Activists vow to escalate the pressure on USPS

 “I suspect the authorities dropped the charges because they were afraid of us,” said Rev. John Schwiebert, one of the “Forever Five” arrestees (so named for the “forever” stamp and to protect “forever” the postal service).  “They knew we were planning to plead not-guilty to criminal trespass and to demand a jury trial.  We were ready to plead that our “occupation” of the Salem mail processing plant was in the public interest, to preserve our constitutionally mandated postal service.”  The protesters claim that closure of the Salem plant is itself a criminal act, violating Title 39, U.S. Code, Sec. 404 which requires the postal service to provide a “maximum degree of effective and regular services…” and to consider the effect of plant “consolidations” on communities, jobs and service.

 Mail sorting machines from the Salem plant began to be removed on April 30^th, headed north to Portland and south to Medford.  In the beginning of May, mail collection times and overnight delivery standards changed throughout Oregon.  Although their plants are not scheduled for closure until later this year, mail from Eugene/ Springfield, Bend and Pendleton is already being shipped all the way to Portland to be sorted.  Mail is being delayed one or two days.

 The U.S. Postal Service’s own studies (see attached), which they attempted to suppress, showed that big mailers leave the system as a result of such delays, costing more in lost revenue than is saved by lowering labor costs, not to mention the dramatic increase in trucking costs as mail is transported hundreds of extra miles to be sorted in the closest still open facilities.

 “Postal management is tearing apart the infrastructure of the public postal service,” said Jamie Partridge, retired letter carrier and one of the Forever Five arrestees.  Vowing further bold actions, Partridge declared that “we plan to escalate this fight to save our national treasure.”  

 The Salem, Springfield, Bend and Pendleton plant closures will eliminate approximately three hundred local union jobs, delay Oregon mail delivery, and disproportionately affect small businesses, the elderly, rural communities, the one-half of the public that pays bills by mail and the many who lack access to reliable internet service.   Oregon’s vote-by-mail system could be compromised.

 Despite a “no lay-off” provision in union contracts, at least forty workers in the Salem plant have lost their jobs, according to local union officials.  Twenty-eight were forced into early retirement and twenty Postal Support Employees “lost their hours.”  Over sixty other workers were “excessed” to Portland or other facilities. 

 At least eighteen of these union, postal jobs will be subcontracted to Matheson Flight Extenders, according to union leaders in Portland.  Twelve mail handler positions and six clerk positions will be filled by low wage, non-postal, non-union workers at Matheson, which owns a warehouse next to the USPS Portland Air Cargo Center.  Postal management states that the PACC cannot hold all the machines from Salem, so they must moved into the private facility.  They claim that union workers are too expensive, thus subcontracting is required.  

 Further subcontracting has hit postal truckers in the Portland area.  Faced with understaffing and extensive overtime, the USPS decided to contract out twenty tractor-trailer routes to Dill Star Trucking, instead of hiring union postal truck drivers.  Claiming an “emergency”, postal management issued the no-bid contract, sub-leased postal trailers to Dill Star, and put APWU-represented postal truckers in “short” trucks with many on stand-by for up to six hours.

 The protesters, organized by Communities and Postal Workers United, a national grassroots network, claim that a 2006 Congressional mandate, which forces the U.S. Postal Service to prefund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance, has created a phony financial crisis.  Not only would the postal service have been profitable without the mandate, says CPWU, the USPS has also overpaid tens of billions into two pension funds.

The activists are calling on postal management to suspend cuts and closures and allow Congress to fix the finances by repealing the prefunding mandate and refunding the pension surplus.    Twin bills, HR 630, sponsored by U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (Oregon) and S 316, sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont), would fix postal finances and prevent plant and office closures and service cuts. 

www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20130417/UPDATE/130417026/Five-arrested-during-protest-Salem-Post-Office

Gallery of photos here:  www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=J0&Dato=20130417&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=304170802&Ref=PH&odyssey=mod|galleriespic

April 24, 2013 — At Wednesday’s session of PostalVision 2020, NALC President Fredric Rolando explained in persuasive — and un-rebutted — terms why going to five-day mail delivery is neither warranted nor wise, and would in fact be destructive.

The factor accounting for almost all of the Postal Service’s red ink, Rolando told the audience at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C., is the congressional mandate to pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years and do so within a decade, a requirement faced by no other agency or company in America.

"It’s important to face up to where the losses are coming from," President Rolando said, as he made the case against eliminating Saturday delivery, as pushed for by the postmaster general and anti-worker elements in Congress.

In the most recent fiscal quarter, Rolando said, that mandate accounted for all of the red ink — in fact, in operational terms, the USPS had a $100 million profit delivering the mail, Rolando said. And so, pre-funding is the issue that Congress needs to address to set the Postal Service on a sound financial course.

Later, as the panel concluded, the conference’s host turned to President Rolando and said, "I think you’ll find a lot of agreement with you," and singled out the need to address pre-funding.

Rolando was on a four-member panel titled "The Road Ahead."

Outlining how well situated the USPS is in terms of its future pension and health benefit obligations, President Rolando said, "This is the richest ‘broke’ company I’ve ever heard of."

Further, he said, it is illogical to try to "right-size" the unique universal network of the USPS without first defining its mission in an evolving society. It’s clear that people have changed the way they communicate, and that the Postal Service needs to adapt — and "slashing" services and the network before developing a plan of how to adapt makes no sense and would be self-defeating.

Those pushing for a reduction of services to the American people aim "to take the Postal Service in a different direction from what it was established for — to serve the American people," Rolando said.

"It’s time to be honest with the American people. This isn’t just about Saturday delivery. It’s about ideology, about selling off the Postal Service for corporate profit."

One reason the Postal Service is so well trusted — and that letter carriers do so much in terms of community safety and well-being — is that there is a stable workforce of letter carriers who work in the same neighborhoods for years and develop knowledge of, and ties to, their customers.

There are ways to save money that don’t involve degrading the network, including changes in health care provisions and pricing reforms, and a plan should be developed to grow the business and increase revenue, Rolando said. Labor costs have decreased in recent years, even as worker productivity has reached record highs, he said.

"The Postal Service has a great future," Rolando said, noting the "unlimited" future of e-Commerce, but the USPS needs improved leadership. The current Board of Governors suffers from too many vacancies and too little business expertise.

"We’ve got to get a governance structure in there that has a vision for how to run a $65 billion company," and that understands the concepts of growth and profits, Rolando said.

Read more: Rolando testifies before House committee.

April 17, 2013 — NALC President Fredric Rolando was among those called to testify today on Capitol Hill before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the Postal Service’s financial situation.

The hearing began with several representatives accusing Postal Service Board of Governors Chairman Mickey Barnett of backing away from USPS’s announced plan to reduce the number of delivery days each week from six to five beginning in August because of intense pressure from postal unions.

But under closer questioning from lawmakers, Barnett and Government Accountability Office Comptroller General Gene Dodaro made it clear that the decision not to unilaterally reduce the delivery schedule resulted from the need to follow the law, which calls for a six-day delivery schedule.

Rolando said that on the merits, eliminating Saturday delivery would be a costly mistake that would not only make it harder for the Postal Service to grow the business but also would cost money by driving away customers.

Testifying alongside Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe on the second panel, President Rolando said it was not necessary to reopen postal union contracts in search of cost savings. “Renegotiating contracts is unnecessary,” the president said, “because our recently arbitrated agreement allows us to look for ways to work with the Postal Service to find cost reductions, in health care expenses and in an improved route adjustment process.

“Before we start make changes to the workforce or to the delivery schedule,” Rolando said, “we need to focus on deciding what Postal Service’s mission is.“

Committee members should focus on finding ways to strengthen the Postal Service for the future, not on slashing services and dismantling the universal network, he said.

“I don’t see where this is a partisan issue,” he told the committee. “This is America’s Postal Service.”

Click here to read President Rolando’s submitted written testimony.

WASHINGTON, April 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe told a House committee today that the Postal Service is currently operating with a broken business model and the gap between revenues and costs will only get worse in the coming years unless the laws that govern the Postal Service are changed.

“Our financial problems are due to the restrictive laws that prevent us from fully responding to changes in consumer behavior,” Donahoe testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “Any private sector company could quickly adapt to the market changes we have experienced, and remain profitable. However, we do not have all of the flexibility we need to adapt to a changing marketplace.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Alan Robinson notes that a reporter has suggested that the US Postal Service might run out of cash come October- and be unable to meet it’s payroll:

US Postal Service tells @macfarlanenews : “possibility the American taxpayer will be on the hook” for postal worker paychecks come October

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) April 15, 2013

The report was apparently based on comments made at a recent “Industry Focus Group”.

In a related item, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the Postmaster General told Congress that “the post office will run out of money this year unless it gets help… as he sought permission to cut delivery to five days a week.”

Before you get too excited about the PMG’s dire warning (or reporter MacFarlane’s “scoop”), I should tell you that the PMG who issued that warning wasn’t Pat Donahoe- it was Jack Potter, and the Plain Dealer story is from 2009.

And they wonder why their warnings aren’t taken seriously?

Read more: USPS May Not Have Cash to Meet Payroll in October | Courier Express and Postal Observer.

The Board of Governors of the U.S. Postal Service have decided to delay the USPS’ plans to change the frequency of general mail delivery from six to five days, while continuing to provide retails, expedited, and package delivery services. The postal Board has directed postal management to re-evaluate several aspects of its operations, including its contracts and agreements with labor and its postal pricing plans.

Regarding the latter, the Board specifically has asked postal management to evaluate the possible need to call for and implement postal rate increases that exceed the inflation-based limits provided for in the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). Inflation-based limits to postal rate increases has been considered a key hallmark of PAEA, and has been credited for stimulating recent reductions in overall postal costs and enhancing postal operating and cost-efficiency. Read the rest of this entry »

WASHINGTON – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., issued the following statement in response to the United States Postal Service announcement that it has reversed its decision to pursue modified Saturday delivery:

“I am disappointed that the Postal Service has backed away from plans to implement a modified Saturday delivery schedule that polling indicates the American people understand and support.  This reversal significantly undercuts the credibility of Postal officials who have told Congress that they were prepared to defy political pressure and make difficult but necessary cuts.

“Just a few months ago, when USPS announced that it would alter Saturday delivery service, it made no mention that this change could only occur if Congress eliminated an old and well-known provision of law.   Despite some assertions, it’s quite clear that special interest lobbying and intense political pressure played a much greater role in the Postal Service’s change of heart than any real or perceived barrier to implementing what had been announced.

“While I will continue to work on comprehensive postal reform legislation that can pass both the House and Senate, this reversal will clearly be a setback to such efforts.”

From the US Postal Service:

In his latest State of the Business video, PMG Pat Donahoe addresses some of the mixed messages employees may be hearing regarding the future of USPS.

The PMG begins the video by focusing on the steps the Postal Service is taking to address the financial challenges created by declining First-Class Mail volumes.

“We will continue with the necessary actions that we have to take — things that we can control,” says the PMG. These actions include network consolidations; the Post Plan; and discussions with Congress and stakeholders regarding the USPS plan for 6-day package, 5-day mail delivery.

“When all these things are done, that will be it for the big, major changes,” Donahoe says.

The PMG then clears up misinformation employees may hear on postal issues, such as fears that a move to six-day package, five-day mail delivery will result in massive layoffs. “We have made major changes in this organization without having to lay anyone off,” says Donahoe.

He also emphasizes that there are no plans to reduce mail delivery to fewer than five days a week, saying that doing so would be detrimental to the Postal Service’s business. He points out that five-day delivery is critical for commercial First-Class Mail.

The PMG closes by thanking employees for their hard work, noting that service levels remain at an all-time high, thanks to employee dedication.

State of the Postal Service April 3, 2013 – YouTube.

March 26, 2013

Citing a legal opinion by the Government Accountability Office, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called on Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to withdraw his plan to stop Saturday mail delivery.

Sanders said the opinion by the non-partisan GAO unambiguously declared that the Postal Service has no legal authority to end Saturday mail without the approval of Congress. In fact, Congress just last week passed a bill that restated the requirement for the Postal Service to maintain Saturday mail delivery.

Sanders called on the postmaster general to formally withdraw his plan to eliminate Saturday mail beginning on Aug. 1. “I am urging you to make it clear to the American people that the USPS will continue Saturday mail delivery in adherence with the law,” Sanders said in a letter.

Sanders stressed that the major reason for the Postal Service’s financial woes is a congressional mandate to pre-fund 75 years of future retiree health benefits over a 10-year period. “No other government agency, no other corporation in America is burdened with this mandate,” Sanders said. “This pre-funding mandate is responsible for about 80 percent of the Postal Service’s financial losses since 2007.”

Before this pre-funding mandate was signed into law by President George W. Bush, the Postal Service was making a profit.  In fact, from 2003 through 2006, the Postal Service made a combined profit of more than $9 billion. “I look forward to working with you to end this onerous mandate once and for all which would keep the Postal Service healthy and thriving for years to come,” Sanders told the postmaster general.

Sanders also said he looks forward to working with Donahoe to lift legal restrictions that now keep the Postal Service from offering new and innovative products and services.  “It is clear to me and to many others that there are significant opportunities for increased revenue for the USPS, if given the opportunity to aggressively compete in the marketplace,” Sanders said.

To read the letter, click here.