from Charles Mapa, President National League of Postmasters
Legislation
There are some tremendously important legislative issues coming up that have not yet reached the stage of being introduced as bills, but are nonetheless, receiving plenty of attention in various places in Washington DC. On the one hand, some of the legislative movement is promising in what is being considered, while, on the other hand, there are some rather disturbing developments afoot. First of all, there appears to be a genuine desire amongst most of the congressmen the League has been in contact with to find some permanent relief for the Postal Service’s obligation to prefund future retirees’ health benefits. As you know, that obligation costs the Postal Service about $4.5 billion a year, and, of course, that is not chump change. This obligation puts the Postal Service in a financial stranglehold that it has, thus far, been unable to break. [for complete quote follow link below]
Closing Post Offices
One particularly disturbing development is the thought that the Postal Service is overstaffed by 30%. That is a fascinating idea as almost universally, Postmasters are running offices that are seriously understaffed. Certainly, there are still plants out there that have hundreds of extra employees, but, by and large, associate offices do not have that luxury. Along with the thought that we are overstaffed by 30%, is the concept that we have 30% too many post offices. While it is an established fact that closing the 10,000 smallest post offices would save only about a half of one percent of the Postal Service’s operating budget, the thought persists that we need to close these offices because they are unprofitable.
To read President Mapas’ entire message Click Here
The ‘fat’ is at managerial and salaried levels. Once again—too many chiefs and not enough indians. Just look at the district offices nationwide and DC.
If you look carefully at the distribution of employment, you will see that there is a glaring overage in the executive division of the Post Office. They have taken a 34% increase in personnel campared to the 24% decrease in career staff , which is what is causing the diffficulty in sevicing the public.
The fact that the payroll draw at that level is so extreme would be a major factor in the disparity showing overstaffing when they are using the craft pay as an example of overmanning the company. This is the slight of hand bookkeeping that they have been using to meet their own ends,