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GAO: Postal Service must cut even more
Boxes of mail sit in the back of a U.S. Postal Service truck in San Francisco, Calif.
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TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: The U.S. Postal Service. as you may have heard, is in a heap of trouble. It's billions of dollars in the red. It's been thinking about reducing mail delivery to five days a week and closing some rural post offices.
Today those plans got an important endorsement. The Government Accountability Office has been looking at the past three years worth of postal finances. And it says the USPS has to do a lot more than just cut deliveries.
Marketplace's John Dimsdale reports.
JOHN DIMSDALE: Mail volume has dropped 17 percent since 2007, thanks to the Internet and recession. The result, says GAO, is excess capacity. The auditors recommend closing post offices, cutting deliveries, raising prices for bulk mail, and outsourcing operations.
But Democratic Congressman Jose Serrano, who helps oversee the post office budget, worries about the threat to the nearly 600,000 workers in the postal service.
JOSE SERRANO: It was seen as reliable, not only in work, but in service. You know, neither rain nor sleet or snow would keep them away. That's been part of who we are as a country. The delivery of mail six days a week. In this tough economy we should not be doing anything that may create a situation where we lose more jobs.
As for the GAO's recommendation for outsourcing work, William Burrus at the American Postal Workers Union says current employees are more efficient handlers of the mail than outsiders would be.
WILLIAM BURRUS: The evidence shows that outsourcing costs more money. So if they have identified financial problems with the postal service, outsourcing is not a way of driving those costs down.
Union contracts ban lay-offs. That leaves attrition. The GAO recommends higher pay-offs for employees willing to retire early. The postal service already offered that carrot last year. The result was 20,000 extra retirements but that's nowhere near enough to avoid losses the post office estimates could top $200 billion over the next decade.
In Washington, I'm John Dimsdale for Marketplace.
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Approximately 20% of the Postal Service work force doesn't do the jobs they were hired for because of injuries - mostly subjective soft tissue problems. Nonetheless they receive their full pay or comp. benefits equal to their full pay which is usually way above market for the skill level eg. $50k/year plus great benefits for people who can't (allegedly) lift more than 5 pounds or walk or stand longer than 5 minutes. Add the absurd regulation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which makes it near impossible to fire malingers and allow employees to contest every aspect of their jobs at the Postal Service's expense. Of course, the whole thing is tanking.
The 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA)requires the USPS to place in escrow $75 billion to pre-fund future retiree healthcare benefits. This liability is not a requirement applied to all federal and private enterprises, it is a burden solely required of the USPS. PAEA was a mistake and provides no new revenue while imposing massive artificial costs. The result of PAEA has been to saddle the Postal Service with a huge debt. The reality is that $75 billion over 10 years would bankrupt any corporation.
My brother-in-law is a postal worker and he says his manager spends all day yelling at employees who question him. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole USPS uses antiquated management strategies instead of promoting autonomy, mastery and purpose. Perhaps the USPS could do the Undercover Boss show?
I agree with Nick- round numbers! USPS managers are first to state: "not the government". Comment or complain? Call or e-mail, no stamps allowed-& IgnoreU.
Junk mail overrides citizen-customers at all costs. USPS 'issued' my passport-Too Late 2 Fly, despite assurances.
It is too rooted in old ways and means.
USPS managers are the first to tell U they "aren't the government". Try to comment or complain-one must call or e-mail, no stamps allowed. This is a bloated operation that overrides common sense while nickel-and-diming the citizens. Reform, not outsourcing...
The Postal Service is a good example of the way government works in general: you can have something done well, or you can have it done efficiently. Choose at most one. The Postal Service has a monopoly on letter service and is allowed to operate at a loss and is *still* losing market share. There's a lesson here ...
If it wasn't for the retiree health pre-funding provisions of approx $75bn.( The only federal agency with this mandate) The USPS would still be in the black for the past 3 years. Yes I agree we could still be more efficient. Especially if we looked at low cost and non sexy ways of delivering the mail more efficiently. Use low level managers for simple and practical solutions. And we can still deliver the mail 6 days a week
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