Signed, Sealed, Indebted: The GOP Efforts To Privatize USPS
“Countdown” guest host Sam Seder and “Citizen Radio” co-host Allison Kilkenny discuss why the U.S. Postal Service is now facing a $9 billion deficit and review the steps that can be taken to fix it. Kilkenny proposes that the unique health-care burden and pension-fund-contribution error responsible for the deficit could be addressed by “minor accounting tweaks.
26 thoughts on “Video: Signed, Sealed, Indebted: The GOP Efforts To Privatize USPS”
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Beevee012 you miss everything especially FOREST BUSH. First off you are not rich you make 50g a year. Most tea bagging republicon idolizers DREAM of being rich. That’s the cool-aid you are drinking. You believe it when the republicons tell you it’s raining. Reality is they are all pissing down your back. Obama wanted to raise taxes on income over 250g. Not the middle class and not us. Go play bingo with your 50g. You might be a tea-bagger someday.
BeeVoo012, I am a 27 year carrier, This was quoted from august 2006 postal record: The NALC pulled back from comprehensive
postal reform legislation, stung by unacceptable
demands from mailers and the White
House to put economic handcuffs on the
Postal Service. Joining the NALC in the letter were the National
Rural Letter Carriers Association and National Postal
Mail Handlers Union and all three postal management
associations—the National Association of Postmasters,
the National League of Postmasters and the
National Association of Postal Supervisors.
The resolve to this madness; eliminate Saturday deliveries, implement a Monday – Friday schedule, reduce the size of management and maintenance, and continue to consolidate customer service centers. In addition, focus our efforts on the bulk of our current business which are in home delivery contracts, periodicals and parcels. We will not recover from the lost of revenue due to the reduction of first class letter processing. We are in an age of electronic and wireless transmissions. These are the changes we can make in our house, however, Congress has to come to their senses and rescend the current 10 year requirement for our health care benefits and retirement.
Firepotter, 17 year letter carrier, not Management. Our Union Lies. No I don,t miss too much..I just don’t drink the Kool aid this Union is serving. All you have to do is Look things up. For example when you hear “Republicans want to detroy the middle class” Who gave the middle class one of the biggest tax cut in our lifetime? You do remember G.W.Bush’s tax cut for the rich? Yea the same one that Obama extented in DEC 2010 because he didn’t want to raise taxes on, on , on Bingo …the middle class. The Postal Reform act of 2006…..Who according to our Union “Single handedly stopped the bill”? G.W Bush, Our Union wanted this bill so bad. Go read some of the old Postal Record mags. Now it is biting our ass.This Union wanted soak the Rich (Postal Service) and get our share .You see where it has gotten us. Bankrupt
Beevee012 you miss everything. OUR union dues pay for contract violations that management “you” cause. Management lied to congress when saying they don’t get bonuses. Potters exact words were. “Senator, we no longer give awards for our workers.” Management doesn’t work so they still get their bonuses. Are you related to the Koch brothers?
rrhammer less you forget, our Union does not allow Bonus’s to a better worker. It just would not be fair to the less competent less motivated worker now would it? And i didn’t see anything about Minimum wage on this particular post. Am I missing something?
If Post office can provide the same services as UPS and Federal Express like delivering parcels, package, etc . Then it can be saved. Listen to ordinary people for solution is way better than listening to those politicians or people having power. Becasue we do not have personal gains or any other conpiracy running in the back.
I almost forgot. In regards to your union’s (national) executive board members and business agents; have you ever seen one who wasn’t smiling? Do you want to know why? I will tell you why. They have an expense account that would choke a horse. Years ago it was over $ 80,000.00 per year. No doubt that it would be over $ 100,000.00 by now. They are smiling because whatever salary they negotiate for you it won’t even touch the gravy they get poured over the top.
P.S.: Have you ever seen one who wasn’t obese?
I agree with rrhammer. USPS employees don’t get that many perks when you think about it. How many private businesses make it illegal for their employees to accept a tip. You know what I mean. The mail man is not even allowed to take a five dollar bill as a Christmas thank you from his customers. Oh yeah, what about the employee discount…right. No such thing. If you are a manager and you are driving out of town on monday don’t even think about taking that postal vehicle home on Friday. No way Jose! That is a no-no. I could go on and on but why bother. Everything is going down the tube anyway. I could care less.
It’s amusing to see all the angry minimum-wagers on this forum who got burned by the recession. Now they want EVERYONE else to suffer. Well, if the post office is destined to be privatized and more business-like (Enron, those lovable banks, etc), then we need to start talking about the things that businesses get and the post office doesn’t, rather than just what we get that the businesses don’t.
Let’s talk about my company car. And stock options. And a good profit-sharing program (like management gets, sort of). We don’t get any of that. So if someone thinks i should make less and pay more into my retirement, then i’m going to have to insist that we get compensated somehow in trade. I’ll pay more for retirement when i get my profit-sharing program. Deal? Love how management ‘cherry-picks’ the parts of business it wants to emulate ( the negative and hurtful to employees stuff).
The APWU didn’t help the situation any by recently agreeing to such a horrendous contract. The APWU has made it easier to strip what little rights the workers have left and the other unions who will most likely go to arbitration will be harmed by Guffey’s actions.
The Post office can never survive as a business. The mandate of delivering everywhere precludes that. The USPS is a service… not a business.
At 142 million delivery points… one missing first class letter a day amounts to an income loss of about 70 million dollars for that day. That means you get four pieces instead of five. BUT… the other four still need to be delivered by law. and so the loss comes.
No amount of cutting back will cure this.
The Republicans (yes it was republican administrations) that quasi federalized the USPS were at fault.
As First Class mail volume declines so will the USPS’s cash flow. Period.
The unions are not quite to blame. Although pay and benefits are good, I would be hard pressed to find even a single year where the negotiated pay was equal to the congressionally given pay raise for other federal employees for that year.
Certainly labor costs are high, as they are in every business. That doesn’t equate to a pay them dirt scenario.
Also remember that UPS and Fedex use the USPS for inexpensive last mile delivery of many of their items, relieving them of the costs associated with delivery.
The usps can make money in an urban area with congested delivery points , and will lose money in more rural areas. They are delivering letters to each address… not boxes to only several addresses. They must pick up mail from each box if needed (I mean your mailbox if the flag is up), so routes cannot be bypassed. Mail will be forwarded if you moved, returned if you’re gone. even temporarily forwarded if you travel. Can you name ANYWHERE that can do this for 44 cents or less?
The USPS DOES concentrate on their parcel business. If it fits it ships add campaign and the other internal programs that give employees an opportunity to submit leads. Parcels will not make up for loss of First Class. First Class volume is huge by comparison, and far more cost effective due to the USPS’s use of automation.
The best thing that can happen to the USPS would be to be integrated back into the Federal government, receive congressional raises as does every federal employee, federal health/retirement and let the unions negotiate workplace rules.
Wow the Teabaggers be nuts! Hate the liberal spendthrift Dems but love those family values spendthrift Repubs! Oh yeah, Corporate give aways by Bush didn’t count, as the TRILLION dollars plus he blew sending us into Iraq. Keep the Fake News Mantra alive. Don’t let Rupert or his Repub Party down! Flat Earthers forever!
Sorry John…I agree with Tony!
Tony, you are not just an IDIOT, but a complete IDIOT. You are wrong,wrong and wrong again. But you are used to that by now.Clean up your language and someone might listen to your views.Do you really think your lack of knowledge of the English language makes you more credidable ? Stretch your mind, or maybe that’s the problem.
POSTAL NEWS UPDATE: CHINA HAS JUST APPROVED RETURN OF THE PRE-PAYMENT RETIREMENT FUNDS!DETAILS TO FOLLOW SHORTLY.
What exactly has D Issa done to the P.O. to make its business model a complete failure? That has been the work of current and past congress’s along with poor management and managers. It appears if you want to blame anyone you would have to include some blame on this Union. They wanted this 2006 law so bad. Go to past Postal Record magazines and read some of the crap from this Union. One article said the only thing they were unhappy with was the 3 day waiting period when an employee gets hurt on the job to collect Workmans comp.
As for getting our money back from the “Government” Our country is broke and near insolvancy and the President is going back on a spending spree.That didn’t work 2 years ago with 800 billion of borrowed money and now another 450 billion.
Dr.Doorknob if you want to stay in the middle class keep voting for the Dems. They will tax you to death and force you to buy things you don’t want to. The EPA will continue to increase regulations on Business that cost the business millions and millions more a year. You and I pay for that not the business. The Dems say Corps and Millionaires need to pay their fair share. See if you like this idea. Lets make the P.O pay taxes. Vehicle license fees alone for our fleet would put millions of dollars back into the community where we operate, which is nationwide. But wait if the USPS has to dole out millions of dollars in taxation to the states and Federal government how will we get our raises. The less money a company has the less they will pay their people.
Just common sense stuff here, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist as some of the posters I have read on here clearly indicate. For all our sakes will need to help save the USPS. They are the ones who pay us not the Union!!!!!
Minor accounting tweaks?? What a stupid liberal bitch! That money is long gone, spent by you dems.
I heard one congressman say the 50-70 billion overpaid in the pension funds helped pay for all other federal employees. So don’t expect any or very little of it returned to the post office.. The 5.5 billion yearly prefunding of retiree’s health cares was a trap in 2006 to cause the post office to default. Too bad the unions and post office wasn’t smart enough to avoid that trap.
Let’s all face reality! Postal prefunding money was spent by govt and will never be returned.The best we can hope for is some kind of yearly credit line in return that may help offset our yearly deficits.
Give back the overpaid monies to the Post Office so they can offer a retirement incentive. And close up the Dallas Area Local 732 because it is weak and couldn’t win a grievance if it’s life depended on it.The President and Clerk Craft director need to resign….both weak weak weak.
break up the unions
Tony, I do not know what you look like, but you, are a complete IDIOT.
Why don’t they recall Issa .
Reduce the bloated workforce by eliminating the no lay off clause, Go to 5 day delivery, combine all jobs into one craft, this would end the griievances costing the USPS millions, end the expensive FERS program and go to a 401K program for new hires, expand from 10 to 30 years the time to pay the monies into the health care fund for present and future employees, Stop overpaying management, eliminate the board of governors, the postal rate commission. And finally, run the place like a private busines….and the USPS will survive!
Is it just me or does Issa really look like an IDIOT??!!! Why would Californians elect a anti- government congressman?? And a criminal i might add.. I thought convicted criminals weren’t allowed to serve public office.. This country REALLY is fucked up!!!! I don’t understand what the hold up is.. Return our money and we won’t have any problems, it’s that simple!!! Use the money to offer early retirements and we can get back to business.. Duh!!! Plus… Why aren’t we focusing more on the parcel business?? We go to every address and home in the U.S.. That would definitely make up for the lost 1st class letters!!!! This is so fustrating!!! Idiots running the U.S. Postal Service to the ground… Donahohe is already breaking the law by closing post offices.. That FAT FUCK!!!!!!!!