. 1351, which was introduced by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), would do that, Guffey said, without cutting pay, reducing benefits, eliminating collective bargaining rights, or slashing service. It has more than 200 co-sponsors.
However, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has blocked consideration of H.R. 1351. Instead, he introduced H.R. 2309, which would be devastating for the Postal Service, the American people, and postal employees, Guffey said. Rep. Issa’s bill would order $1 billion worth of post office closures in the first year and $1 billion worth of facility closures in the second year. It also would empower a board to unilaterally cut wages, abolish benefits, and end protection against layoffs.
In addition to the ad campaign, the postal unions have joined forces in an effort to Save America’s Postal Service. Rallies are set for Sept. 27 in every congressional district. For more information, visit www.apwu.org or SaveAmericasPostalService.org.
Washington — The National Association of Letter Carriers promised to vigorously represent the country’s most trusted federal employees and to defend the long-term viability of America’s most trusted federal agency, the United States Postal Service, in negotiations for a new labor contract that commenced here today.
NALC President Fredric V. Rolando called on Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to bargain in good faith and to disavow the regressive and destructive path unveiled last week when the Postal Service unleashed a lobbying campaign to convince Congress to reduce postal services to the nation, to slash the postal workforce by 220,000 employees and to attack the collective-bargaining rights of America’s hard-working letter carriers.
“Despite the Postal Service’s outrageous show of bad faith at the start of these negotiations, we are prepared to negotiate a fair, responsible and innovative labor agreement to reward our members and to position the Postal Service for a stronger and better future,” Rolando said.
“Letter carriers and NALC have worked tirelessly over the past four years to help the USPS overcome the impact of the Great Recession, helping to maintain high-quality service at the most affordable postage rates in the world,” he said. “Even as we press Congress and the administration to reform the crushing retiree health pre-funding mandate that accounts for 100 percent of the Postal Service’s losses over the past four years, we are ready to roll-up our sleeves at the bargaining table to creatively negotiate a contract that helps the USPS better serve the American people and the $1.2 trillion industry it supports—we are not prepared to shut out the lights on one of America’s greatest institutions.”
“We need to strengthen our nation’s only truly universal communications network, not dismantle it,” Rolando said. “We want to work with management to restore the Postal Service to health and to help it grow, offer new services and evolve to meet the changing needs of the country and the American economy.”
The following letter has been sent to Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO), chairman of the House Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee:
Dear Representative Emerson,
On behalf of the organizations that represent the employees of the US Postal Service, we support your provision on six-day mail delivery contained in HR 2434 (Financial Services and Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2012). We believe that any attempt to strike that language from your bill fails to recognize:
1. There will be a loss of 80,000 or more jobs if Saturday delivery is eliminated.
2. The Congress has a 30 year unblemished, bipartisan history of supporting six days of delivery and universal service, from President Reagan to President Obama.
3. Tens of millions of businesses and constituents will be disadvantaged by the loss of Saturday delivery. A disproportionate number of those who are disadvantaged live in rural America, or are the elderly, underprivileged and handicapped, whose lives depend on the USPS for prescription drugs, not to mention the millions of businesses who receive movies and parcels on Saturday.
4. There is considerable dispute about the “savings” attributed to lowering service to five days a week. The independent Postal Regulatory Commission found that the US Postal Service’s analysis was fundamentally flawed, underestimating the amount of revenue and business lost by the USPS, and that 25% of First Class and Priority Mail would be delayed two days.
We urge you and the Rules Committee to protect six-day delivery.
Sincerely,
American Postal Workers Union
National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association
National Association of Letter Carriers
National Postal Mail Handlers Union
In a post on his Courier Express and Postal Observer blog today, Alan Robinson asks whether Business Week’s decision to shift some of its subscriptions to private delivery could signal the beginning of a “service driven” death spiral for the US Postal Service. As the USPS tries to cut costs by relaxing service standards, will it lose customers, making its financial problems worse?
Robinson makes some good points, especially about the need to charge higher prices for higher service levels (e.g. day certain standard mail). But it’s difficult to see a loss of periodicals revenue as a crisis for the USPS. Periodicals accounted for just 3.2% of postal revenue in the last quarter- and as more and more Americans get their reading matter delivered electronically, periodical volumes are steadily dropping. That decline is likely to accelerate regardless of USPS pricing and service decisions.
More importantly, though, periodicals aren’t exactly a money maker for the USPS. The average revenue from periodicals is 25 cents per piece- and yet publishers often expect next day, or even same day delivery for those pieces! So it’s not surprising that the USPS says it loses money on periodicals as a class.
Those losses aren’t insignificant- for the five year period from 2005 to 2009, the USPS says it lost $2.2 billion on periodicals. It would seem that keeping the periodical business might be more conducive to a death spiral than losing it.
In a report delivered to Congress, USPS asserts that the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) based a recent advisory opinion on a “questionable” analysis of the potential cost savings that could be achieved by implementing a five-day delivery schedule to street addresses.
The Postal Service has estimated that making the move to a five-day schedule would yield a net annual cost reduction of $3.1 billion, based on extensive market research and financial estimates provided to the PRC last year. The PRC’s advisory opinion concluded a five-day street delivery schedule would only achieve $1.7 billion in net annual savings.
In its report to Congress, USPS said the $1.4 billion discrepancy results from:
The PRC’s unwillingness to recognize about $760 million in savings from increased letter carrier productivity and efficiency under a five-day schedule.
The PRC’s failure to account for more than $260 million in highway transportation and mail processing economies associated with one less day of street delivery.
The Commission’s summary dismissal of testimony by market research experts to reach its conclusion that the Postal Service estimate of annual revenue loss resulting from the change was understated by $386 million.
The Postal Service report says the total impact of transitioning to a five-day delivery schedule will significantly improve its financial stability. “No other single action the Postal Service could take operationally will result in such large costs savings,” it says.
The Postal Service report also disputes the PRC claim that the five-day delivery proposal did not sufficiently take into account the needs of customers in rural and remote areas. USPS contends its extensive market research considered the views of rural customers and incorporated them into its implementation plan.
Finally, the report says the PRC hasn’t fulfilled its core function in the nonbinding advisory process, which is to address whether the proposed service changes would be consistent with governing statutory policies.
