Comptroller General David M. Walker has provided Congressional leaders with a list of priorities for the upcoming session of Congress. Among the fifteen ‘Near Term’ recommendations from the GAO chief is “Transform the Postal Service’s Business Model”.

Here’s what Walker had to say:

The U.S. Postal Service is under increasing financial pressure as the Internet, electronic bill payment, and growing competition from private delivery companies change the nation’s communication and delivery sectors and negatively impact mail volumes. These changes raise questions about the role of the federal government in providing postal services and whether the Postal Service can remain a self-financing government provider of affordable universal postal services in the 21st century. The Postal Service’s business model, established when it was reorganized in 1970, relies upon growth in mail volume to cover the costs of its ever-increasing nationwide delivery network to all homes and businesses. This business model is increasingly outmoded as First-Class Mail volume declines and the changing mail mix provides less revenue contribution, which has put the Postal Service’s financial viability at risk. The Service is working to cut costs, improve productivity, reduce its workforce, and make other changes under its existing authority. However, comprehensive postal reform legislation is needed to provide the necessary incentives and flexibilities needed for the Service to transition to a modernized business model so that it can continue providing high-quality, universal postal services.

Key Topics Needing Congressional Oversight

• Ensure that the Postal Service maintains services consistent with its standards as it implements changes to reduce costs related to providing postal services.
• Assess the Postal Service’s changes to its mail processing and transportation networks to ensure that they are reasonable, transparent, and coordinated with affected stakeholders, and that they achieve intended cost savings and efficiencies.
• Adopt flexible, performance-oriented, and market-based compensation systems for postal employees.

Suggested Areas for Oversight for the 110th Congress

From Postcom:

“The margin of victory in the Virginia U.S. senatorial election may be slender, but it now looks as if the Democratic Party will be the majority party in both the House and Senate. Don’t expect much beyond the absolute minimum from the “lame duck” Congress. H.R. 22 is all but a footnote in American postal history.”

From the NAPS Legislative Update:

Although Democratic control of the House, and possibly also the Senate, begins in January, Republican control of both chambers in the meantime continues, as members of the House and Senate return next Monday for the final days of the 109th Congress, scheduled to reconvene in an unusual “lame duck” session.

The lame duck session could last for several days, or continue for several weeks, depending on whether Republicans and Democrats pursue a course of bipartisan cooperation and get legislation passed or fall once again into continued partisan and unproductive rancor. During the lame duck, Congress at the very least needs to take final action on eleven funding bills for numerous government operations, but it could ultimately decide only to punt those budget decisions over to next year’s Congress.

For NAPS and its members, whether a final postal reform bill is passed during the lame duck session will depend largely on the outcome of anticipated talks early next week between two Senate and two House leaders — Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D) — to attempt to close the gap on several remaining issues, including the rate-cap regulatory framework, workers’ comp reform and work sharing.

Bill McAllister reports in Linn’s Stamp News that George Bush plans to nominate Dan Blair, deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management, to be chair of the Postal Rate Commission. Blair has frequently been the Administration’s spokesperson when it comes to defending the requirement that the Postal Service foot the bill for military pensions for its employees, a burden other agencies don’t have to bear.

McAllister’s article points out that “Blair’s appointment to a five-year term is a highly significant move signaling that the administration wants a strong commission to oversee the Postal Service.” The article points out that Blair is a former aide to Congressman John McHugh, and has worked on previous postal reform legislation, and cites sources as saying that ”he has stated that he would help Congress rewrite those laws before he takes his seat on the commission.”

It concludes: “Although the White House has not announced the Blair appointment, three postal industry officials told Linn’s the president had selected him for the job.”

The collection of postal reform blame game stories this morning was pretty funny- unless of course, you count on the USPS for your livelihood. Nothing that happens in our dysfunctional capital these days should come as any surprise, but the outbreak of finger pointing over the weekend was breathtaking. I can’t put it any better than the commenter on postalnews who had this to say:

Postal Reform has bought the farm yet again.

NAPS blames the NALC.

The NALC blames the White House.

The DMA blames UPS.

yada yada yada.

Careful if you’re headed to Washington DC. There’s so much finger pointing going on, somebody could lose an eye.

Now we get to see if Bush & Co. sneak through a real whopper of a bill during the lame duck session that NOBODY likes. They haven’t considered what the vast majority of the American public want on anything else, so why should they be concerned about shafting everyone yet again?

The beat goes on…
gruntled

I almost titled this piece Why do postal employees hate their customers? You would certainly get the impression from some of the comments posted on postalnews.com, that most postal employees do indeed detest the people who pay their salaries. Now obviously you have to take comments posted anonymously online with an enormous grain of salt, but given the overwhelmingly negative comments, you’ve got to think that the attitude is pretty widespread.

I know that many of the commenters would protest that it isn’t their customers that they hate, it’s the Big Mailers. Which is one of those strange things about the postal service- when postal employees (myself included) think of the word “customer”, we think of the people we deliver to, or serve at the window, or talk to on the telephone.

Most dictionaries, though, would tell you that a customer is “one that buys goods or services”. And who buys the postal service’s goods? Just about everyone in the country. But if you look a little deeper into the revenue reports, you’ll find that of the $55 billion the USPS took in over the first three quarters, only $15.5 billion was from single piece letters, flats and cards. The vast majority of the revenue, and all of the growth came from presorted (i.e. “workshared”) first class (up 1.5%), and the various standard (don’t call it ‘junk mail’) classes (up 2%).

Single piece first class mail volume was down 2.7% from the prior year. Aunt Minnie just isn’t sending as many letters. Like it or not, our biggest customer is Advo.

So why then do so many postal employees, and union heads like Bill Burrus, seem to despise the people who are paying most of their salaries? The most obvious answer seems to be simple short-sightedness. It’s much easier to rail against plant consolidations than it is to respond with well-reasoned alternatives. Burrus might be better off looking for more lucrative buyout options than trying to protect unnecessary plants. Keeping every small plant open will win votes in the union elections, but it might not insure that the USPS is still around when it comes time for younger workers to retire.

The other problem some employees have with big mailers is the perception that they’re somehow getting a free ride- that workshare discounts go too far. Well, maybe they do- but the idea that raising prices will force the mailers to come up with their ‘fair share’ is naive, to say the least. Mailers are in business to make money, period. Raise the price, for whatever reason, and you change the equation, and to some extent, you lose business, and revenue. It doesn’t have anything to do with fairness, or right or wrong.

The bottom line is that the mailers and the postal workers need each other- they should be working together to safeguard the postal service they both depend on, rather than sniping at each other.

It’s the unions, particularly the APWU, that have the most to lose in all this. If the USPS has to keep raising prices because it can’t trim costs, advertisers will find alternatives to direct mail- there are plenty of them out there. Financial services providers will continue to up the incentives for electronic fund transfers rather than shell out more for postage. The growth in workshared and standard volume will slow, and eventually decline. Where does that leave the APWU’s members?

I don’t envy Bill Burrus- he’s in an extremely difficult position, representing the postal workers whose jobs are most at risk from modernization and automation. But demonizing the people who pay his members salaries isn’t going to do him, or them, any good.

The Lexington Institute, the far right lobbying group that periodically trots out Sam Ryan to snarl about the postal service now presents a piece by a former USPS economist claiming to explain just how the service can bring its costs under control.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, it’s finally happened- after all the wrangling and politicking, the White House and Capitol Hill have agreed- to rename a post office in honor of Ava Gardner.

Post office named in actress’s honor

Nothing illustrates the PR problems the Postal Service faces better than this story about breaking ground for a new post office in Connecticut.

The Postal Service gets blamed for closing small Post Offices, even though it rarely happens, and even when the ‘town’ served has a dozen residents. When the Postal Service does something that the public (and the local media) actually want us to do, do we get credit for it? Not often.

“5th District U.S. Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, a Republican, and U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, a Democrat, helped push the project along on the federal level, and Johnson was on hand Wednesday to help break ground.

If there was anyone from the Postal Service present, the reporter failed to notice them, never mind ask for their comments.

“’It takes a strong team to move the federal bureaucracy when they don’t want to move,’ Johnson said. ‘Every project like this reminds me only a strong team wins. This isn’t about party.’” 

No, it isn’t about party- it’s about politicians taking credit for a project they didn’t pay for, vote on, or really do anything for, except possibly to remind the Postal Service that their votes might be needed when the next postal reform bill comes up for a vote.

What a way to run a business.

Postcom.org notes that George Bush was questioned about postal reform legislation at yesterday’s National Newspaper Association. His response:

“Frankly, this issue hadn’t made it to my desk prior to me arriving at this meeting. I’m mindful of the bill. I need to know more about the particulars before I make you a commitment one way or the other.”

Now, given that the guy threatened to make the bill as passed by the Senate the target of his first veto, you’d think it might have rung a bell?

Thanks to Postcom too for pointing out that Bush’s point man on postal reform, former Domestic Policy Advisor Claude Allen, was arrested yesterday in an alleged department store refund scam.