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Postal Service ‘solutions’ set to fail

When a business fails in the private sector, it files for bankruptcy and reorganizes or dissolves altogether.

If that same failing business is part of the government, however, it is allowed to continue to run inefficiently indefinitely.

Postmaster General John E. Potter on Tuesday announced a 10-year plan designed to help the struggling government agency cope with a projected $238 billion shortfall over the next decade.

“The crisis we’re facing gives us an historic opportunity to make changes that will lay the foundation for a leaner, more market responsive Postal Service that can thrive far into the future,” Potter said in a USPS press release.

Among the ideas in the plan Potter presented was the elimination of Saturday home delivery.

Ironically, the postmaster general’s plan to help return the organization to financial solvency involves doing less work.

The problem with this is that USPS employees are salaried professionals, not hourly, meaning they would be paid the same amount to perform a less labor-intensive job.

Perhaps Potter’s next move could be to introduce Jeff Skilling as the new chief financial officer.

To be fair, the release also stated that the USPS would “restructure retiree health benefits payments to be consistent with what is used by the rest of the federal government and the majority of the private sector.”

While benefits are a large part of the problem, they aren’t all of it.

According to the American Postal Workers Union, the average annual postal worker’s salary from 2006-10 was $52,747. Since 1969, each time the APWU has renegotiated workers’ salaries with the USPS, they have increased at least 6 percent.

Not too shabby, especially when compared to the $47,077 the average public school teacher made in 2009, according to the American Federation of Teachers.

As far as benefits are concerned, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management lists the minimum age at which a postal worker can retire with benefits at between 55 and 57, depending on the year in which the employee was born.

The current collective bargaining agreement between the USPS and the APWU also provides all postal workers with quality health insurance, at least 84 percent of which (depending on the plan) is covered by taxpayer funds.

The problem has nothing to do with the number of days on which mail is delivered, but rather with the compensation government employees are receiving for menial work.

As presently constituted, the economic structure of the USPS is not a sustainable business model. If the Postal Service were a private company and not a government entity, it would have failed years ago.

The APWU’s collective bargaining agreement is up at the end of 2010. Potter needs to demand cuts from employee salaries if he’s truly interested in turning the USPS around.

But he probably isn’t, and it’s doubtful that much will change. And that’s OK, because most people are content to fly like eagles on over to FedEx for their postal needs.

Alan Dennis is a communication senior and may be reached at [email protected]

7 Comments

  • The problem with this is that USPS employees are salaried professionals, not hourly, meaning they would be paid the same amount to perform a less labor-intensive job.

    Sorry, but that’s simply a lie. Full time postal employees have a 40 hour work week now, and they will still have a 40 hour week if Saturday delivery is eliminated. Postal workers who sort and deliver the mail are hourly employees. The only salaried employees are executives, managers, etc.- they mostly work Monday through Friday, just as in the private sector.

    If the Postal Service were a private company and not a government entity, it would have failed years ago.

    If the Postal Service were a private company and not a government entity, it wouldn’t have been saddled by Congress and the Bush Administration with a $5 billion a year payment to supposedly “pre-fund” future retiree health benefits, something no other company or agency is required to do. Without that extra tax (which is, of course paid by the private businesses that use the USPS), the USPS would actually be showing almost a billion dollar profit so far this year.

    If the Postal Service were a private company and not a government entity, it would not have been overcharged by $75 billion since its inception for pension costs.

    It’s sad to see such badly written and uninformed writing on a university newspaper’s web site.

  • Quoting the article ” The current collective bargaining agreement between the USPS and the APWU also provides all postal workers with quality health insurance, at least 84 percent of which (depending on the plan) is covered by taxpayer funds.” I guess if you call ” Postage ” Taxpayer funds, then that would be true. Otherwise you are just not informed.

  • Yes, let’s do away with the Postal Service, and everything will be great, UPS and FedEx will take care of us just fine. Just like electricity deregulation in Texas lowered my utility bill.

  • Teacher salaries are paid on a state-by-state basis, so the comparison is dishonest because postal worker salaries are federally mandated. Why even include that as a metric here?

  • The work is hardly menial. I assume you don’t wake up at 4 a.m. to deliver mail in the snow, do you?

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