Affordable Mail Alliance
Press Release: September 07, 2010

Hey, Postal Service: “What’s the Big Deal?”
Union Challenges Existence of Postal Service Financial Crisis

Washington, DC – Underscoring the recklessness of the massive rate increase proposed by the United States Postal Service on July 6, American Postal Workers Union President William Burrus made clear on Friday that his Union does not believe the Service is currently in an unprecedented financial position. He made it clear that the Union will not back away from its contract demands during the current round of negotiations with the Postal Service, despite its supposed financial crisis. This furthers the case against the Postal Service request for a rate hike 10 times the rate of inflation.

“Mail volume is depressed and revenue is down, but we have faced similar circumstances before,” President Burrus said. “The history of the Postal Service is replete with forecasts of doom and gloom.” Click here to read or view President Burrus’ full statement.

A law passed in 2006 limits postal rate increases to the rate of inflation except when “extraordinary or exceptional” circumstances make a larger increase necessary for the Postal Service to continue operating “despite best practices of honest, efficient and economical management.” The Consumer Price Index has gone up less than 1 percent in the past year, the USPS is proposing rate increases of 10 times that rate. The Postal Service claims that its losses result from the “exigent circumstances” of the long-forecast recession and the long-term loss of mail volume to the Internet.

Also opposing the rate increase proposal is the Affordable Mail Alliance, an unprecedented coalition of more than 1,000 postal customers and trade associations representing the majority of the mail sent in the United States, who have joined together to strike down the rate hike. The Postal Service’s projected shortfalls are not the sole result of the recession or the increased use of the Internet, but the Service’s long-standing failure to control its costs. These chronic problems do not qualify as “exigent” circumstances under the law. Until the Postal Service deals with these long-term problems, any demands for above-inflation rate increases – in effect, a new tax on customers – is unwarranted and unproductive, and will likely drive away customers while exacerbating the Postal Service’s problems.

That is the central case put forward in multiple filings by the Affordable Mail Alliance with the Postal Regulatory Commission, the independent body that will decide early next month whether to allow the proposed rate hikes to take effect.

“President Burrus’ statements confirm that the Postal Service’s current condition is not the product of a sudden crisis,” said Jerry Cerasale, Affordable Mail Alliance spokesperson and Senior Vice President, Government Affairs of the Direct Marketing Association. “This is yet more evidence that a rate hike 10 times the rate of inflation is unnecessary and unproductive – for postal customers and the Postal Service itself. Such a rate increase would delay the cost controls and other reforms that are long overdue.”

He added that the Postal Service needs to do what most American businesses have been forced to do in the past few years: to make better and tougher decisions, offer services customers need, address workforce problems, and cut back on needlessly high spending

September 03, 2010

Affordable Mail Alliance: Don’t Allow the USPS to Continue Costly Business Practices
Businesses and Non-profits cannot afford to Pay for the Postal Service’s Excessive Costs

Washington, DC – The Affordable Mail Alliance – a growing coalition of non-profits, Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, major trade associations, consumer groups, and citizens representing the vast majority of the mail sent in the United States – filed comments urging the Postal Regulatory Commission to help rein in the USPS’s excessive costs by denying the proposed rate hike.

“The Post Office needs to reevaluate their approach,” said Jerry Cerasale, Affordable Mail Alliance Spokesperson and Senior Vice President of the Direct Marketing Association. “Instead of trying to keep things afloat with a giant tax on consumers, the USPS should focus on improving management and controlling costs to get out of this mess. To do otherwise is just bad business.”

This is the Alliance’s final legal step before the PRC announces their decision on October 4.

The comments also highlight the Postal Service’s flip-flop on the cause for their request. The USPS previously claimed that such a severe rate increase was needed to alleviate an immediate and unforeseen cash crisis. But at the public hearing held on August 10, a top official admitted that the “crisis” would not prevent them from operating in their current fashion for at least the next year. The Postal Service now claims that the rate increase is needed to prevent a longer-term profit slowdown over the next decade.

“Our comments make the same case that businesses and working families are making all over the country,” said Cerasale. “The Postal Service’s proposed rate hike is unreasonable, unhelpful, and unlawful, and the more than one thousand members of the Alliance are not going to let the Postal Service take advantage of its customers.”

The comments reiterate what the Alliance has argued all along – that the Postal Service has failed to show that it would suffer from its projected losses if it followed “best practices of honest, efficient and economical management,” and has failed to meet the “extraordinary or exceptional” circumstance test of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. The increase thus should be rejected, especially at this time of economic uncertainty for America.

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), a key author of the 2006 law, has supported the Alliance’s position. In her statement following the Postal Regulatory Commission hearings, Senator Collins said that the law being cited by the Post Office was intended for use in circumstances such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks. The Post Office’s “failure to sufficiently update its business model,” she said, was not sufficient for special consideration.

Formed in response to the US Postal Service’s July 6th announcement that it would seek to raise rates far beyond those currently allowed by law, the Affordable Mail Alliance grew from a small group of concerned USPS customers to a membership of over a thousand in less than two months. The Alliance has been gaining momentum in the wake of recent Postal Regulatory Commission Hearings, and this most recent action provides a strong argument to the PRC in advance of its coming decision on the issue.

More on the Affordable Mail Alliance
The Affordable Mail Alliance is an unprecedented coalition of postal customers who have come together to say “enough is enough” – no more postal rate hikes. The coalition includes charities, consumer groups, small business, national retailers, utilities, banks, insurance companies, Fortune 500 companies, and the customers who use the Post Office every day. The members represent many of the Postal Service’s biggest customers—and many of its smallest—and use every major class of mail. It is this cross-section of America that will suffer if USPS raises rates. For further information, please visit www.affordablemailalliance.org or contact Jessica McCreight at jmccreight@SKDKnick.com or 202 464 6900.

MURDER  BY PROXY: HOW AMERICA WENT POSTAL

Postal Workers in Florida Can See New Documentary Murder by Proxy: How America Went Postal on a Big Screen

Los Angeles, CA – August 30, 2010. A new documentary on violence in the USPS, Murder by Proxy: How America Went Postal, will be screened at two Florida film festivals this September. The film was written/produced/directed by Emil Chiaberi and produced by Oscar and Emmy winner James Moll.

Murder by Proxy will be shown at the CENFLO film festival on September 3rd at 2:55pm, At the West Orange 5, Theaters, 1575 Maguire Road Ocoee, FL. Two more screenings will take place on September 6th and 9th at Nomadic Tendencies (US branch of Strasburg International Film Festival) located at Muvico Baywalk 20, 151 2nd Ave N, St Petersburg 33701.

In July “Murder By Proxy” was screened for survivors of the 1991 postal massacre in Royal Oak, Michigan, where it was received with a strong reaction from Royal Oak postal workers. Inquiries have been pouring in from USPS employees from different parts of the country asking when they can see the film in their area. Now Florida postal workers who are based in or around St. Petersburg and Ocoee will get the chance to see the film on a big screen.

Murder by Proxy: How America Went Postal is the first documentary to examine the phenomenon of workplace massacre through the lens of the growing socio-economic strains that have swept over this country—beginning in the Reagan era and extending to the present. In the face of an ever changing economy, the film follows the plight of one of America’s working class heroes’, Charlie Withers, a 39 yr. veteran letter carrier from Royal Oak, MI, the home of the films focused incident.

The analysis of work conditions at USPS is central to the film, which sheds light on the toxic postal culture through the prism of catalyst and accountability. And for good reason: the modern, stress-driven, homicidal rampage was born in the postal system—forever changing the meaning of the phrase “going postal”. The USPS presents an ideal case study because it’s been a breeding ground for the same volatile conditions that are now found in most US work environments. “In many ways, the story of work related postal violence chronicles the erosion of America’s working class”, says director Emil Chiaberi.

Today, the USPS is under intense pressure to reduce spending. As a result, workers are once again experiencing the same volatile conditions that led to the 1991 Royal Oak shooting and other related episodes of violence. “It seems like we’ve learned little from the past,” says Charlie Withers, whose investigation of the hostile conditions in Royal Oak’s Post Office resulted in Congressional hearings. He adds: “I think this film is very timely…hopefully, it can help prevent future tragedies.” With the grassroots uprising of support, already formed by responses pouring from the postal unions, workers are eager to help educate those ignorant or dismissive of the destructive effects of volatile management practices. There is a drought of corporate responsibility for this workforce, as lives are sacrificed and the postal service becomes an increasingly exasperated and toxic culture of greed, and violence.

Following the September screenings in Florida and Germany MURDER BY PROXY: How America Went Postal will be shown in several domestic and international Film Festivals. Please visit our website form more information.

ABOUT MURDER BY PROXY: How America Went Postal

Written/Produced/Directed: Emil Chiaberi
Produced by James Moll
Edited by David A. Davidson

Running time: 76 minutes
Language: English
Release date: 2010
Official Website: www.murderbyproxyfilm.com - view trailer at website

ABOUT EMIL CHIABERI

Emil Chiaberi grew up in the Soviet Union and now lives and works in the United States as a filmmaker and CEO of an emerging biomedical company. From serving in the Soviet Army to managing a 100+ employee business, his array of personal and business experiences have made him a keen observer of the connections between cultural phenomenon, psycho-spiritual crises and their relationship to social violence. Emil’s first film, Murder by Proxy, explores these connections.

ABOUT JAMES MOLL

Oscar and Emmy winning filmmaker James Moll has been producing and directing non-fiction films for more than ten years. Moll’s feature documentary credits include Running the Sahara, Inheritance, Price for Peace, and The Last Days, which chronicles the lives of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors.

In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Moll established and operated The Shoah Foundation (currently the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education) with Steven Spielberg for the express purpose of videotaping Holocaust survivor testimonies around the world.

What:
The U.S. Postal Service will pay tribute to Mother Teresa, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary U.S. citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years.

Who:
James H. Bilbray, member, Board of Governors, U.S. Postal Service John E. Potter, postmaster general and chief executive officer, U.S. Postal Service Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio of the United States The Most Reverend Barry C. Knestout, auxiliary bishop, Washington, D.C. Reverend Monsignor Walter R. Rossi, rector, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Sister Leticia, provincial superior, Missionaries of Charity Mitzi Betman, vice president, Corporate Communications, U.S. Postal Service Thomas Blackshear II, artist, Mother Teresa stamp

When:
Sunday, Sept. 5, 2010, 3:15 p.m.

Where:
Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Great Upper Church
400 Michigan Avenue, SE
Washington, D.C. 20017-1566

Background:
Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu on Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje in what is now the Republic of Macedonia. Drawn to the religious life as a young girl, she left her home at the age of 18 to serve as a Roman Catholic missionary in India. “By then I realized my vocation was towards the poor,” she later said. “From then on, I have never had the least doubt of my decision.” Having adopted the name of Sister Mary Teresa, she arrived in India in 1929 and underwent initial training in religious life at a convent in Darjeeling, north of Calcutta. Two years later, she took temporary vows as a nun before transferring to a convent in Calcutta. She became known as Mother Teresa in 1937, when she took her final vows.

The stamp features a portrait of Mother Teresa painted by award-winning artist Thomas Blackshear II of Colorado Springs, Colorado.

LOS ALTOS, CA (KGO) — A USPS truck set on fire and melted after its driver turned on the ignition in Los Altos on Thursday afternoon. The letter carrier escaped not injured.

Investigators are trying to determine if the truck was parked over a broken gas main along La Barranca Road.

Read Full Story: Peninsula News

Postal Service Ends Third Quarter with $3.5 Billion Loss
Cash Shortfall Likely in 2011; Customer Service Scores Remain High

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service ended the third quarter of fiscal year 2010 (April 1 – June 30) with a net loss of $3.5 billion, compared with a net loss of $2.4 billion for the same quarter last year. Third-quarter mail volume totaled 40.9 billion pieces – down approximately 700 million pieces, or 1.7 percent, compared to a year ago.

Complete USPS third-quarter results include operating revenue of $16 billion, some $294 million less than the same period last year, and operating expenses of $19.5 billion, an increase of $789 million, or 4.2 percent, over the third quarter last year.

The increase in operating expenses was attributable largely to higher workers’ compensation expenses due to a non-cash fair value adjustment and higher retiree health benefits expenses. Lower interest rates adversely affected the workers’ compensation liability, resulting in a $2 billion expense for the quarter – $870 million higher than the same quarter last year.

A significant portion of USPS losses in the past few years has been due to an unprecedented decline in mail volume – down by more than 20 percent since 2007. The replacement of letter mail and business-transactions mail by electronic alternatives continues to cause downward pressure on mail volume.

The organization’s financial situation is compounded by its obligation to pay $5.4 billion to $5.8 billion annually to prefund retiree health benefits. This requirement, established in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA), is an obligation unique to the Postal Service.

Liquidity remains a major concern as the end of the fiscal year approaches. Although cash flow appears to be sufficient for 2010 operations, it is uncertain whether cash flow, together with maximum available borrowing of $3 billion, will be enough to fund the Congressionally-mandated $5.5 billion payment to the Retiree Health Benefit Fund on September 30 and retain sufficient liquidity into 2011, according to Joseph R. Corbett, the Postal Service’s Chief Financial Officer.

“Given current trends, we will not be able to pay all 2011 obligations,” said Corbett. “Despite ongoing aggressive cost reductions totaling over $10 billion in the last three years, it is clear that a liquidity problem is looming and must be addressed through fundamental changes requiring legislation and changes to contracts”

The Postal Service has incurred net losses in 14 of the last 16 fiscal quarters. The fiscal 2010 year-to-date net loss is $5.4 billion, compared to a loss in the same period last year of $4.7 billion.

Postmaster General John Potter noted that despite the cost-cutting, the Postal Service has continued to maintain a high level of customer service. The third-quarter service score for overnight single-piece First-Class Mail was 96.7 percent on-time, an improvement of 0.4 percent from the same period last year.

“Our dedication to customer service remains a top priority,” Potter said. “We continue to provide dependable customer service even as we focus on reducing costs. With the dedicated efforts of our entire organization, we are well on track to achieve approximately $3 billion in total cost reductions in 2010,” said Potter.

Cost reductions center on initiatives to improve efficiency and match work hours to reduced mail volume. Other savings are coming from consolidating excess capacity in mail processing and transportation networks, realigning carrier routes, delaying construction of new postal facilities and a variety of other initiatives.

Work hours were reduced by 63 million in the first three quarters of fiscal 2010, or 6.6 percent compared to the first three quarters of 2009. That is the equivalent of about 36,000 full-time employees.

“Securing the fiscal stability of the Postal Service will require continued efforts in all of these areas, as well as further review of retiree health benefit prefunding,” said Potter. “It also will require that the Postal Service gain flexibility within the law to move toward five-day delivery, to adjust our network as needed, to develop new products the market demands, and to work with our unions to meet the challenges ahead.”

Details are contained in the Postal Service Form 10-Q report that will be available Aug. 9, 2010, at http://www.usps.com/financials/ (click Form 10-Q under Quarter Reports).

The following is excerpts from DR. MICHAEL J. RILEY’s testimony before the PRC on behalf of the NALC. Dr. Riley was CFO of USPS from August 1993 to July 1998.

PURPOSE OF TESTIMONY

The purpose of my testimony is evaluate whether the Postal Service’s proposal to eliminate Saturday delivery is necessary and whether it is consistent with good management practices. I conclude, for the reasons explained below, that it is neither. In my view, the Postal Service’s long-term financial health depends not on reducing the frequency of delivery but on its making its services more available to consumers.

ELIMINATING SATURDAY DELIVERY IS NOT NECESSARY

In support of its proposal to eliminate Saturday delivery, the Postal Service’s current CFO, Joseph Corbett, asserts that a change to five-day delivery is “necessary and unavoidable.” (USPS-T-2, at p.2). He asserts that the Postal Service is now in “dire financial condition,” (id. at p.3) and that eliminating Saturday street delivery is needed to help “close the gap” between the Postal Service’s costs and revenues (id. at p.14). In fact, the Postal Service’s  costs and revenues are not fundamentally misaligned and no radical change like ending Saturday delivery is necessary.

The financial challenge now facing the Postal Service stems from two principal sources. First is the requirement in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (“PAEA”), P.L. 109-435, that the Postal Service spend billions to pre-fund its retiree health care obligations — an unfair requirement that Congress can and should change. Second is the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression, which continues to depress mail volume.

The statutory obligation to pre-fund retiree health obligations — which no other business or government agency bears — added $12.4 billion in costs to the Postal Service’s balance sheet from FY2007 to FY2009. See NALC-LR-N2010-1/6 (USPS Annual Report), at p. 48. During those same three years, the Postal Service had a cumulative net operating loss of approximately $11.8 billion. See id. at 2. Thus, without the unique burden imposed by the PAEA’s pre-funding requirement, everything else equal, the Postal Service would have enjoyed a cumulative profit during those years. And such profit would undoubtedly have been even greater had the recession not dragged down economic activity and mail volume with it.

The Postal Service’s present financial situation is also a result of its having been unfairly overcharged $75 billion in retiree pension costs, as explained in the January 10, 2010 report of the Postal Service’s Inspector General (IG). See NALC-LR-N2010-1/10. Were the Postal Service credited with the amount by which it was overcharged, that would be enough to pre-fund all of the Postal Service’s retiree health obligations and have more than enough left over to pay off the Postal Service’s debt.

Moreover, I would argue, the Postal Service’s current financial situation is in part self-inflicted, to the extent that postal management failed until just recently to seek rate increases  that would generate additional revenue. Successful service businesses raise prices as needed to maintain financial health.

The Postal Service acknowledges in its latest annual report that its current prices are a comparative “bargain”: in 2009, first-class mail in the US was 44 cents, but was 47 cents in Canada, 64 cents in Great Britain, 77 cents in Germany, 78 cents in France, 83 cents in Japan and $1.25 in Norway. (See NALC-LR-N2010-1/6, at p.1) That American mail is now relatively cheap means that even with a rate increase it would remain reasonably priced.

The PAEA allows for reasonable price increases beyond the inflation cap when made necessary due to “extraordinary or exceptional circumstances.” See PAEA Section 201. I believe that faced with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Postal Service could make a credible case that these are “extraordinary or exceptional circumstances.” Indeed, I understand that on July 6, 2010, the Postal Service filed with the Commission a request for an exigent rate increase in which it argues that such “extraordinary or exceptional circumstances” now exist. See Docket # R2010-4.

A reasonable rate increase would undoubtedly help close the current gap between the Postal Service’s revenues and costs. Commission Chairman Goldway correctly noted in her April 22, 2010 testimony before the U.S. Senate that the demand for mailing services is largely price inelastic. This means that there would most likely be a substantial increase in revenue and in added profit from a reasonable price increase. Large mailers provide the majority of postal revenue and their behavior is such that they adopt to price increases with minor changes in volume. Even for those services that are slightly demand price elastic, there is a significant positive contribution.

As a rule of thumb during my time as CFO of the Postal Service, we assumed that a 10% price increase for market-dominated products (also known as “mailing services”) would yield a net revenue gain of about 9%, since it would reduce volume by about 2% and costs by about 1%. So a 10% increase on FY 2009’s $56.9 billion in market-dominated products, see NALC-LR-N2010-1/6, at p.82, would likely have produced approximately $5.1 billion in additional revenue. It would have improved the Postal Service’s bottom line by more than the $3.1 billion in net annual savings that the Postal Service says it would achieve by eliminating Saturday delivery. See USPS-T-2, at 16. It would also have made FY 2009 a profitable year for the Postal Service even with the PAEA pre-funding payment made that year and despite the recessionary drop off in economic activity.

I understand that in its recently filed exigent rate case, the Postal Service is seeking an aggregate rate increase of approximately 5.6%, which it estimates would yield a net increase in annual contribution of $3 billion. See Statement of Joseph Corbett, Docket No. R2010-4 (July 6, 2010), at p.19. Such an increase in annual contribution would be about what the Postal Service says it would save from eliminating Saturday delivery.

ELIMINATING SATURDAY DELIVERY WOULD
HURT THE POSTAL SERVICE IN THE LONG-RUN

Eliminating Saturday delivery is not only unnecessary, but would be a grave error that would hurt the Postal Service in the long-run.

The proposal to eliminate Saturday delivery reflects Postal management’s view that it must react to financial challenges with relentless cost-cutting. But no service business achieves success by a single-minded focus on cost. Of course, constraining costs is important and the Postal Service should continue to explore ways to further automate or streamline its  operations, so as to maintain productivity growth. But it should not engage in cost-cutting that eliminates valuable services to its customers.

The CEO of Coca-Cola once said that his company’s goal was that no one in the world should be more than five minutes away from a cold Coke. To achieve success as a consumer-oriented business, the Postal Service too should focus on making its products and services more available to its customers, not less. Dropping Saturday delivery would create a hole in the Postal Service’s current operations that would make customers have to wait a day longer, or more, to get their mail. It would also, for example, force customers who work during the week and who are not home to accept packages have to spend part of Saturday waiting in the pick-up line at the post office. It would inevitably cause customers to look to alternatives.

Eliminating Saturday delivery would also do harm to the Postal Service in less tangible, but no less significant ways. The Postal Service correctly describes letter carriers as “excellent ambassadors in promoting the agency’s image,” (USPS-T-1, at p.3), yet eliminating Saturday delivery would mean that many customers who work during the week would no longer have the chance to see and speak to their letter carrier.

Reducing the frequency of service would also send a signal to customers that their needs and preferences no longer matter to the Postal Service. It would reinforce the negative stereotype of the Postal Service as an inefficient government entity rather than a vital service oriented enterprise. Such a negative stereotype would not only dampen the public’s demand for postal services but would erode its support for the Postal Service as an institution.

Saturday delivery provides the Postal Service a competitive advantage over its package-delivery rivals. Rather than eliminating Saturday delivery, the Postal Service should be touting it. But the Postal Service has to a large extent failed to exploit this advantage. Most  businesses with a competitive advantage use advertising to remind individuals of the benefits of their service. Yet the Postal Service does little advertising to explain the advantages of Saturday delivery to its customers.

THE POSTAL SERVICE SHOULD ADOPT A CONSUMER-ORIENTED STRATEGY

When I was CFO of the Postal Service, we adopted a business strategy that put an emphasis on the individual customer. We recognized that the preferences of the individual customer is what drives mail volume and that what was important to the individual customer were things like convenience, courtesy, safety, security of the mail and consistency of delivery. And we tried to make it easier, not harder, for consumers to use our services. Just one example: in 1993, the Postal Service began accepting payment by credit card and customers responded enthusiastically.

Our focus on the customer in those years paid rich dividends. Mail volume rose nicely despite the advent of the Internet. From FY 1995 through FY 1998, the Postal Service posted billions in profits. During that period, the Postal Service was able to pay off its debt and triple its capital spending. Indeed, many in the mailing community expressed the view that the Postal Service was earning too much money and that the profits were excessive. After my tenure, new Postal management promised to solve that problem, and solve it they did. Billiondollar profits were soon replaced by billion-dollar losses.

Rather than continue its failed approach of focusing single-mindedly on costcutting, the Postal Service should focus again on strengthening its relationship with consumers, because that undoubtedly is where long-term success lies.

We live in an era where service companies are increasing days and hours of operation to appeal to their customers. The Postal Service should take the same approach. For  example, as Chairman Goldway has suggested, the Postal Service should consider having a network of post offices in key locations that are open more hours, and even on Sundays, and should maintain at least one 24/7 post office in every big city.

Yet the Postal Service has been going in the opposite direction, apparently ignoring the desires of its customers. For example, while the Postal Service increased the number of collection boxes in the 1990s, it began eliminating them in the following decade. It eliminated 24,000 such “blue boxes” in 2009 alone. Individual customers cannot help but notice these changes and see that the Postal Service is making it more difficult for them to use the postal system.

Reducing the frequency of mail delivery would mark yet another retreat by the Postal Service from the consumer market. Unfortunately, it would give customers yet another reason to abandon the mail and to seek out alternatives.

CONCLUSION

Contrary to the Postal Service’s assertions, eliminating Saturday delivery is not necessary to improving its finances. In my opinion, what the Postal Service needs is a reasonable price increase for market-dominated products, relief from the PAEA’s unfair retiree health pre-funding requirement and a revival of the economy. Indeed, going to five-day delivery is not only unnecessary but would be harmful to the long-term health of the Postal Service. To be a successful service-oriented enterprise, the Postal Service must focus on making its services more, not less, available to its customers.

OSHA has cited a Vermont processing center for safety violations and is seeking $420,000 in fines. USPS has 15 days to respond to the OSHA citations. White River Junction postal employees triggered the probe OSHA said Thursday.

WBZ TV said “An inspection that began Jan. 30 found untrained or unqualified employees routinely performing troubleshooting, voltage tests, and maintenance on mail sorting and canceling machines that had not been “de-energized,” and without personal protective equipment or insulated tools, according to OSHA. The agency issued six willful citations, which it defines as those “committed with plain indifference to or intentional disregard for employee safety and health.”

“The union has been concerned about this set of safety hazards for several years – the danger of electrocution and burns stemming from these problems,” said Sally Davidow, a spokeswoman for the American Postal Workers Union.

“The conditions cited here exposed workers to the swift and potentially deadly hazards of electric shock, arc flashes and arc blasts,” said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for OSHA. “This large fine reflects both the gravity of these hazards and the Postal Service’s ongoing knowledge of and failure to correct them.”

Tom Rizzo, a spokesman for the Postal Service region that encompasses Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, said the agency began implementing changes in January to mitigate electrical hazards to employees.

“The plan provides for electrical risk assessments, training, personal protective equipment, enhanced safe electrical work practices and insulated tools,” Rizzo said.

The Postal Service has already provided 123,000 hours of training for more than 20,000 maintenance employees and is in the process of distributing more than $2 million in protective safety gear, including safety glasses, face shields, gloves and flame-resistant lab coats.

Those are national figures; Rizzo said he didn’t have information specific to the Vermont facility or northern New England.

For complete story visit WBZ TV.

Self-proclaimed local white supremacist leader Brian Moudry apparently doesn’t care much for his mailman either.

Federal postal inspectors paid Moudry, 33, a visit after he allegedly threatened to plant a bomb in a letter carrier’s truck on Saturday morning.

According to a police report, Moudry’s postal problems stemmed from his having stopped his mail delivery and then becoming upset when he could not figure out how to start it again.

“Apparently, he got the runaround when he went (to the post office) and he took it out on the poor postal carrier,” said Deputy Police Chief Mike Trafton.

A 33-year-old mail carrier was outside Moudry’s South Reed Street home while making his rounds. Moudry confronted him, the police report said, demanding to know, “Where’s my (expletive) mail?”

The carrier informed Moudry that he would have to go to the post office to pick it up. Moudry reportedly replied, “I already went there and they said I will get my (expletive) mail.”

When the carrier, who is black, repeated himself, Moudry told him, “I’ll put a bomb in your (expletive) truck when you get back,” police said.

Read complete story at Sun-Times Media – scroll down for article.

July 19, 2010

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
It’s Time to Fight Back

It is time for poor and Middle-class workers to start fighting back. The corporate community has become increasingly prone to take shortcuts on safety, create hostile work environments, undercutting and even stealing wages from gainfully employed workers in the name of grossly obscene profits.

These unconscionable practices in the name of ever more profits are not only having a negative impact on the quality of life of the poor and middle-class, but often, literally, sacrifice their very lives, as we’ve seen in an increasing number of cases, as in the coal mine disaster in Kentucky that took the lives of 29 coal miners, and the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico less than a month later, that took the lives of 11 oil workers. Both of these “accidents” were avoidable, and due to reckless penny-pinching by the corporations.

What the corporate community is calling “unfortunate accidents” are not accidents at all. They’re actually the corporate community’s reckless response to the new global economy – and it’s having a devastating impact on the American middle-class standard of living, and an even worse impact on the poor.

What we once thought of as American corporations have now become international in scope. They have no loyalty to any one nation, nor any respect for any geographical boundary. They’re now competing with countries that pay their workers less per week than many American workers spend on lunch per day. As a result, the American middle-class standard of living has become a liability and is under an aggressive assault by both the corporate and governmental establishment.

Something has to be done, so in response to this attack on our quality of life I’ve recently become associated with three gentlemen who share my belief that it is essential that the middle-class beat back this assault by every means at our disposal. These gentlemen include the following:

• Lewis Maltby: Attorney, author (Can They Do That?), and former president of the worker’s Rights Division of the ACLU. Lew is also current president of the National Workrights Institute.
• Dr. Steve Musacco: Therapist, author (Beyond Going Postal), occupational psychologist, and 30-year veteran of the postal service, retired. Steve was involved in the development and implementation of both the Voice of the Employee Program and the Employee Assistance Program for the U.S. Postal Service.
• Rick Owens: Publisher of the Postal Employee Network. Rick’s publication reaches the workforce of the postal service’s 600,000 employees.
• My name is Eric Wattree. I’m an author (A Message From the Hood), and I write a political column called Beneath the Spin. My column is carried in the Los Angeles Sentinel, New York’s Black Star News, and several other publications in America’s heartland. I’m also a staff writer for Veterans Today – a publication that is global in scope.

We’ve come together to establish a non-partisan organization called CARMA (Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse). We’re currently in the process of developing a database to increase our numbers. We intend to consolidate and flex the political clout of poor and middle-class workers in a way that will be impossible for politicians, unions, and the corporate media to ignore. We also intend to use our clout to address the reckless assault on the poor and middle-class through both political action, and in the courts.

We intend to take no prisoners, nor give any group a pass based on political concerns, be they corporations, unions, or politicians. So we urge every American worker to become part of this important effort to defend poor and middle-class workers. If maintaining or enhancing your standard of living is important to you, please contact the e-mail address below and become a part of our database. If you’re already a part of our database, please distribute this message to your family, friends, and neighbors.

We don’t need one voice speaking for millions; we need millions speaking with one voice.

Eric L. Wattree|Wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com