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Thread: Post office changes began way before Trump was sworn in

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lame Brain View Post
    Unions are the only thing standing between blue collar workers' benefits and Republicans.
    Obama was president and the DEMOCRATS controlled Congress when this happened.

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    September 19, 2011


    Obama's Postal Service plan would cut Saturday mail


    The Obama administration’s plan to rescue the U.S. Postal Service would allow the agency to end Saturday mail delivery and sell non-postal products, according to documents released on Monday.

    The agency has said it needs to reduce payrolls by about 220,000 by 2015 and is studying thousands of post offices and about 300 processing facilities for possible closure.

    “The president’s proposal would help the Postal Service update its business model to reflect Americans’ changing communications habits,” said Senator Tom Carper, a DEMOCRAT.



    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-postalservice-amendment/obamas-postal-service-plan-would-cut-saturday-mail-idUSTRE78I3XF20110919

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    Feb. 23, 2012


    U.S. Postal Service: Expect big cuts starting in mid-May


    With no financial relief in sight, the Postal Service is pushing ahead with cuts to more than 260 mail processing centers around the nation.

    It's part of a billion-dollar cost-cutting effort that will slow delivery of first-class mail.

    In a statement, the cash-strapped agency says it completed a review of closings to mail processing centers that were announced last fall. Based on community input and other factors, the post office says it will move forward, beginning in mid-May.

    The consolidations are expected to result in a loss of roughly 35,000 jobs.

    The agency described the move as a necessary cost-saving measure. Mail volume is declining as people and businesses switch to the Internet in place of letters and paper bills.



    https://www.michiganradio.org/post/us-postal-service-expect-big-cuts-starting-mid-may

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    Oh, so what I read about San Jose's Mercury News was right. Guess despite being left center they are very right wing on the unions front. Makes sense, since you're getting this piece from a supposed left leaning source in California.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Croc o' shit View Post
    Oh, so what I read about San Jose's Mercury News was right. Guess despite being left center they are very right wing on the unions front. Makes sense, since you're getting this piece from a supposed left leaning source in California.


    Are you going to pretend that all the reports in this thread are fake news from "right wing" websites?

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    Dec 5, 2011


    Near-Bankrupt US Postal Service Plans Unprecedented Cuts


    Unprecedented cuts by the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service will slow first-class delivery next spring and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.

    The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail later Monday, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the Postal Service to quickly trim costs and avert bankruptcy.

    They could slow everything from check payments to Netflix's DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines delivered by postal carrier to far-flung suburban and rural communities.

    The cuts would close roughly 250 of the nearly 500 mail processing centers across the country as early as next March.

    Because the consolidations would typically lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency would also lower delivery standards for first-class mail that have been in place since 1971.

    Currently, first-class mail is supposed to be delivered to homes and businesses within the continental U.S. in one to three days; that will be lengthened to two to three days, meaning mailers could no longer expect next-day delivery in surrounding communities. Periodicals could take between two and nine days.

    The Postal Service already has announced a 1-cent increase in first-class mail to 45 cents beginning Jan. 22.

    About 42 percent of first-class mail is now delivered the following day; another 27 percent arrives in two days, about 31 percent in three days and less than 1 percent in four to five days.

    Following the change next spring, about 51 percent of all first-class mail is expected to arrive in two days, with most of the remainder delivered in three days.

    The consolidation of mail processing centers is in addition to the planned closing of about 3,700 local post offices. In all, roughly 100,000 postal employees could be cut as a result of the various closures, resulting in savings of up to $6.5 billion a year.

    Expressing urgency to reduce costs, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in an interview that the agency has to act while waiting for Congress to grant it authority to reduce delivery to five days a week, raise stamp prices and reduce health care and other labor costs.

    The Postal Service, an independent agency of government, does not receive tax money, but is subject to congressional control of large aspects of its operations. The changes in first-class mail delivery can be implemented without permission from Congress.

    After five years in the red, the post office faces imminent default this month on a $5.5 billion annual payment to the U.S. Treasury for retiree health benefits; it is projected to have a record loss of $14.1 billion next year amid steady declines in first-class mail volume. Donahoe has said the agency must make cuts of $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable.









    https://www.businessinsider.com/us-postal-service-cuts-bankruptcy-2011-12

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    December 5, 2011


    The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service said Monday it is seeking to move quickly to close 252 mail processing centers and slow first-class delivery next spring, citing steadily declining mail volume.

    The cuts are part of $3 billion in reductions aimed at helping the agency avert bankruptcy next year. It would virtually eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day, a change in first-class delivery standards that have been in place since 1971.

    The plant closures are expected to result in the elimination of roughly 28,000 jobs nationwide.

    At a news briefing, postal vice president David Williams stressed the move was necessary to cut costs as more people turn to the Internet for email communications and bill payment. After reaching a peak of 98 million in 2006, first-class mail volume is now at 78 million. It is projected to drop by roughly half by 2020.

    "Are we writing off first class mail? No," Williams said. "Customers are making their choices, and what we are doing is responding to the current market conditions and placing the postal service on a path to allow us to respond to future changes."

    The cuts, now being finalized, would close 252 out of 461 mail processing centers across the country starting next April. Five of the centers slated to be closed are in Minnesota cities: Bemidji, Duluth, Mankato, Rochester and St. Cloud. Sixty-nine jobs will be cut in St. Cloud, 58 in Duluth, 41 in Rochester, 12 in Mankato and five in Bemidji. The mail now processed at the centers would be transferred to facilities in St. Paul and Minneapolis for sorting.

    Last July in a separate announcement, the Postal Service said it's considering closing nearly 90 Minnesota post offices.

    Because the consolidations typically would lengthen the distance mail travels from post office to processing center, the agency also would lower delivery standards.

    Currently, first-class mail is supposed to be delivered to homes and businesses within the continental U.S. in one day to three days. That will lengthen to two days to three days, meaning mailers no longer could expect next-day delivery in surrounding communities. Periodicals could take between two days and nine days.

    Williams said in certain narrow situations first-class mail might be delivered the next day - if, for example, newspapers, magazines or other bulk mailers are able to meet new tighter deadlines and drop off shipments directly at the processing centers that remain open.

    But in the vast majority of cases, everyday users of first-class mail will see delays of one or two days, including those who pay bills by check, send birthday cards, write letters, or receive prescription drugs or Netflix DVDs by mail.

    After five years in the red, the post office faces imminent default this month on a $5.5 billion annual payment to the Treasury for retiree health benefits. It is projected to have a record loss of $14.1 billion next year. The Postal Service has said the agency must make cuts of $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable.

    It already has announced a 1-cent increase in first-class mail to 45 cents beginning Jan. 22.

    Separate bills that have passed House and Senate committees would give the Postal Service more authority and liquidity to stave off immediate bankruptcy. But prospects are somewhat dim for final congressional action on those bills anytime soon, especially if the measures are seen in an election year as promoting layoffs and cuts to neighborhood post offices.

    On Monday, the Postal Service said it welcomed congressional changes that would give it more authority to reduce delivery to five days a week, raise stamp prices and reduce health care and other labor costs. But the Postal Service said it was opposed to provisions in both the House and Senate measures that would require additional layers of review before it could close post offices and processing centers.

    "Speed is very important to the Postal Service in our ability to capture savings," Williams said.

    Maine Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate committee that oversees the post office, believes the agency is taking the wrong approach. She says service cuts will only push more consumers to online bill payment or private carriers such as UPS or FedEx, leading to lower revenue in the future.








    https://www.mprnews.org/story/2011/12/05/post-office-changes

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    February 3, 2015


    Obama’s FY 2016 Budget embraces outdated, misguided postal policies



    February 2, 2015 – Statement by NALC President Fredric Rolando, on today’s release of President Barack Obama’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget proposal:

    With the release of its FY 2016 budget proposal today, the Obama administration once again has embraced an outdated philosophy that the Postal Service can and should cut its way to prosperity by targeting services.

    While the NALC sees progress in the administration moving away from immediately ending six-day delivery and ensuring its continuation for 2016, we are disappointed that the administration has embraced an arbitrary volume trigger to eliminate a day of delivery.

    And not only does the budget propose eliminating a day of delivery once mail volume falls below 140 billion pieces of mail, it also seeks to begin reducing door delivery service for customers.

    These cuts defy common sense and do not promote a thriving and innovative Postal Service that can continue to meet the needs of businesses and residential customers nationwide.

    Given the turnaround in postal finances and the expanding partnerships that the Postal Service is enjoying, degrading services to residences and businesses isn’t only unnecessary, it’s counterproductive because it will drive mail—and revenue—away.


    http://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/nalc-obamas-fy-2016-budget-embraces-outdated-misguided-postal-policies-former-pmg-donahoe/

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    August 25, 2009



    Postal Service offers $15,000 buyouts to cut costs


    The Postal Service is offering $15,000 buyouts to employees in an effort to cut costs at a time when the post office is being buffeted by the recession and the popularity of e-mail and electronic bill payment.

    Up to 30,000 employees could take the offer at a total cost of about $450 million, the agency said Tuesday. The post office said it could save as much as $500 million in the next two years.

    The agency said it reached an agreement on the buyout offer with the American Postal Workers Union and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union.

    The majority of those who could take the buyouts work in the mail processing facilities, the post office said.

    The offer is open to those eligible for retirement and early retirement. It also includes employees in select positions, such as retail clerks, distributors and mail handlers who are willing to resign voluntarily.

    The buyouts are part of a series of cost-saving efforts by the post office. A hiring freeze is also in place and management salaries have been frozen. The post office has also cut more than 100 million work hours since the fiscal year started last Oct. 1. It’s stopped construction of new facilities and closed six district offices, along with other steps.

    The Postal Service lost $2.4 billion from April through June, according to numbers released earlier this month. The agency has lost $4.7 billion so far this year and expects to be $7 billion in the red by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.



    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/postal-service-offers-15000-buyouts-to-cut-costs/

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    August 5, 2009


    Budget Woes May Bring Post Office Closings


    The USPS has released a preliminary list of 677 postal stations and branches, mostly in big cities and suburbs, that it is studying whether to close. Eventually, the list may expand to include more of the 4,800 branch stations nationwide. The study doesn’t involve the service’s 27,000 main post offices.

    On July 2, the service took a required step toward closings by asking the Postal Regulatory Commission to decide whether its consolidation plan will cause “a substantially nationwide change in the nature of postal services.”

    “It definitely could have a large impact for a lot of people,” Robert N. Sidman, a commission attorney appointed as the general public’s representative in the case, said in an interview Monday.

    Yet another side effect could be a faster decline in the number of blue USPS collection boxes on the streets, Sidman said, which in turn could result in earlier collection times at the boxes that remain.




    https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-08-2009/dead_letter_offices_.html

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    September 13, 2011



    2011 has been a year spent on the brink. Since January, Americans have faced the looming threat of a government shutdown, a national default, and now, the possibility of a collapse of the U.S. Postal Service. Last Tuesday, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warned Congress that the longtime service was on the verge of default. September 30 is the deadline for the agency to make a $5.5 billion payment into a fund to cover health care for future retirees.

    Without immediate assistance from Congress, Donahoe said, the USPS could default on its payment and be out of money by next year, forcing it to shut down all operations.

    A bill currently in Congress would extend the payment deadline by three months, but the USPS is in need of rapid and drastic restructuring to remain financially viable in the future. While Congress and the Obama administration continue to hash out those plans, here are five things you need to know:

    1. The USPS is not technically “broke” — yet.

    Operationally speaking, the USPS nets profits every year. The financial problem it faces now comes from a 2006 Congressional mandate that requires the agency to “pre-pay” into a fund that covers health care costs for future retired employees. Under the mandate, the USPS is required to make an annual $5.5 billion payment over ten years, through 2016.

    These “prepayments” are largely responsible for the USPS’s financial losses over the past four years and the threat of shutdown that looms ahead – take the retirement fund out of the equation, and the postal service would have actually netted $1 billion in profits over this period.

    This doesn’t mean, however, that the USPS’s financial situation is good. Revenue has been declining for years, and even if the agency manages to get past this year’s $5.5 billion payment, it would again face insolvency next year.

    2. The postal service doesn’t rely on taxpayer funds.

    Until 1971, mail delivery was handled by the Post Office Department, a Cabinet department in the federal government.

    Postal worker strikes prompted President Nixon to pass the Postal Reorganization Act in 1971, transforming it into the semi-independent agency we now know as the United States Postal Service.

    The USPS in its current form runs like a business, relies on postage for revenue and, for the most part, has not used taxpayer money since 1982, when postage stamps became “products” instead of forms of taxation. Taxpayer money is only used in some cases to pay for mailing voter materials to disabled and overseas Americans.

    USPS spokespersons have been adamant in emphasizing that they are not requesting taxpayer funds from the federal government to make this year’s payment. Rather, they say, the USPS is asking Congress to authorize access to an estimated $7 billion that they overpaid into the future retiree pension fund in previous years.

    3. Junk mail sustains the system.

    Although the USPS does manage to turn a profit based on operations alone, it’s a widely known fact that mail volume has dipped over the past decade. As Americans by and large correspond and pay bills online, first-class mail and, as a result, postal revenue have gone into a decline. From 2006 to 2010, mail volume decreased by a hefty 20 percent.

    But although the days of custom stationery, handwritten letters and scented envelopes may be long gone, the USPS has been increasingly reliant on junk mail — advertisements, catalogs and other unsolicited mailbox “gifts” — to keep the service afloat. BusinessWeek notes that revenue from junk mail increased by 7.1 percent in the last quarter of 2010 – although volume has not increased since.

    Donahoe has also expressed optimism that junk mail volume and revenue will increase as the economy improves. But the lower cost of direct mailings means that more junk mail is needed to circulate in the system to make up for the accelerating loss of first-class mail.

    4. The proposed cuts are big.

    In his testimony last week, Donahoe presented a number of measures that he argues would halt the USPS’s rapid financial decline, including the elimination of the annual pre-fund payment requirement, stopping Saturday mail delivery and terminating a “no-layoff” clause in a contract with unionized postal workers.

    According to Donahoe, cutting service down to five days a week instead of six, a proposal that has been kicked around for years, would save about $3 billion a year.

    Donahoe has also urged Congress to allow him to shut down standalone post offices, moving them into convenience stores and supermarkets instead.

    Of course, these proposals have been met with resistance, not least by postal workers who stand to lose their jobs, as well as direct mailers, the creators of the junk mail that sustains the system, who argue that Saturday deliveries are crucial times for sending advertisements while recipients have their minds on weekend shopping.

    Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) has also argued that ending Saturday delivery could drive mail-order pharmacies and other businesses away from the USPS, further accelerating its losses.

    Other critics say that simply cutting services isn’t enough, and that the real solution is figuring out a way to reinvent the postal service to meet the needs of our wired world. But how?

    5. Europe could be the model for USPS 2.0.

    To see just how the USPS can transform itself, some analysts have turned to European countries to observe what can be done differently. In a May cover story for BusinessWeek, journalist Devin Leonard reported on the kinds of models that have emerged in Sweden, Germany and Finland.

    The Swedish service, Posten, and Germany’s Deutsche Post have minimized their participation in the national postal market, allowing them to work as smaller and more streamlined organizations.

    Posten runs only 12 percent of Sweden’s post offices, while Deutsche Post runs 2 percent of those in Germany – the rest are handled by other businesses. The U.S., in contrast, runs all of the post offices in the country.



    https://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/the-u-s-postal-service/11433/

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lame Brain View Post
    Unions are the only thing standing between blue collar workers' benefits and Republicans.



    Obama proposes $42.5B in cuts to employee benefits

    September 19, 2011


    President Barack Obama is seeking $42.5 billion in savings through reforms of the federal employee benefit programs as part of a plan to reduce the federal deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade.

    The White House expects to save half of the $42.5 billion from changes to the civilian agency pension system.

    The President recommends civilian employees would contribute 1.2 percent more of their paychecks to their retirement, to be phased with a 0.4 percent increase annually starting in fiscal 2013. A senior administration official defended the proposal.

    Additionally, a new commission of lawmakers, union leaders, academics and members of the private sector would rethink federal policies and practices that govern employee compensation, training and performance evaluations. This follows the Obama administration’s ongoing effort to reform federal personnel practices, including hiring reform and performance management.

    The White House proposes changes to the TRICARE health plan for military retirees and families, including making recipients pay premiums and increased co-payments for medicine, similar to other health care plans. The President would leave further changes to military retiree benefits to a committee similar to the one used for the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program.

    The government would return nearly $7 billion to the Postal Service that it has overpaid to the Federal Employee Retirement System. In addition, the plan would let the agency restructure its health benefit payments. Senior administration officials estimate that could save the struggling service about $20 billion.

    Obama also endorsed letting the agency reduce delivery days from six to five per week.

    The White House received quick support for USPS reforms from its allies on Congress.

    “Not only does this proposal help the Postal Service fix its finances but it also reportedly trims our federal deficit by over $10 billion over the next 10 years,” said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del).



    https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2011/09/obama-proposes-425b-in-cuts-to-employee-benefits/

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