Greg Bell
Executive Vice President

(This article will appear in the May/June 2013 edition of The American Postal Worker.)

The National Academy of Public Administration, an organization chartered by Congress to provide advice to government leaders, recently evaluated a proposal to privatize all postal operations except delivery and concluded the idea “merits serious consideration. The original privatization proposal, which I wrote about in the March-April issue of The American Postal Worker, was written by a group of self-described “postal industry thought leaders.”

Although the review by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) doesn’t quite endorse the proposal to privatize everything but delivery, it gives a sense of legitimacy to the concept, which up to now has been dismissed as extreme.

While the NAPA report is supposed to provide an independent review of the privatization proposal, it was financed in part by a contribution from Pitney-Bowes, one of the largest pre-sort companies in the country. Pitney-Bowes owns more than 40 mail processing centers and stands to be a major beneficiary if mail processing operations are contracted out to the private sector.

It’s worth noting that NAPA conducted a similar study in 1982 and came to a very different conclusion: Breaking up the Postal Service “is not in the national interest,” NAPA wrote at the time.

The recent NAPA review acknowledges that there are a number of important factors that the proposal failed to address, such as the retiree health benefit pre-funding obligation, and stresses that “a number of issues need to be further explored before any implementation of the concept can, or should, be attempted.”

On the other hand, the NAPA paper points out that the Postal Service is already privatizing many operations through the use of “work-sharing” discounts.

The study notes that the value of mail processing and transportation completed by private companies is estimated at $17 billion annually. While some portray this astounding figure as operating costs avoided by the Postal Service, in many cases the discounts are so big that the Postal Service loses money on the deal. In 2008 the Postal Regulatory Commission concluded that many discounts exceeded the costs avoided. And while the Postal Service has lost revenue, private mail sorters have made healthy profits.

The NAPA review notes that if privatization of all operations other than delivery was fully implemented, several “bargaining units would be negatively impacted.” NAPA acknowledges that several people interviewed for the review concluded that “cost savings will be realized mainly from replacing union labor with non-union labor.”

Driving a Wedge Between Unions

The proposal to privatize everything but delivery also puts a wedge between the postal unions — it invokes a divide-and-conquer strategy that seeks to reduce opposition to the plan by seeming to protect the work of one group of employees, Letter Carriers, while targeting employees engaged in mail processing, transportation and other activities.

We’ve seen similar divide-and-conquer strategies used in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere in an attempt to cause division between public- and private-sector unions. The Postal Service frequently uses this strategy to divide postal unions.

In an ironic twist, however, the NAPA study recommends “evaluating the merits of the contention that the delivery function should remain a role for the Postal Service.” In other words, why not contract out the whole kit-and-caboodle, including delivery?

The union principle that An Injury to One is an Injury to All is as true today as it ever was.

A proposal is currently being considered by the US Postal Service to sell its building in downtown Berkeley, CA and relocate its services. This is just one city that is feeling the impact of a crippling financial crisis currently affecting the Postal Service. In fiscal year 2012 it lost approximately 5.9 billion. And now thousands of buildings may be sold and thousands of workers laid off in what USPS says is an attempt to save itself, but critics argue is a step toward privatization.It’s commonly understood that the internet and e-communication is causing the demise of USPS, but that’s not the full story. What seems to be the prime cause is actually a little-known law passed in 2006.

Read more: Massive Cuts to Postal Service a Step Towards Privatization?.

Darrell Issa has written a piece entitled “Delivering Postal Service Reform” for the National Review. Having read the article, we have edited it slightly for brevity, while preserving the spirit of the piece, as well as its complete analysis of the situation:

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The full text of the original article is available at the link below:

Delivering Postal Service Reform – By Darrell Issa – The Corner – National Review Online.

GOP Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty apparently felt the need to prove his right wing credentials in a speech today in Chicago, calling for the privatization of just about everything the government does, including the post office:

There’s some obvious targets. We can start by applying what I call "The Google Test." If you can find a good or service on the Internet. Then the federal government probably doesn’t need to be doing it.

The post office — the government printing office — Amtrak — Fannie and Freddie were all built for a different time in our country. When the private sector did not adequately provide those services. That’s no longer the case.

What’s more — the same competitive efficiency that revolutionized America’s private sector over the last three decades — should at long last be applied to every corner of the federal bureaucracy as well.

I still can’t find on Google the “good or service on the Internet” that will pick up a letter at my house this afternoon and deliver it in 3 or 4 days to someone in Hawaii. (Pawlenty would probably tell you that nobody does that any more, which makes you wonder who the nobodies were that spent $67 billion mailing stuff last year, or the thirteen million nobodies who visit usps.com every month).

Oddly enough, the private sector that Pawlenty and his ilk worship so devoutly has also found it difficult to google up a “free market” alternative to the USPS: witness FedEx- their biggest growth product is Smartpost- a service that uses the USPS to deliver its packages. Curious that the company right wingers and tea baggers love to point to as the antithesis of the USPS relies on the USPS rather than expanding its own delivery network.

It will be interesting to see how consistent the GOP is going to be with their privatization dogma: will Arizona contract out its forest fire fighters? Will folks along the Mississippi be responsible for maintaining their own levees? Will injured veterans get health care vouchers instead of VA hospitals? (There’s lots of hospitals on Google!)

via Pawlenty Proposes ‘Better Deal’ — And ‘Google Test’ To Eliminate Programs (Updated) | TPMDC.

The far-right wing Cato Institute has released another report on the US Postal Service, which, not surprisingly, calls for the privatization of the agency. While the report may be useful in some ways, you may want to double check the Institute’s “facts”. It informs us, for example, that “The USPS is currently at a tipping point due to the combined effects of a large recent decline in volume and revenue that is projected to extend into the future, as well as increases in operating costs”. USPS operating expenses have in fact decreased every year since 2007.

Cato Institute: Restructuring the U.S. Postal Service

Cato Institute: Restructuring the U.S. Postal Service.

Although many Americans today rely on electronic forms of communication, they still believe there is a need for the U.S. Postal Service. But they’re okay with cutting back snail mail delivery to five days a week.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 31% of Adults think the government should consider selling the money-losing Postal Service to a private company. Fifty percent (50%) disagree and think it should remain in the public sector. Nineteen percent (19%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The Postal Service is seeking Congress’ permission to drop Saturday mail delivery as a way to cut costs, and 52% of Americans think that’s a good idea. But that’s down six points from 58% last March. Thirty-four percent (34%) now want to keep Saturday delivery, while 14% more are not sure.

In July, 68% said they would rather see mail delivery cut to five days a week and avoid raising the price of stamps as opposed to keeping the six-day delivery and raising stamp prices.

The survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on February 13-14, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Most Americans continue to give the USPS high marks as they have for several years. Sixty-four percent (64%) rate its performance as good or excellent, consistent with previous findings. Just 11% say the Postal Service is doing a poor job.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) think it is at least somewhat likely that there will still be a need for the Postal Service in 10 years, down six points from May 2009. Just 15% say it is not likely there will still be a need for the service. These findings include 42% who see it’s Very Likely and a mere three percent (3%) who say it is Not At All Likely.

Interestingly, younger adults feel as strongly about the continuing need for the Postal Service as older adults do.

Just one percent (1%) of adults said in a survey in July that they use the U.S. mail the most to communicate with friends and family. But an earlier separate survey found that most adults (52%) still used the mail to pay their bills.

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Democrats and a plurality (47%) of adults not affiliated with either major party oppose selling the USPS to a private company. Republicans are almost evenly divided on the question.

In July, 52% of all adults said private companies should be able to compete with the Postal Service by offering mail delivery. But 36% said mail service would be worse if run by a private company. Federal law now prohibits private companies from competing with the Postal Service for mail delivery.

Nearly half of American adults say postage stamps cost too much. But if they were charged a small amount for each e-mail they sent, 37% say they would stop sending e-mails altogether.

via Americans Want to Keep Postal Service Public But Cut Delivery to Five Days – Rasmussen Reportsâ„¢.