The
United States Postal Service recently announced that they plan to end Saturday
delivery this coming August. Reactions among
the general public seemed mixed. Most
people became more comfortable with the idea when they learned that parcels
will still be delivered to city delivery routes. This mixed, and somewhat indifferent,
reaction could not be more different from reaction the major postal unions had.
But first, here is a quick lesson on
postal unions. If you divide the blue-collar
workers of the USPS into their individual jobs, you are left with four major
job types, or crafts. These crafts are
the City Letter Carriers, Rural Letter Carriers, Mail Handlers, and the
Clerks. Each of these crafts has their
own union representation, the NALC, NRLCA, NPMHU, and the APWU respectively. Confused?
Don’t worry, I am too and I’ve been a City Letter Carrier and member of
the NALC for over six years.
Now, as you might expect, the four
unions unanimously agreed that ending Saturday delivery is a terrible
idea. The NALC concluded that it is a “disastrous
idea” which will have “profoundly negative effect(s) on the Postal Service and
on millions of customers”. They
concluded their statement by calling for the “immediate removal of the
postmaster general, who has lost the confidence of the men and women who
deliver for America every day”. And it
is at that point right there, when the dialogue between unions and management
become nothing more than a competition of who can yell the loudest and say the
most outlandish statement, that I lose the ability to pretend to care.
The obvious question at this point
is how did it get this bad? How is it
that a federal institution, with roots dating back to the Second Continental Congress,
is now forced to reduce its service? The
answer is pretty surprising. It all
started in 2006, a time when the United States Postal Service reached a peak
mail volume of 213 billion pieces (by 2011 that number dropped all the way down
to 168 billion pieces.). It was at this
time of record high numbers that Congress passed the Postal Accountability Act and Enhancement Act of 2006. This Act required
the USPS to prefund its retiree’s benefits for the next 75 years within a 10 year
period, meaning the Post Office was suddenly given a deadline of 10 years to pay $103.7 billion to the Treasury. It is not surprising that when you go back and look at how much the Post Office has lost each year, that number closely resembles the amount paid to the Treasury to prefund the retiree's benefits.
The
story only gets more bizarre from there.
Last June, the Post Office’s Office of the Inspector General published
their findings that the Post Office has actually paid more than enough money to fund future retiree's benefits with a surplus of $13.1 billion dollars. If this finding is true, it would mean that the Post Office's yearly net losses have been wildly exaggerated. And that is while prefunding all future retiree's benefits for the next 75 years during a massive economic downturn.
Ive worked at the Post Office long enough to know it has its share of problems. It is an archaic system of outdated rules
spanning back generations where decisions are constantly met with union
opposition. Add to that an inbred
management system where important positions are not made available to the open market, but rather the limited pool of internal employees. It sometimes seems like promotions within the Post Office are only a matter of the largest turd floating to the top. But when it’s all said and done, postal management didn't ruin the Post Office. That
blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the men and women in our elected Congress. At this point we aren't left with many choices. Saturday delivery is gone and unlikely to return. The United States Postal Service still faces substantial financial shortcomings. But the dilemma now is whether it is better for Congress to pass legislation to help save the Post Office or to just stay the hell away. I'm hoping for the second option.
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