Friday, July 30, 2010

USPS Said No To White House on 5-Day Test

The U.S. Postal Service declined The White House’s suggestion that it conduct a pilot test of five-day delivery, according to a document made public this week.

“I believe a pilot test would not produce substantive results that could be used to decide whether to make the change nationwide permanent,” wrote Postmaster General Jack Potter in an April 26 letter to Dr. Lawrence Summers, Director of the White House National Economic Council. “Our customers likely would, at best, find a pilot test to be confusing, and, at worst, costly and time-consuming.”

The Postal Service released the letter (in the last three pages of this document) in response to questioning during the Postal Regulatory Commission’s proceedings on whether Saturday delivery can be eliminated. Potter wrote that his letter was a response to Summers’ “recent question about the viability of the U.S. Postal Service conducting a pilot test of delivering mail five days a week.”

“The plan to eliminate carrier delivery service on Saturday . . . would save the Postal Service a projected $3.1 billion annually,” Potter wrote, without addressing whether the change would reduce revenue as well.

Paid not to work
“During such a test, we would be unable to make the permanent, necessary changes to our delivery workforce, transportation networks, and mail processing operations that would yield the projected $3.1 billion savings. The largest financial impact of a pilot would be the fact that many career employees in the pilot area would have to be paid not to work or be relocated, while many of our non-career and part-time employees would see their wages reduced or eliminated.”

Confining the pilot test to a particular region would raise issues of fairness and might violate “the statutory mandate of providing universal service to the nation,” Potter wrote.

“A pilot test, with all of the challenges that would arise, would not demonstrate the efficacy in which we could perform five-day delivery moving forward, and thus, may raise doubt among the public of our ability to do so.”

Potter’s letter provided some insight into how a shift to five-day delivery would affect employees:

“The five-day delivery proposal anticipates the reduction of approximately 25,000 full-time City Carrier assignments and $2.2 billion in annual savings in City Carrier operations” because “regular Carriers assigned to a single route would have Saturday and Sunday off, eliminating the need for the Carrier Technician and Relief Carrier assignments. We plan to transition full-time Carrier Technician assignments into Carrier positions (that cover a single route) that become available through attrition.”

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would not work to much room for tampering by Union.

Anonymous said...

The last thing Potter wants is the public to see the actual impact.

Anonymous said...

Postal service needs to take a good look at management who are making an average of 75k per year and not really doing anything but sitting in front of a computer,or stalking employees that doesn't really do anything but make a hostile workforce. Start eliminating at the top or force management workers back into a carrier or clerks position where they take a 25k pay cut and become a productive worker again

Anonymous said...

Passport processing is private event for our customers. It is like apples and oranges it do not mix. One retailer is asking the hazmat question, and next to him or her you got a family of 4 discussing personal information such as here is the death certificate of the kids father and the man standing here is not their father and I've been married two times before. Put the Passport Processing back in the offices and instill costermer service.

brett said...

PMG Potter and his associates have their heads up their rectums. Potter claims to save 3+ billion dollars by eliminating Saturday delivery, mainly by cutting more than 25,000 Letter Carrier jobs. Nothing has ever been said about eliminating Postal Management jobs, only Letter Carrier jobs. The problem is now and in the future if this comes to past that "To many chiefs and only a few indians"! The N.A.L.C. tries to protect us from managements inability to manage. On occasion management listens to Letter Carriers and when they do things usually go easy, at least until management tries to tweak something. I would love to see the paychecks of these so called tweakers. They most likely get paid six figures each.

humbug said...

URGENT To All who depend on the Postal Service. I have worked for the USPS FOR 13 Years. They have severely cut Carriers and Clerks to the point YOUR MAIL is being delayed while PADDING MANAGEMENT to unreasonable levels. The TIME IS NOW call/write your CONGRESSMAN and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. The DAY OF RECKONING is here if they do not reduce management the Post Office will cease to exist.

Anonymous said...

First of all. You don't ell the boss "NO". What do you mean the USPS told the President's office "NO"? Potter must not read the news about General Stanley McChrystal. What kind of idiots are running this agency?

katr said...

Most jobs that have nothing to do with transporting, sorting or delivering mail could probably be eliminated or combined with another.

The people with these management jobs make 3 to 4 times as much as a carrier. These are the jobs to cut. Start at the top!

Anonymous said...

vaboweriIf the Post office is so hard up for money that they are cutting mail handler jobs,carrier jobs, and clerk jobs. Why did they just send out another e-mail saying don't forget to get your pay for performance goals in toget your bonuses at the end of this physical year which ends at the end of September. No money for carrier jobs, clerk jobs, mailhandler jobs, no money for bonuses!!!!

Anonymous said...

lets keep all the high paying jobs and the low paying jobs and cut out the middle class.
third world here we come.

Anonymous said...

For everyone bashing management it is only those in the ivory tower of Washington who make 6 figures. Potter has over 2 mil in his retirement. He needs to donate back to the PO so we can function for the next generation to retire. Everyone eligible should go and allow the rest of us to raise our families.

Anonymous said...

At our branch it has been proven time and time again that the entire facility can be totally and effectively managed by one manager, now we have four!!

Anonymous said...

someone need to do an independant survey to all mail carriers. Most of us do want Sat. off. We have alot going on with kids activities on Sat. and miss most of them.We have plenty of open spots for the t-6 to fill without laying off anyone.

Anonymous said...

The Postal service can save money buy making every route a rural route. No more overtime saves money!

Anonymous said...

evaluated routes is the way to go. Pay carriers the 54k a year. NO MORE!

Anonymous said...

I hope they evaluate them the same way they do the rural. The rural in my office work 4-6.5 and average over 8 hours pay. The city carriers routes have been greatly expanded the last 10 years and the rural left alone. The rural are still getting paid about the same and work alot less now.