{"id":4495,"date":"2012-05-27T09:47:25","date_gmt":"2012-05-27T14:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=4495"},"modified":"2012-05-27T09:47:25","modified_gmt":"2012-05-27T14:47:25","slug":"usps-misrepresentations-lead-to-barrage-of-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2012\/05\/27\/usps-misrepresentations-lead-to-barrage-of-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"USPS Misrepresentations Lead to Barrage of Criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Greg Bell
\nAPWU Executive Vice President<\/p>\n

The Postal Service\u2019s top management, including Postmaster General Donahoe, has been drawing fire from all sides in recent months, after a series of disturbing and embarrassing revelations.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The heat intensified in March when Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) took to the Senate floor to criticize Donahoe for \u201cproceeding with a disastrously flawed plan\u201d to close hundreds of mail processing plants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis coupled with the still-pending closures of almost 4,000 mostly rural post offices and the Postmaster General\u2019s 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find myself in a quandary, one created by the Postmaster General himself as he shifts from plan to plan, from negotiation to negotiation,\u201d Sen. Collins concluded.<\/p>\n

The senator\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet those things out of the way and you\u2019ll never see us again,\u201d Donahoe said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 protections against layoff; remove postal workers from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), and separate USPS employees from federal retirement programs.<\/p>\n

Since August, the emphasis and details of the Postal Service\u2019s plans have changed many times.<\/p>\n

Deliberately Misleading<\/strong><\/p>\n

On March 21, just days after Sen. Collins\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

During cross-examination by the APWU before the PRC, a USPS witness admitted that the Postal Service\u2019s 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite claims by the Postal Service that the original survey was flawed, the company that performed the study said the research was solid.<\/p>\n

Management\u2019s actions aroused suspicion that the USPS abandoned the original study because it didn\u2019t support the consolidation plan and left many with the impression that the Postal Service is deliberately misleading Congress and the public. There\u2019s no doubt in my mind about that.<\/p>\n

Following disclosure of the original research, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) blasted postal management. \u201cThis previously redacted study shows that arbitrary downsizing proposals actually threaten the financial viability of the Postal Service,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

PRC Chairman Ruth Goldway said that the USPS failed to give careful consideration to \u201ceach individual community\u2019s needs,\u201d and said the panel\u2019s review of community challenges to post office closings reveals \u201ca pattern of inaccurate and overly optimistic economic savings calculations and of careless disregard of community concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

With management\u2019s repeated misrepresentations becoming plain for all to see, the PMG is rapidly losing any credibility he had with Congress, the public and employees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greg Bell APWU Executive Vice President The Postal Service\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4495"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4498,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4495\/revisions\/4498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}