USPS Board of Governors Chairman Stresses Need for Flexibility and Speed

ENSURING A VIABLE FUTURE
BOARD CHAIRMAN STRESSES NEED FOR FLEXIBILITY, SPEED

USPS Board of Governors Chairman Louis Giuliano last week discussed the Postal Service’s 10-year action plan with major business mailers from across the country.

“Speaking for the Board of Governors, I fully support management’s plan in its entirety,” said Giuliano. “It’s a balanced, comprehensive approach which includes many solutions rather than just one.”

Giuliano said for the Postal Service to remain a viable organization in 2020 and beyond, it must become a flexible, agile agency able to respond to change. To that end, Giuliano said all of the plan’s components are necessary, including Congressional action to restructure the retiree health benefits prefunding mandate to a pay-as-you-go system and a change to five day delivery.

“If we are going to self-fund like a business, we need to make decisions and take actions like a business, while maintaining our universal service obligation,” said Giuliano. “That is what management’s plan addresses, in all of its components — each of which is vital to our postal future.”

Giuliano made his remarks at a meeting of the Association of Postal Commerce in Washington, DC. Click here to read the speech. For more information about the Ensuring a Viable Postal Service for America action plan, click here.

5 Responses to "USPS Board of Governors Chairman Stresses Need for Flexibility and Speed"

  1. The cost of processing the mail has been reduced from $55 per 1000 pieces to $1.50.Pitney Bowes plans to introduce machines to China next year. Each machine will process 25000 pieces of mail per hour.In 2007, 102 of the same machines that were introduced by the post office.These machines alone generate over $80 million per hour during peek mailing.When these machines were introduced there were hundreds of machines online.The new machines handle all types of mail, the old ones can’t, but they are still in use.Independent mail processors are being given the processing business.These companies were created by the post office and recieve the same tax exemptions on the equipment that the post office recieves.These companies are also given discounts for processing the mail.Contracts with these companies run for years,the mail that they process is not monitored for delivery and they are allowed to store the mail indefinitly.I still get mail that is addressed to my mother who died in 1994.Pitney Bowes is introducing a new bar-code system that will track the mail(all of the mail)and evaluate the customers that the mail is delivered to.Mr. Potter and the gang are resisting the implimentation of this system.The information from the new tracking system along with the information from this years census will show that there are too many managers, too many divisions and procurment as well as staffing are fraudulent.It was reported to the Senate in 2004 that the post office does not deliver 23% of the mail that is processed by the independent mail processors.All mail is paid for in advance.All transactions between the independent mail processor,the post office and the equipment manufacturer are tax free transactions.When the post office talks about “Shareholders”, they are refering to the Congress. The Congress disagreed with the Supreme Court regarding transparency of postal information. Do the math however and the results of this disagreement are clear.The post office generates $200 million per hour during peek mailing. The Senate and the Congress passed the Hatch Act Amendments so that they would not have to represent postal employees as they were being exploited during the move to automation and most of these politicians are spreading the propoganda that the post office is going broke.The reality is that 23% of $200 million per hour is not being accounted for and the public is being told a lie.What we have here is government sanctioned racketeering.Al Capone never would have gone to jail if he had been a postal offical.

  2. JACK HAS GOT IT RIGHT ON!!!! THESE BONUS PUSHERS HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO RUN A BUSINESS!!!! HYPOCRITES EVERYONE!!! GO MODEL THE POST OFFICE AFTER SOUTHWEST AIRLINES, GOOGLE or ZAPPOS!!!! YOU CAN LEARN ALOT ON HOW TO TREAT EMPLOYEES. THE POST OFFICE IS DOOMED BY COMPLETE AND TOTAL IDIOTS IN EAS FROM POTTER DOWN

    PEN: please do not post using all caps. Thank you.

  3. The USPS is not and should not be a business ! Missing the point has always been normal by management and now the PRC.

    More than a century ago the USPS was the sustaining information highway. It still is for most Americans. For $0.44 you can send a letter across the country in a matter of days. Pretty good service even by todays’ standards.

    The fact of the matter is, we are a “Service” not a business. We are not to make money ~ rather provide an efficient and universal [service] for America.

    PRC Committee Members – HELLO? Service not a business !!

  4. Mr. Guiliano reflects the current business atmosphere prevalent today. Unfortunately, that atmosphere contains the same elements of executive privilege and perks that permeate large corporate organizations, not only in the USA. Capitalists in today’s era are focused on one thing above all others, and that is maximizing profits, regardless of the effect of actions taken to achieve those goals. We have seen over the past decade and more what “free trade” has done to American manufacturing and the middle-class jobs that were once abundant. We have seen more recently how the investment bankers and mortgage firms have destroyed the housing market by their drive to grant mortgages to applicants with few supporting documents that in the past would have resulted in the rejection of the application. The Postal Service is not immune to the new business ethics, only their mandate is to break-even by any means, including micro-managing the workforce to the extent that stress-related medical conditions are more prevalent today. All the levels of management strive to meet certain goals that will result in pay-for-performance monetary compensation. Get all the carriers back by 5:00 PM seems to be tops on the list, yet to achieve that they payout overtime and Penalty overtime, which is money down the drain. Management sends out teams of supervisors and postmasters from other offices to see if the carriers follow every little rule and regulation to the T. Is it really cost-effective to have two managers whose pay and benefits are more than $92,000 a year riding the streets like Hawaii Five – O? What the Board of Governors do not understand is how many excess levels of executives and managers and supervisors there are today in the USPS. And they all have as their priority whatever the next level up says to do, all to achieve the pay-for-performance targets. Mr. Guiliano, it is time for you and your Board to take off the suits and get out in the field, and witness the problems and the conditions under which many of your valued craft employees are subjected. Once you see the petty rules that do not contribute to a positive work environment or to eliminating wasteful spending, perhaps you will have a better understanding of why the Postal Service is beset with so many labor related issues.

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