Postal Service’s Financial Report Brings Good News
Postal Service’s latest financial report shows an operating profit of $1.2 billion
11/16/2015 – The Postal Service’s latest financial report, which showed an operating profit of $1.2 billion, is good news, said APWU President Mark Dimondstein.
“The report shows there is absolutely no justification for cuts in service to the American people or to the wages and benefits of postal employees,” he said. The Postal Service released the report for fiscal year 2015, which ran from Oct. 1, 2014, through Sept. 30, 2015, on Nov. 13.
The results mark the second consecutive year the USPS posted an operating profit of more than $1 billion and the third consecutive year Postal Service operations were “in the black.”
The positive financial report is the result of an improving economy and a sharp increase in package volume, Dimondstein noted. “I often say that the Internet taketh and the Internet giveth. First-class mail has declined, but online shopping has triggered an explosion in package volume.” In 2015, package volume increased by more than 11 percent over the previous year.
The Postal Service continues to show a net loss of $5.1 billion, “but that’s essentially a fraud,” Dimondstein said. “The entire loss was the result of a 2006 law that forces the Postal Service to pre-fund health care benefits for future retirees 75 years in advance,” he said. The Postal Service is the only entity – private or public – that is required to pre-fund benefits in this fashion.
The financial results bode well for the Postal Service and should give added momentum to efforts to developed postal reform legislation that will satisfy workers, customers and major mailers, Dimondstein said.
source: American Postal Workers Union
If you read branch items in the postal record, many thank the old timers who stood up back in 1970 and said no to the letter carriers union president, who was only interested in the status quo and saving his job and struck, because of the unfair pay in nyc and other areas. Our National president is again doing the same. Not interested in helping out high cost of living area’s with getting a living wage, as the federal gov’t continues to add more area’s that get area cola’s. The UAW just rec’d huge raises and a 4 year contract and contract ratification bonus checks. FedEx and ups make 30% more than us, and all they have to do is deliver parcels. We must remember forwards holds markup accountables fss dps cased mail extra bundles……….. How our go along union does nothing to raise the level of poverty many carriers endure in high cost of living areas is beyond me. Our HBP costs go up faster and more $ wise total then our salaries. And before the inexpensive areas chime in, the mail must be delivered everywhere, so just because you say MOVE, only means someone else must live in poverty somewhere delivering the mail. When will the letter carrier union execs get out of bed with elephant plaza and raise all letter carriers out of poverty with a decent contract and area wage.????????? – See more at: http://www.postal-reporter.com/blog/usps-execs-get-pay-increase-bonuses-and-pmg-dpmg-get-new-perk-for-fy2015/#comment-86703
why did the union agree to switch retirees to medicare, if we were funding health care for 70 years? someone please explain
Pre-funding does not end in 2016. The required payments are recalculated.
The union says this cost is a fraudulent cost because we are making retirees take Medicare. The USPS hasn’t made a payment to prefunding healthcare in a while. If the USPS continues to subsidize the federal gov’t by paying Medicare taxes while also paying for its retirees health care and not having them use the system they are paying for then these $5+ billion per year payments will be real expenses.
I’m glad the pre funding ends in 2016 because I’m pretty tired of hearing about it…… wonder what the unions will hang their hat on next year when they can’t blame that anymore
About time someone used the correct term- FRAUD. Anyone with any accounting knowledge knows that fixing the books is FRAUD, or in this case cooking the books to create a loss, which no other company is forced to do and no other company would be allowed to do. (or want to because its only the most stupid accountant would)
The law expires next year anyway and management loves being able to report a $5 billion phony net loss as they again demand that the unions take pay cuts and Brennan and her people at the top will still give themselves bonuses.
The law does not expire. The required payments after 2016 just have yet to be “calculated”.
This “prefunding” is like the social security program. There is no “lockbox” on this money that is being “prefunded”. This money goes into the general fund and congress is spending it as fast (faster) as it comes in.
There is little doubt that both USPS and the APWU’s Dimondstein use whatever accounting to justify their agendas. Who really knows,what the actually gains/losses truly r?
They are both right. With the pre funding there is a loss. The pre funding is considered an uncotrollable expense, not an operating expense. Pre funding ends in 2016. What the APWU is saying that the USPS is in good shape because they are now showing an operating profit that is based on controllable expenses and income. This is good news because when pre funding is over the USPS will be in the black again.
Prefunding does not end in 2016. The payments will be recalculated going forward. The fact that the USPS hasn’t made payments in a while will help make the “new” prefunding requirements nearly as big per year as they have been.
The prefunding agreement will expire at the end of next year unless some of those Republicans like Darryl Issa try to extend it. I would hope however that it wouldn’t get past the floor of the House this time around.
All the prefunding did was provide a till for Congress to steal from and shoo it into black budgets and otherwise spread it around in paper trails it would take 100 years to unravel, which is a government specialty. The USPS management knows how to cheat with the numbers too, and we know they have not made a payment into the retirement fund in the last couple of years, and as far as I know Congress hasn’t made much of an issue about it.
The USPS paid into this crooked fund for several years though, and the last thing any postal employee should fear is losing their retirement benefits which are supposedly good for 75 years, I’m guessing at the end of 2016, which would make the benefits available without additional funding until 2091. By then Congress or whatever law making body we have will have found a way to pillage it, I suppose, but at least if the USPS is still going they would have some legal recourse if the benefits were threatened.
But then again, we could lose it all with the stroke of a pen if deranged fascist/anarchist assholes like Paul Rand had their way.
I do think the Postal Service will be fine. We have had the internet now as a household commodity since more or less the late ’80’s, giving the Service nearly 30 years to retool, which they have with a huge increase in parcel business.
Plus, there will always be the bulk mail.
Bernie Sanders has advocated an oversight committee to look into the USPS not employed by them, something that really needs to be done, and it shows Sanders above everybody else has a much more clear understanding of the Service. Unfortunately he is behind in superdelegate support, thanks to Hillary’s war machine no doubt making more crooked deals than you can shake a stick at. I am a progressive, and I don’t consider Hillary Clinton a progressive at all. She is much more a moderate Republican, moderate in the sense that she at least isn’t full of pure hate and pandering to the religious nutjobs out there.
That much is good, but organized labor can’t expect much help from her. She will promise us the moon, but we won’t get much. I hope Sanders can drum up some good endorsements, including the NALC, and maybe start catching up in the delegate count.
This electoral system is the dirtiest, crooked system you can think of. Thanks to gerrymandering, and having delegates “vote” for us, we really have no say in who gets elected on the national level. I think votes are falsely counted, and until there is a strict popular vote nationwide, where we can go to our precincts or courthouses after any election and see for ourselves exactly how our votes were cast, I will never trust the system. It wouldn’t surprise me a damn bit if the 2016 Presidential contest was already determined, while politicians go out and act like we have a say in the matter.
It is way past time that Congress do away with the prefunding of Postal employees health care costs! The law was only passed to place a burden on the Postal Service. I see that the right wing think tanks complain about the public will be forced to bail out the Postal employees health care costs! While it is ok to subsidize private business. The tax payer pays for food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, the earned income credit, and generous tax deductions! The Federal government refuses to force the business bastards to pay a living wage to workers. So instead, the tax payer must subsidize the cheap money hoarders! then they have the nerve to cry about tax payer bailouts