WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) today introduced legislation to modernize the U.S. Postal Service, save Saturday mail and repeal a crippling law responsible for 80 percent of the mail system’s funding woes.
“While we all understand that the Postal Service is experiencing financial problems today and that changes need to be made as the Postal Service adjusts to a digital world, these issues can be dealt with in a way which strengthens the Postal Service rather than initiating a series of cuts that could eventually lead to a death spiral,” Sanders said.
The Senate bill is cosponsored by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Al Franken (D-Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
“Congress must work together and pass legislation that will sustain the Postal Service, avert unnecessary closures that hurt communities and save American jobs. Most of the financial issues facing the United States Postal Service are due to short-sighted actions by Congress. Congress must unshackle USPS so we can deal with these problems and allow the Postal Service to better compete,” DeFazio said.
Under the legislation, proposed cuts to Saturday delivery would be prevented. “Providing fewer services and less quality will cause more customers to seek other options,” Sanders said. “Rural Americans, businesses, senior citizens and veterans will be hurt the most by ending Saturday mail.”
The measure would let the Postal Service look for innovative new ways to make money by lifting legal bans on services such as notarizing documents, issuing hunting and fishing licenses and allowing shipments of wine and beer. It also would clear the way for the Postal Service to help customers take advantage of email and Internet services. Moreover, a commission would be created composed of successful business innovators and representatives from small business and labor to make recommendations on other ways the Postal Service could generate new revenue and thrive in the 21st century.
Arguably the most critical financial reform proposed by Sanders and DeFazio would be to rescind an onerous 2006 law pushed through a Republican-controlled House at the behest of President George W. Bush. Unlike any private business or other government agency, the law makes the post office pre-fund 75 years of future health care benefits for retirees over the course of 10 years. The $5 billion annual payments have been piling up in a fund that experts say already has more than enough in reserve. Since 2007, the pre-funding mandate is responsible for $4 out of every $5 in Postal Service debts.
The bill also would reinstate overnight delivery standards to speed mail delivery and prevent shutdowns of mail sorting centers. Safeguards also would be put in place to protect rural post offices.
35 years? How long you wanna go? People like you need to go!
GEE Whiz RJ…have ever read how that bill went down in both chambers. It was voice voted by both Dems and Repubs and no record was kept. It was a “unanimous” yes vote in the senate…look it up clown(Public Law No: 109-435). My guess is that it was “unanimous” in the house as well, it could not have passed without Democrats voting for it. Why do you think it was voice voted Sherlock?
It is fools like you that are delusional to the point that you appear to be rabidly insane. For you to abdicate any responsibility on the part of the Democrats is very telling about you personally. Both parties put the screw in the PO’s back with the help of the previous PMG(Potter). Leave you mommy’s basement once in a while and get out more.
The only thing more stupid then 5 day delivery is 6 day delivery.1 CARRIER WILL BE ABLE TO DELIVER THE PARCELS AND MEDICINE IN MOST STATIONS.One ups driver on weekdays delivers about ten towns worth of mail.
Sat or No Sat delivery I’m still sleeping 5 hrs a day-2 in the locker room and 3 in my car.
Clearly the postal financial problems go to the republican poison penned bill in 2006 that required pre-funding of future retirees healthcare and retirement 75 years down the road. No other federal agency has this albatross around their necks, only us! The republicans put this in to bust the postal union and then to privatize it so they can maximize profits in the unregulated capitalist way.
People who can’t see this are just not paying attention! If this bill is repealed or stopped as Bernie Sanders wants then we can fix this problem and keep Saturday delivery. Keep jobs!
Here in Texas, Christmas parcels didn’t stop and I’m continuing to see mail volume climb. We still have 2-3 light days per week but we are seeing 1-2 of those days getting an odd full coverage third bundle. We are about a foot of flats away from being back to the 06′ level I estimate. Parcels? An extra 30 SPR’s on average and about 3-4 times the amount of full size parcels.
Barry, Larry, and Mo (3 Stoogies)need to take Economics 1
as the laws of supply and demand are the basics in creating revenue and controling debt. Service provided by USPS exceeds demand resulting in debt.
Advances in communication technology in the 21st century has reduced the need to purchase a postage stamp and use the Postal System to deliver to a physical address in a 2-3 day time frame. Electronic mail has reduced first class
volume resulting in massive decrease in revenue. Revenue generation is difficult in an increasing paperless means of individuals and business communication. The government is increasing mode of going paperless as social security and treasury checks must be direct deposit by March 2013.
USPS only area in creating revenue was in parcels and shipping in 2012 as revenue increased to prior year.
Cost effective operations have to increase to off set revenue decline. Top heavy management at headquarters, areas and districts must be reduced. Small community post officies within a 6-7 mile raidus must be eliminated or consolidated. Rural offices in densely populated areas separted by distance should be maintained.
Politicans as well as craft and management unions need to
compromise to develope a business model to insure the USPS can achieve financial stability.
lose another 15 billion again.
The Postal service will be made into a package delivery service, Parcel post was once a huge part of the p.o. Management let that go and ups was born, they did not want to deal with express mail so fedex comes to life . Not realizing the internet would one day crush the buisness model of ever increasing letter size & flats, so now they want packages back, if they do something that is congress, they need to go further, get all over payments to civil service, fers, that is billions the treasury owes the usps. get rid of the top heavy managment saving 100’s of millions get rid of any losing programs such as flat sorting machines that cost billions are big as a foot ball field and they don’t work and lose money tipical p.o. waste must be curbed drastically .let it run as buisness or are we a service, as mandated by the constitution Get a real ceo change the entire structure of the p.o. you can’t have it both ways I am a rural letter carrier who lost over 10,000 in pay from the last mail count did management lower their pay! hell NO THEY all got raises. we all know mail counts are rigged by they upper postal managment. everyone knows it is busy up until the count begins, then nothing soon as it is over the mail picks right back up.It’s a shame the postal service has no ethics themselves. One p.m. does shit and knows nothing of his job, the next one comes in and is over zealous what a joke, and if they want us to get all new package leads the should pay comission but are we running a buisness or a service ? it cannot be both ,that is what they don’t get. If you think I’m going in to do packages on a sat, or sun they got another thing coming o ya thats right we have a contract, many people bitch about our union but if we did not have them we would be making $3.00 per hour with no benifits. Don’t kid yourself many would like to get rid of your unions and continue with class warfare congress may be able to help us short term b ut they must deceide buisness or service !! A few thoughts from some one who used to like there job more. 5 Years to hit 20 can I make it ? to bad that 6 and 1/2 years as a sub, means nothing except i got to work three jobs waiting for this mess lol
whatever they are going to do, I just wish they would get on about doing it.The people in congress aren’t in any big hurry. They are about as slow as a soap opera
I doubt the bill would pass as is. The Republicans will balk at the retaining of six day delivery for strange reasons known only to them (probably rooting for the Service to fail by being less accessible). What we’ll get is a compromise law that will go to five day with a partial but not complete relief package that deals with the pre-funding requirements. That’s cold cash that crooked lawmakers dip their bills into and they don’t want to lose that cash cow.
Donahoe will ignore their law maintaining six day delivery, and probably be removed or held in contempt of Congress. He’s busy greasing wheels on the GOP side and there’s no telling how much dirty money is being moved around. I personally think five day will work if there is minimum job loss, and the prefunding overturned. Plus, that law is due to expire in 2014 anyway. It’ll be fun trying to second guess what we’ll be facing in the coming month.
Here in the Norfolk P & DC we have had our overtime cut to almost nothing. We have lost lots of people due to buy-outs but management is riding our butts to do more work with the less people. The P.O. idea is to bring in casuals (temps) to work along side us, but there is not enough money to properly train them. We don’t want them since the only they bring the scabs in is to cut our overtime. Donahoe is a minion of ISSA and he will kiss his ass so that he can make sure that he hooks himself up with plenty of delayed compensation just like that butt head Potter. Keep congress out of our business and stop the prefunding requirement and we can return to profitability.
Hey John Wayne. You sure are a positive guy!
I do like the extra toilet paper idea.
I had a wife that sounded like you ladies once.
Bitch Bitch Bitch
Grow Up
…and add to that Darrell the fact that they have been using the monies to fund all the retirements from all the agencies that retire through OPM, so this bill has little chance of passing for obvious reasons.
One of the untold reasons the PO was made to pay this money isn’t to “pre-fund heath benefits 75 years into the future”, it is because the USPS puts more people into the retirement system than any other agency so this was congress’s way of making us pay “our fair share”.
Where have we heard that before?
Management needs to be cut drastically.
If you want to clear out the deadbeats, loafers, and worthless lifeforms, start at Elephant Plaza and work your way down.
And don’t just relocate them to imaginary desk jobs in other areas.
Relocate them to exits and unemployment lines.
Not to take money out of people’s pockets especially when they hand overtime out like water but I have yet to see the O.T. come to a halt. How much would that save! The problem is these bafoons that run the place have as it states in the contract “the right to mis-manage” which is exactly why they keep the overtime coming $$$$$$$$ chaching!
chaching! chaching! Ending the noose around the services neck (5.5BL) payment should have been a no-brainer a long time ago. Congress is the big reason we are in he deepest of pot holes instead one’s we can still drive through. While their thinking of ways to make the P.O. solvent make an offer to civil service employee’s to leave that is actually creditable. They don’t want to pay pensions anymore so “make an offer I can’t refuse my friend”… preferably in years (3) would be nice. They would eliminate top step employee’s hiring PSE’s at half the money. So the money saved from this will more then make up for what it will cost to get it done. I don’t know why they don’t look at this? Even in retirement years people only live so long and survivor benefits are only 55 % of it to boot! The benefits of this just continue in their favor. It will get worked out but not until it becomes another “cliff hanger”. A much different model Post Office will eventually show it’s self that will reflect the common theme of what other companies are doing to stay solvent. This keeps you in the game if you have some years to go but the question is “at what cost”
The PMG claims cutting Saturday service will save 2 billion dollars a year. Predicated on what exactly? Donahue does what the Postal Board of Governors tells him to do. They in turn get their cue from Congress. Two separate agencies[The Office of Personnel Management and The General Accounting Office} determined that both of USPS pension funds have been overfunded by tens of billions of dollars. Additionally USPS has contributed beyond 40 billion dollars to the PAEA of 2006. Where is all this money? Oh Congress spent it. The Post Office is no longer able to be a Congressional cash cow, so they want to make it go away.
Those who want to see USPS privatized fail to acknowledge or care that millions of Americans will be disenfranchised if that were to happen. Rates will skyrocket You don’t like The Postal Service? Don’t use it, it doesn’t cost you a nickel.
Some of you so are desperate for Saturdays’/ Sundays’ off. What are you going to do when they determine workloads are unmanageable so they try Wednesdays’/ Sundays’. Or they don’t realize their projected savings so they go to 4 day delivery. No reasonable person should ever champion the loss of jobs. Someday it might be yours.
I have never heard such a bunch of old ladies complain about something positive. If you don’t like it, do something about it.
you blame 2006 prefunding law on bush and the repub’s the fact is it had bi-partisan support and union support (nalc). the problem was per dc normal operating proceedure nobody read the bill until after it passed.
Those co-sponsors a bunch of Mo’s knowing full well this bill is weak and does nothing constructive for the P.O. Just grandstanding for the uninformed constituants back home come re-election. I like the idea of keeping final mile delivery,privatize every thing else. Any thing i mail any more is within 50 miles of chicago,Dont wish to subsidise out of town mail any longer. I sent a Valentines card 12 miles it was normal sized but a little thicker cost $1.35 postage.
So many people to blame. But seriously. The post offices plan is to shut down Saturdays for mail but deliver parcels on Saturday/Sunday. So let me get this right. Drop a day but add a day??? Carriers still have to carry. CCA’s? Sure. But they won’t be able to carry ALL the parcels for whole offices (larger ones) so they will call in regulars. Clerks will still be working everyday sorting all the presorts and parcels. The machines are still being run. So now mail will just be heavier during the week and the CORE/RAPS/Inspections have made routes so large that OT will still be through the roof creating more routes to try and relieve the burden. So 5/6/7 day delivery doesn’t matter to me at all. None of them are going to save the PO anything different as they are predicting.
The prob with the PO is that it is poorly run. We are losing money every day but the PO wastes money like its water. in my office the PM got written up b/c the carriers were using regular trays to put hold mail in. The PM was ordered by the district manager to order cardboard trays to put hold mial in. $2600 they cost. Unreal. And we all know about the hostile work places we r in. district has ordered management to write up everyone for everything. dont settle and let the grievence process work it out. that cost big $$$ just to harass a carrier b/c his window was open 1 1/2 inch instead of 1 inch. it causes hostile work environments and noone gives 100% when they r constantly being harassed. PO finances dont need to b looked at but the way its run. my building had 100 workers and 4 supervisors. thru attrition we now have 60 workers. but still 4 supervisors. and a pm that works 5 hrs a day making $96000 a yr. in staten island there is 1 pm for 5 offices. not 1 pm for 1 office. too many chiefs. if a pm gets taken out b/c he is inefficient, he gets promonted or put on a “team” b/c they dont know what to do with them. $95000 yr employees doing nothing but driving from office to office to see if there are any sleepers in the case. but god for bid a carriers takes a 35 min lunch instead of a 30 min lunch. thats why we r losing money.
Attached to this bill is a mandate to install an extra toilet paper holder in each stall with a roll of luminous toilet paper to be used only in the case of a blackout.
Bitch Bitch Bitch
This is the best thing I have seen for postal employees since 2008. Maybe you complainers would rather be unemployed. If this is made law I will be shocked.
Albert E N 35 plus years? You need to retire
You need to get a clue Congress. You have ruined this country and now you think you can save the Postal Service with that ridiculous plan? It will only be a matter of time before we all wake up and in the news THE POSTAL SERVICE IS OUT OF MONEY. Saturday delivery is the biggest waste of time. The only thing that people are truly looking for is medicine and packages. There are no bills or checks like you think as many do it on line. The majority of business are closed and small business they don’t go to the bank until Monday morning. All postal employees know what a waste Saturday is. Fedex and UPS are already working with us so this thing about other competition is a joke. The World Postal Service USPS,FEDEX,UPS. There are so many employees now in the plants getting paid to stand around and do nothing. Eliminating Saturday is the best idea yes there will be job loss but if they don’t eliminate Saturday you may see a entire system collapse and that would be an impact to everyone. Congress has ruined this country
6 day delivery of letter & flat mail could go to 5 day delivery.
packages and “other” (as in medicine) would continue to be delivered on the 6th day,
Sunday delivery maybe started as well. So this BS that no mail delivery on the 6th day
is just plain false! Yes there will be jobs lost … but changes are with pain needs to
be dealt with. New services new revenue. True the USPS needs to change it’s business
model but not at the risk of the rank and files livelihood without due considerations.
END the $5.5b health care funding for future retirees (No one else does it).
The Senate and Congress should do an investigation on were is that USPS $5.5 Billion
really going!
I am a letter Carrier 35+ years, Carriers need back to back days off for health and family reasons
you all know that is true! USPS can develop workloads in sensible ways were minimal job loss would occur.
Are you serious? Work hours or should I say employees on the clock not working is the biggest threat to the USPS. The waste of bargaining unit employees, ‘Not my job’
‘I am filing a grievance’ I have witnessed enough. The postal service is imploding, any steps by congress at this point is futile. It is definitely in a death spiral.