Postmaster General Briefing
July 14, 2009
USPS Headquarters
On Tuesday, July 14, 2009, Louis Atkins, NAPS Executive Vice President, represented NAPS at a briefing with Postmaster General Jack Potter. Also in attendance were the leaders of all of the craft unions and the other two management associations.
Postmaster General Potter briefed the attendees on the current situation facing the Postal Service:
Continued losses in volume are crippling the finances of the Postal Service. Between 2008 through 2010, the Postal Service expects that it could lose as much as 25 – 30 billion pieces of mail volume. Every time the Postal Service loses a billion pieces of mail, the Postal Service looses $ 360 million dollars in revenue at current rates.
Employees need to know that the Postal Service has already taken steps to bring our Health Benefits in line with the rest of the federal government by the agreements that were reached with the unions and management association in the last round of pay agreements by increasing the employee contribution by 1% each year.
There are no plans to have any new equipment deployments in the near future. Right now the Postal Service has enough equipment power to process all of the world’s originating mail in just six hours time.
The “Summer Sale” was explained to the attendees. Mailers who use this opportunity will be required to maintain their expected volume of mailings through October, 2009 to earn a rebate on summer mailings. Customers who simply advance their mailing cycle will not get the discount rebate.
PMG Potter then provided information on the Postal Service’s strategies for FY 2010 and beyond:
• The Postal Service needs to continue to cut costs
• Grow the Business
• Protect Liquidity
Key Strategies are expected to include:
• Continued freeze on hiring
• Additional Tour compressions
• Restructuring Delivery Routes
• Continued integration of Network Distribution Centers
• Flat Sequencing
• Station and Branch consolidations
• Further reductions in administrative positions
The Postal Service continues to stress that relief from the passage of HR 22 alone will not bring the Postal Service the financial relief that it needs and the implementation of five-day delivery is vital to the future solvency of the Postal Service.
Although there has been much discussion of the change to five day delivery, and that the change must have congressional approval and a change to the current law, it now appears that Saturday would be the day that delivery would be eliminated. In a five-day proposal, retail units would remain open on Saturday to provide service to customers.
Post Office boxes and Caller Service would also be maintained under the Postal Service’s plan. Remittance mailers could use Post Office boxes and/or Caller Service to maintain their cash flow.
Under the Postal Service’s proposal, there would be no delivery or collection of mail for city routes, rural routes or contract routes. Express Mail would continue to be delivered as it is currently.
• Mail processing would process originating mail Monday – Friday.
• Mail processing for destinating street addresses processed Monday – Friday.
• Mail processing for destinating PO Boxes and Callers Monday – Saturday.
• Mail processing for destinating remittance mail Monday – Sunday
The Postal Service is also considering options to increase the sale of non-postal items in retail units. As these plans are finalized there will be information provided to employees and the public.
PMG Potter stated that the new Priority Mail initiative with flat rate boxes is performing well and helping us improve our revenue. Employees should tell everyone they know about the benefits of the flat rate boxes’
source: http://haloscan.com/comments/rehema/deljuly1409/#463271
Folks go slow for more dough is a reality.The Postal Service is the only place that I know of that rewards lazyness. We just had a route adjustment and the people who ran their routes all got added on to.People running the USPS are running it in the ground with this type of standard,yall need to wake up
If the USPS don’t get some competent management, everything else that is done is a total waste.
Also if so many carriers want weekends off, how about have casuals do all the deliveries for SAT? Then Sat. could still be delivery day, with labor costs cut to less than half for that day?
Management has to be DOWNSIZED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. The POSTAL SERVICE CANNOT AND WILL NOT SURVIVE past this year. We have RETAIL SPECIALISTs doing nothing to increase revenue…BUT CARRIERS are asked to get leads and then are criticized. In most offices these specialists sit at their CUBICLES ALL DAY when NOT SMOKING ON THE PATIO. THIS IS POSTAL WASTE! IN-PLANT SUPPORT techs walk around ALL DAY looking for something to do……WHY IS THERE AN ILLUSTRATOR POSITION STILL IN HARRISBURG PA PLANT?….ILLUSTRATING WHAT??…MUST KNOW SOMEONE?
yall are all idiots dont like it leave. most of you bitchin are lowly te’s or ptf’s that gonna get cut with 5 day delivery or old farts that take 8 hours to deliver 25 stops and ask for overtime when you get 8 inches of mail. wake the hell up dumb asses the country is gone to hell and we arent protected from it. People are losing their jobs everyday and you bitchin be happy you got a job. Wake up people and do your job and quit calling your union rep everytime you take 26 stops instead of 25 jesus yall are the biggest 2 year olds i have ever listened to
WITH THE CONTINUING DROP IN MAIL VOLUME ….WE WILL HAVE ENOUGH MACHINE SORTING POWER TO SORT THE ENTIRE WORLD’S ORIGINATING MAIL IN 2012 IN 27.2 MINUTES… HEY CLERKS, MAILHANDLERS AND ETS…HOW ABOUT A SEVEN HOUR GAME OF TEXAS HOLDEM IN THE CAFETERIA?
hopeful also someone reads some of these posts, what about the supervisor who was caught stealing from the p.o., not fired, but demoted to a clerk, and who has since gone on disability sucking the p.o. dry, not sure? investigate your own house before coming down on the hard working carriers and clerks who like their job and want to keep it.
3 NJ Mayors, Lawmakers Arrested in Corruption Case…
most of them looks like typical 204b’s
From the guy that is losing his job in management to the craft personnel, be happy you have a job
#9…you don’t know what you are talking about…hopefully you are not a PM or window clerk. We pay by the cubic inch to fly our Priority mail…so the larger the box to zones 5-8 the larger the cost. If you are pricing incorrectly, you should get a letter of demand for the price difference and not capturing the revenue due the USPS. It’s our job…just do it.
204b’s are the life blood of our organization. Let’s give a round of applause for our fine friends in management.
204b’s are worst than the kapos of world war 2!
25 VP’s? Try 60.
Can we actually get someone of some importance from Congress to look at this website and read alittle. I’m sure they will see the comments and maybe look into them and realize that Management has destroyed the Post Office,, Salary Bonus Perks, Stupidity, and the hostile way they treat the workers who earn THEIR Pay. Not to mention the way they treat People to call to ask a question or complain about something.. Maybe then we can rid the PO of the Cancer that is Management and do what we were hired to do. Proudly deliver the mail each and every day to our customers who (used) to trust us and believe in us.
Make a mandatory retirement at 65! These old farts do nothing but crap in their depends!
Get rid of 204b program. The idiots they put up for this, are horrible craft workers!
Have 1 VP! Not 25
Potter is with worst PMG in History!! Growing the service while cutting delivery days is an oxymoron. And speaking of morons, Potter needs to explain how cutting $1.5 billion on a sixth delivery day will be the magical event that will put us in the black. How about eliminatiing 4 out of 5 postmasters, which would save much more money and not affect service?
hey team player, i’m out already and doing a something else! it is you in management that is not thankful to those employees who are busting their balls to the do job that can not be done by your pets! be thankful to those who are carrying other loads instead of punishing them! Managers like you can not even differentiate what is right from wrong, only your bonus is important!