The Future of the Postal Service

The Postal Service has been around for a long time and recently has been in the news more than ever. The economy has played a major role the in the decline of business for the Postal Service. Many people think the Internet and email has played a part in the reduction of mail volume in the past few years, but this is not completely true. The truth is that major companies and businesses in general have cut down on expenses and the result of this action has hurt revenue for the USPS very much. Email plays an almost insignificant part in this. As a postal employee, I can tell you that it would take 100,000 people mailing an additional 1000 letters per year to result in a 1% reduction of the deficit that the USPS now experiences.

The truth is, and Postal Service management does not want to admit this, advertising is the business we are in, whether we like it or not. Revenue from business mailing constitutes the major part of the USPS revenue stream, period. Because of the state of the economy, businesses have reduced mailing and thus revenue for the USPS. Management needs to realize this, and take steps to change the business practices we now have in place. We need to make a concentrated effort to get businesses involved in more mail based advertising, and less with unprofitable television advertising. This is the only way to increase revenue for the USPS in the near future.

The other elephant in the room can be identified as the controversial Saturday delivery. Many companies use software to determine the best times to mail advertising to the general public. If the USPS destroys delivery on Saturday, this will cause a major upheaval in the advertising environment in this country. Business all over will be required to go back to the drawing board to revamp their mailing schedules, not only for advertising, but for billing also. They will have to make adjustments to their billing schedules and to their mailing schedules to be certain customers get their bills on time, and are able to get them paid on time. Abolishing delivery on Saturday will eventually open up the door to private companies taking over the 5th day delivery. Do you think this is good? It is not. This will eventually lead to the destruction of the USPS by opening mail delivery up to competition from third parties. This will further erode the financial stability of the USPS and eventually lead to the collapse of the USPS as a whole. This cannot be good for you or for me. Over 600,000 people are employed by the Postal Service. If these people are all out of work, what do you think will happen to the economy as a whole? All of these people on unemployment benefits, welfare, or social security will create an enormous drain on national resources, and the economy could conceivably collapse. The USPS employee body represents a huge spending force. To remove this force from the economy would be a disaster.

Now we need to talk about cutting expenses. Sure, there is waste in the Postal Service, and it needs to be reduced. The Postmaster General makes more than the President of the United States. What does he really do to bring in this kind of money? Bonuses, earned regardless of performance or profit need to be eliminated completely. Why should management get thousands of dollars worth of bonuses when they have done nothing to deserve it? Profits are down. Sales are down. If this were a private company, they would all have been fired years ago. Then there is the mandate that requires the USPS pre-fund retiree health care. This is an expense that no other branch of the government has. It is millions of dollars annually that could be put into the budget to run the company. Read about H.R.22 / S. 1507 for more information on the fight with the postal unions regarding this needless expense.

Early retirements are a good idea, but most people cannot afford to retire after taking a beating in the stock market the past year. So there will most likely be very few takers. If they would offer better incentives, rather than the rather pitiful $15,000 spread over two years they currently are offering, they might get a better response. As it is, most employees are not going to retire early for an after tax income of about $10,000, if they are lucky. That would last about three months. With overtime cut to the bone, and locations all over the country being closed, it is the customer that will suffer the most. Service will decline, and people will be unhappy, thus speeding the downward spiral we now find ourselves in. Hard work, waste cutting, better service, and commitment to customer service are the only things that will save the USPS. It affects thousands of people and their families, so something has to be done. The question remains: Can we do it?