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TOP NEWS STORIES |
As Internet Booms, the Postal Service Fights Back
"We're very optimistic about the future of mail because
mail has great value," said Susan Plonkey, vice president for
sales. "Mail works." Top postal officials say the recession is
to blame for the agency's $7 billion deficit and a steep drop
in the volume of mail, and they express confidence that mail,
particularly advertising, will rebound." -
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Postal clerks decry no-work policy
"Employees clock in and are paid their regular hourly wage of
between $17 and $23 an hour, even when their supervisor
instructs them to sit in a "standby room," where they can do
nothing but read Postal Service instructional materials --
they cannot eat, drink, smoke, read books or talk on the phone." -
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USPS Offers $15,000 Retirement Incentive to Clerks and Mail
Handlers (PDF)
A
$15,000 retirement incentive is being offered by the USPS to select
career employees represented by the APWU and NPMHU. The incentive will be paid in two
installments, depending on retirement or separation date. Most
participating
employees will receive $10,000 in November 2009 and $5,000 a
year later. - NPMHU -
APWU
- Negotiated Incentive Plan Designed to Save
USPS $500 Million - USPS Offers Buyouts
to 30,000 Workers - USPS offers workers
$15,000 to quit - No plans for city or
rural carriers - Postal Service Continues
Cost-Cutting Actions - USPS offers
incentives; will you take them? -
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Federal Times: Unions oppose 5-day delivery, other proposals
to cut USPS costs
"The leaders of the nation's two largest postal unions say
they will fight a switch to five-day mail delivery and any
effort to slash their members' lucrative benefits, and they're
concerned about possible post office closures. In other words:
There are big points of disagreement with U.S. Postal Service
management on how to rescue the cash-strapped agency." -
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USPS Updates FSS Deployment Plan
"Under the revised plan, the Postal Service will redirect 19
of the 100 new FSS machines to new plants. Two of the 32
locations originally scheduled to receive the machines - Aliso
Viejo, CA, and the Atlanta BMC, now a Network Distribution
Center - have been removed from the list. However, the revised
plan increases to 42 the number of facilities receiving the
high-tech sorting machines, including 12 locations that were
not in the original deployment." -
Declining Volumes Lead to FSS Expansion -
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Postal Workers 'Excessed' to a 120-Mile Commute
"She was told to report to the Morgan Post Office in
Manhattan, where she was placed in the "blue room." This is
where she met Ms. Morgan. The blue room was originally used as
a pool room, where USPS workers who weren't being used at the
moment would await an assignment. Today it is a form of
purgatory where employees do nothing for eight hours a day.
"You are not allowed on the work floor," Ms. Morgan said. "You
have to sign out if you go to the bathroom." -
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New York: Prosecutors say postal workers ran gambling game
"U.S. postal workers were among 10 people charged with
operating a "Lotto"-style gambling business out of offices at
the U.S. Postal Service and an agency that operates trains and
buses. Prosecutors say the game was played since at least
2005, sometimes from offices at the postal service and the
Metropolitan Transit Authority." -
FDR Post Office on Third Avenue -
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Burrus: 'Short-Sighted' Strategy Will Mean Long-Term Damage
"Closing and consolidating post offices based on
recession-level volume is short-sighted, and will leave the
Postal Service with an infrastructure unable to accommodate
the larger volume of mail that will be generated by a more
robust economy," Burrus wrote Aug. 13." -
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Summer Sale Heats Up
"The Postal Service's Summer Sale program continues to
heat up, as qualified mailers take advantage of price breaks
offered for generating additional volumes of commercial or
nonprofit Standard Mail letters and flats The program, which
began July 1 and ends Sept. 30, provides a 30-percent credit
to eligible mailers who generate Standard Mail volumes above a
mailer-specific threshold... 1,200 companies registered to
participate. Of those, 569 have been certified, while another
364 await certification." -
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Postal carrier driven to, from and around route due to drunk
driving arrests
"In the middle their financial crisis, we got a tip that the
post office is paying extra to drive a letter carrier around,
because the carrier lost his license after a couple of drunk
driving arrests. We followed the carrier and found he's driven
to his route, so he can walk it, but sometimes he gets driven
around his route by another postal employee." -
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NALC: An Insulting One Page Brief From the Republican House
Conference (PDF)
"The NALC issued a point-by-point rebuttal of a grossly
inaccurate, partisan attack on the Postal Service and its
700,000 employees, perpetrated by by the House Republican
Conference in an underhanded bid to derail health care reform.
"This smear cannot go unanswered," NALC President
Fredric V. Rolando said. "This attack on America's
most-trusted agency is deliberately misleading and
unjustifiably undermines public support for the Postal
Service." - Burrus: A Cheap Shot at Our
Expense -
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The President and the Postal Service
"President Obama made what his advisers believe were his first
public comments on the U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday,
basically knocking its performance during his
health-care-themed town hall in New Hampshire. Obama stated:
"I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just
fine, right? No, they are. It's the post office that's always
having problems." Asked for comment, Postal Service
spokeswoman Joanne Veto acknowledged that the president
appeared to have made an offhand comment but said, "We don't
doubt that the Obama administration supports us." Still ... to
have the president poke fun at your financial situation in his
first public comments about your agency? Yeah, not good."
- Postal Service: Whipping Boy of the health
care debate - Video -
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APWU S.1507 Update: Vote Delayed on Bill to Undermine Pay and
Benefits
"The Senate adjourned for its August recess without
voting on a bill that would be devastating for postal workers.
As a result, union members have several more weeks to voice
opposition to legislation that would undermine our wages and
benefits in future contract negotiations. "If this bill passes
as written it will destroy collective bargaining for postal
workers, jeopardizing our cost- of-living increases, raises,
and protection against layoffs," APWU President William Burrus
told union members July 30." -
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Senators Weigh Postal Service's Future
"I think that we've reached a breaking point with the
recession and that's why we're seeking to go from six- to
five-day delivery," Mr. Potter said. Senator Thomas R. Carper,
Democrat of Delaware and chairman of the subcommittee, said
that the health benefits bill was "not a silver bullet."
Several senators said that eliminating a day of delivery was
not off the table, but did not offer concrete proposals on how
to make that change. Mr. Lieberman said that members of
Congress were opposed to closing postal facilities and
eliminating a day of delivery but said, "I fear that we'll
probably have to do both of those." -
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$2.4 Billion Quarterly Loss for Postal Service
"We simply cannot afford these costs," Postmaster General John
Potter said during a news conference announcing the financial
results. The payments will contribute to a $700 million cash
shortfall at the end of its fiscal year in late September,
Potter said, unless Congress quickly changes the payment rules."
- Postal Service reports loss, while Senate
delays action on bill - USPS Press Release -
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No Pony Express, Postal Service Slammed for 'Lumbering'
System, Junk Mail Deliveries
"Government budget woes, the efficiency of the Internet and
the staggering volume of junk mail have rightfully buried the
U.S. Postal Service, say environmental groups and budget
analysts who call the mail delivery model built on the Pony
Express no longer viable in the 21st century... "You can't
have a business model based on a practice that annoys people,"
added Dave Tilford, a senior writer with Center for a New
American Dream, an environmental group based in Maryland." -
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Dear USPS: Consider privatizing
"I can't say or guarantee that there wouldn't be
layoffs," said Jordan Small, USPS acting vice president,
during a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform
Federal Workforce, Postal Service and District of Columbia
Subcommittee. Small added that he hoped personnel cuts could
be made through attrition and the service's temporary
workforce, which handles many of USPS' Saturday deliveries." -
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