APWU President Cliff Guffey in a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post: “Destroying unions won’t fix the Postal Service” wrote:
The July 28 editorial “A better route for USPS” endorsed the strategy that is being employed by Republican governors who use budget deficits to attack collective-bargaining rights while ignoring other methods of closing budget gaps. The policy that the editorial promoted, including “renegotiating collective bargaining agreements,” put The Post squarely in the camp of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and the Tea Party.
The Washington Post article cited by Guffey promoted the theory :
The only bill before Congress that offers any opportunity to fix this is the Ross-Issa Postal Reform Act of 2011. Is the act perfect? By no means. But the bill includes a mechanism for fundamental change, as well as several reforms that the Postal Service sorely needs: a shift to five-day delivery, which would save an estimated $3 billion over the first four years; a requirement that the financial predicament of the Postal Service be taken into consideration in any arbitration; and the ability to renegotiate existing contracts if the Postal Service’s finances require it.
As a small town Postmaster & a route inspector for city routes, I have seen alot. Closing small offices is not the answer, they list the minscule cost but fail to list the additional cost that these closing would cause. Until the USPS cuts back on upper management, comes off the porches and stops special delivery modes to others of those that complain to congress because its not at thier door, the USPS will never save any sizable amount. The unions are good in some aspects but they protect the poor workers & cause the good workers to be punished, by more work being placed on them and less on the slugs. I have talked with more than one carrier who used to be a union rep but quit that because they were forced to protect employees they knew were not worth defending