A message to all employees of the United States Postal Service from Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe.

ATLANTA –

A spike in missing mail complaints at a midtown Atlanta U.S. Post Office led investigators to arrest a postal worker on mail obstruction charges.

Investigators with the Office of the Inspector General said they observed Ronald Paige stealing packages and rifling through mail.

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WASHINGTON, March 6, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – The U.S. Postal Service today showcased the Star-Spangled Banner Forever Stamp during a special ceremony at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, home to the 15-star, 15-stripe flag that inspired the national anthem.

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From USPS News Link:

Recent assertions have been made that the Postal Service has “declared war” on the custodians who work in its facilities. These assertions are both false and inaccurate.

Here are the facts: The Postal Service is becoming more efficient in all areas of its business, including the way postal facilities are cleaned and maintained.

Last year, USPS launched a pilot program to determine whether there were smarter, easier and more efficient ways to clean facilities. New cleaning methods, supplies and equipment were tested. USPS managers were pleased with the results.

In January 2014, consistent with requirements under the collective bargaining agreement with the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the Postal Service provided notice of its intention to invoke the negotiated process to change relevant handbooks and manuals to implement the proposed changes.

Adhering to a negotiated process to implement change should not be construed as a “war” on custodial staff. Rather, this process allows the Postal Service and APWU to discuss all relevant issues regarding the proposed changes that USPS believes will ensure its facilities are cleaned in a more efficient manner.

Read more: USPS News Link Story – USPS sets the record straight.

ATLANTA – Kendrick Watkins and Charles Jackson have been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy, armed postal robbery, and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence, in connection with the robbery and near-fatal shooting of a postal truck driver in Conley, Ga., on December 20, 2013.

“The victim in this case–an on-duty postal employee–was shot, bound, and left for dead,” said United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates. “Postal Service employees should not have to work in fear of attack as they carry out their duties. We will prosecute violent criminals with such little regard for human life.”

“The safety and security of Postal Service employees and customers is core to the mission of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service,” said George Frazier, Assistant U.S. Postal Inspector in Charge of the Atlanta Field Office. “These types of crimes against postal employees are rare, but when they do occur, they become top priority for us.”

According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges, and other information presented in court: On December 20, 2013, a postal truck driver conducting a routine mail pick-up in Conley, GA, was approached by two robbers, Kendrick Watkins, 39, of Rex, Ga., and Charles Jackson, 55, of Griffin, Ga. Jackson and Watkins demanded the keys to the postal truck, and when the victim did not immediately comply, the men shot him in the torso, nearly killing him. Jackson and Watkins also bound the victim’s feet and took his cell phone so that he could not run or call for help. They then drove away with the stolen truck and all its contents. The victim was forced to crawl several hundred feet to the nearest road where he flagged down a passerby for help.

Members of the public are reminded that the indictment only contains charges. The defendants are presumed innocent of the charges and it will be the government’s burden to prove the defendants’ guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.

This case is being investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service.

From the National Association of Letter Carriers:

March 5, 2014–As it has for the past four years, the Obama administration’s budget proposal for 2015 defers to the misguided wishes of Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe by calling for the end of Saturday mail delivery and for allowing the Postal Service to “begin shifting to centralized and curbside delivery where appropriate.” Rather than eliminate or repeal the pre-funding burden, the budget would simply restructure and re-amortize the liability for future retiree health benefits, pushing the problem off into the future. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Some Long Island residents who believe the U.S. Postal Service’s motto needs to be revised are not alone in their struggle.

Just last week residents in one Long Island community blasted the U.S. Postal Service, saying not only has the harsh winter been getting in the way of mail deliveries, but that they weren’t even getting mail on nice weather days. Read the rest of this entry »

Op-ed piece by Senator Bernie Sanders in the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. Postal Service is one of our most popular and important government agencies. It provides universal service six days a week to every corner of America, no matter how small or remote. It supports millions of jobs in virtually every other sector of our economy. It provides decent-paying union jobs to some 500,000 Americans, and it is the largest employer of veterans.

Whether you are a low-income elderly woman living at the end of a dirt road in Vermont or a wealthy CEO living on Park Avenue, you get your mail six days a week. And you pay for this service at a cost far less than anywhere else in the industrialized world.

Yet the Postal Service is under constant and vicious attack. Why? The answer is simple. There are very powerful and wealthy special interests who want to privatize or dismember virtually every function that government now performs, whether it is Social Security, Medicare, public education or the Postal Service. They see an opportunity for Wall Street and corporate America to make billions in profits out of these services, and couldn’t care less how privatization or a degradation of services affects ordinary Americans.

For years, antigovernment forces have been telling us that there is a financial crisis at the Postal Service and that it is going broke. That is not true. The crisis is manufactured. Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON, March 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ – Everything from mailboxes to autonomous aerial vehicles (aka drones) will be on the agenda at the fourth annual PostalVision 2020 Conference (www.postalvision2020.com) — scheduled for April 10-11, at the Westin City Center in Washington, D.C.  The event has expanded its roster of speakers and topics and is filling up fast with many of the world’s visionaries on opportunities for the global postal ecosystem in e-commerce and digital identity.

Attendees and speakers will include top e-merchants, digital communicators and logistics innovators as well as organizations involved in traditional mailing and shipping such as financial institutions, direct advertisers, catalogers, third-party software and transportation service providers.  Leading sponsors include eBay, DHL Global Mail, Pitney Bowes, and Accenture.  The conference will include experts from across the U.S. as well as from Italy, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom, Australia and China.

Topics will include:

• E-commerce delivery innovations including:
  • Drones from Matternet, 3D Robotics and a hands-on demonstration by Australia-based Flirtey, the pioneer in aerial small parcel delivery.
  • Customer driven models like free domestic, same-day and Sunday delivery and convenient locker-box solutions from KEBA of Austria
  • Cross-border logistics challenges and solutions from express delivery leaders such as DHL Global Mail and 4PX of China
• Postal digital identity, privacy and security
• Public-private partnerships – collaboration
• Package design innovation including the Rapid Packing Container invented by a couple of smart Cooper Union students
• From bleak to geek: the future of household mailbox delivery

Speakers will include:

• Jeff Jarvis, author of bestseller, What Would Google Do?
• Chris Anderson, (by video), former editor of Wired author of bestsellers The Long Tail, Free and Makers: The New Industrial Revolution 
• Andreas Raptopoulos, CEO of Matternet
• Brian Bieron, Executive Director, eBay’s Policy Lab
• Brody Buhler, Accenture’s global postal industry lead
• Ruth Goldway, Chairman, Postal Regulatory Commission
• David C. Williams USPS Inspector General
• Other inspiring speakers and panelists representing the USPS, the National Strategy for Trusted Identity in Cyberspace (NSTIC), DeutschePost E-Post, Posteitaliane, Pitney Bowes, Endicia, and Grayhair Advisors

About the PostalVision 2020 Initiative



The PostalVision 2020 Initiative was started in 2010 to challenge private industry and government to explore new operating models for delivering mail and parcels in an increasingly digitally dependent society.  It is an open and independent initiative designed to engage all appropriate parties in improvement of the system.  PostalVision 2020 is the creation of Ursa Major Associates, LLC, a strategy consultancy based in Essex, CT.  For more information, contact John Callan, Managing Director of Ursa Major Associates and founder of the PostalVision 2020 Initiative, at 860-767-0709 or jcallan@ursamajorassociates.com.

Canada Post is apologizing for delivering an anti-gay pamphlet to thousands of people in Happy Valley-Goose Bay.

The eight-page pamphlet was sent from the local post office and arrived in mailboxes in the community last week.

It contains strong language, condemning homosexuality on religious grounds.

In a statement this afternoon, Canada Post said the flyer should not have been accepted for mailing.

Denise Cole with the Labrador Safe Alliance — an LBGT advocacy group, says Canada Post should have exercised more discretion in the first place.

Read more: Canada Post says sorry for homophobic-flyer delivery – Newfoundland & Labrador – CBC News.