Greg Bell
APWU Executive Vice President
The Postal Service’s top management, including Postmaster General Donahoe, has been drawing fire from all sides in recent months, after a series of disturbing and embarrassing revelations.
Criticism of postal management started mounting after the USPS filed a request with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) for an advisory opinion on plans to degrade service standards — to eliminate overnight delivery of most first-class mail and periodicals, and generally slow delivery. Prior to the September request, postal managers had been telling legislators and affected communities that consolidating mail processing facilities would not affect service.
APWU-led protests at town hall meetings, along with rallies and other activities throughout the fall and winter, demonstrated the depth of public opposition to USPS plans to consolidate mail processing plants, and prompted a storm of criticism from lawmakers.
The heat intensified in March when Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) took to the Senate floor to criticize Donahoe for “proceeding with a disastrously flawed plan” to close hundreds of mail processing plants.
“This coupled with the still-pending closures of almost 4,000 mostly rural post offices and the Postmaster General’s push to eliminate overnight and Saturday delivery, tells me that the current Postal Service leadership is gravely underestimating the consequences of lesser service on revenue from customers who depend on the service as it is provided today,” she said.
“I find myself in a quandary, one created by the Postmaster General himself as he shifts from plan to plan, from negotiation to negotiation,” Sen. Collins concluded.
The senator’s complaint about shifting from plan to plan is well-founded. Testifying before a House committee on April 5, 2011, the PMG told lawmakers the USPS needed Congress to do three things to alleviate the agency’s financial crisis: address the mandate to pre-fund retiree health benefits, return USPS overpayments to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), and give management delivery flexibility.
“Get those things out of the way and you’ll never see us again,” Donahoe said.
But just four months later, management had an entirely new wish list for Congress: On Aug. 11, the USPS announced that it would seek congressional support for legislation to eliminate employees’ protections against layoff; remove postal workers from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), and separate USPS employees from federal retirement programs.
Since August, the emphasis and details of the Postal Service’s plans have changed many times.
Deliberately Misleading
On March 21, just days after Sen. Collins’ speech on the Senate floor, a secret study was made public indicating that revenue losses from service standard changes could wipe out any expected savings from the consolidations.
During cross-examination by the APWU before the PRC, a USPS witness admitted that the Postal Service’s initial market research on the network consolidation plan indicated it could result in net revenue losses as high as $1.9 billion. The USPS abandoned the study and conducted a new survey that estimated net revenue losses would total $500 million.
Despite claims by the Postal Service that the original survey was flawed, the company that performed the study said the research was solid.
Management’s actions aroused suspicion that the USPS abandoned the original study because it didn’t support the consolidation plan and left many with the impression that the Postal Service is deliberately misleading Congress and the public. There’s no doubt in my mind about that.
Following disclosure of the original research, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) blasted postal management. “This previously redacted study shows that arbitrary downsizing proposals actually threaten the financial viability of the Postal Service,” he said. “We need to build a new Postal Service business model that takes advantage of e-commerce and maintains Universal Service, not be forced into false choices which dismantle rather than reform this Constitutionally-mandated public service.”
Last December, the PRC issued an opinion that challenged the methodology the Postal Service used in developing its plan to close more than 3,600 retail facilities by 2015. The PRC concluded that the USPS lacked sufficient data for determining which closures would reduce costs the most and lacked sufficient data and analysis to make the best decisions.
PRC Chairman Ruth Goldway said that the USPS failed to give careful consideration to “each individual community’s needs,” and said the panel’s review of community challenges to post office closings reveals “a pattern of inaccurate and overly optimistic economic savings calculations and of careless disregard of community concerns.”
With management’s repeated misrepresentations becoming plain for all to see, the PMG is rapidly losing any credibility he had with Congress, the public and employees.
I am not management and believe they too are lazy
I am a ft clerk in a level 22 office,which just recently we consolidated 3 offices into ours. Prior to this consolidation I do my job by helping with revenue protection, as it is all of our duties to do. I find between $150.00 to $220.00 in loss revenue on incoming on line paid postage daily!!!!!! I get nothing but complaining from carriers, other clerks (who do nothing to help me find these pkgs). I feel my supervisors,PM try ever obstacle they can to prevent me from doing what my job is. I hear from clerks all over they don’t know how to tell if something is overweight or short paid. Hell they don’t even know that we have different tiers of prices in our postage and thats coming from window clerks too. Carriers hate collecting the shortages, but really it’s work. They do not train the carriers on what to look for when picking up pkgs,mail,or collection (where mailers dump bulk mailing and off they go for FREE. MANAGEMENT wants the mail up fast at any cost. I have caught over $41 thousand dollars in short paid postage in less than 2yrs. Customers cheat, lie, steal from us and everyone around me is ok with it. LAZY IS WHAT ALL CRAFT EMPLOYEES ARE WHEN IT COMES TO THIS. SHAMEFUL IS WHAT IT IS THAT THE ENTIRE POSTAL SERVICE IGNORES THESE SHOPLIFTERS OF POSTAGE. I was once told oh customers over pay more than they short us bullcrap I’ve been watching, checking. I shuffle through 4offices of parcels to pull out the under paid pkgs. Yesterday alone we had 150 short paid items. Wake up and take back what is rightfully this companies. No one cares when I speak of this. Who do I tell all this info to. I had a clerk say to me the other day when I opened a media mail pkg and found a drum face cover “now why would that customer think they could get away with that” I replied because we have people like you working here. Clerks are not given the time,training or told to do their job. Supv and Pm tell them not to do revenue protection.Until I get it in writing I’m going to continue. I just wish everyones did their job correctly.Imagine $41k times how many post offices. I’m in a office with 11career n 5 pse. Do the math, really see where the post office started loosing money.Another example, Apc machines in the lobby, real simple put a 1oz pkg on that scale, get lable, stick it on a 20# pkg & mail away. It really does happen and is happening. Hell some postage lables say 0 (zero) ounces paid. I’m so disapointed in the lack of caring from every part of the usps workers. From the top to the bottom. The crap that goes on, the waste, the lies,ect,ect,ect. I could write a novel with all that I see. It truely does start at the top, but they are so busy rolling it down hill, they don’t stop to hear what the truth is and what the problems are from the nonfavorite people at the bottom of the hill and what truely is wrong in this company.
Mandinka is not a Postal employee; nor is he a union member. He is retired Air Force and trolls government employee websites, spewing his anti government employee, anti-union, anti-Postal garbage. He also writes under the pen-names lazycs, lazyfed, truth, grieveit, guest, etc.
Mankinda- the surveys you quote don’t accurately reflect the businesses who will be hurt by 5 day delivery. As soon as 5 day delivery was contemplated, large, medium, and small business who depend upon the PO to deliver packages and advertising protested. Many said they would find another delivery service to replace the PO on Saturday if they went to 5 days. The $1.9 billion dollar per year loss the PO would suffer from cutting Saturday reflects the wishes of businesses who want their Packages and catalogues delivered 6 days a week, and will find somebody else to do the job on Saturday if the PO wont.
Over and over again they prove it,only an outside agency/concern can come in find the truth in the way the Post Office is run,not top management.In Boston they created scores of new “analyst” jobs in the past year to sop up their cronys and relatives while in the delivery stations they cut back on line supervisors and clerks,so bad in fact that the stamp windows have been closed while customers are standing in line because the supervisor on the spot has NO authority to keep a window clerk late.it is demoralizing to see
My fellow union members better start looking for ways to work smarter and harder or they will soon be without employment. Every survey taken regarding service has said the same thing 3 or 5 day delivery is fine. There isn’t a single business that requires 6 day delivery.
The patrons are fed up with unwillingness of the union to change their 1910 work rules. Regardless if the USPS needs to be restructured there won’t be any loans from the taxpayers but it may very well be privatized