April 24, 2013 — At Wednesday’s session of PostalVision 2020, NALC President Fredric Rolando explained in persuasive — and un-rebutted — terms why going to five-day mail delivery is neither warranted nor wise, and would in fact be destructive.
The factor accounting for almost all of the Postal Service’s red ink, Rolando told the audience at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C., is the congressional mandate to pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years and do so within a decade, a requirement faced by no other agency or company in America.
“It’s important to face up to where the losses are coming from,” President Rolando said, as he made the case against eliminating Saturday delivery, as pushed for by the postmaster general and anti-worker elements in Congress.
In the most recent fiscal quarter, Rolando said, that mandate accounted for all of the red ink — in fact, in operational terms, the USPS had a $100 million profit delivering the mail, Rolando said. And so, pre-funding is the issue that Congress needs to address to set the Postal Service on a sound financial course.
Later, as the panel concluded, the conference’s host turned to President Rolando and said, “I think you’ll find a lot of agreement with you,” and singled out the need to address pre-funding.
Rolando was on a four-member panel titled “The Road Ahead.”
Outlining how well situated the USPS is in terms of its future pension and health benefit obligations, President Rolando said, “This is the richest ‘broke’ company I’ve ever heard of.”
Further, he said, it is illogical to try to “right-size” the unique universal network of the USPS without first defining its mission in an evolving society. It’s clear that people have changed the way they communicate, and that the Postal Service needs to adapt — and “slashing” services and the network before developing a plan of how to adapt makes no sense and would be self-defeating.
Those pushing for a reduction of services to the American people aim “to take the Postal Service in a different direction from what it was established for — to serve the American people,” Rolando said.
“It’s time to be honest with the American people. This isn’t just about Saturday delivery. It’s about ideology, about selling off the Postal Service for corporate profit.”
One reason the Postal Service is so well trusted — and that letter carriers do so much in terms of community safety and well-being — is that there is a stable workforce of letter carriers who work in the same neighborhoods for years and develop knowledge of, and ties to, their customers.
There are ways to save money that don’t involve degrading the network, including changes in health care provisions and pricing reforms, and a plan should be developed to grow the business and increase revenue, Rolando said. Labor costs have decreased in recent years, even as worker productivity has reached record highs, he said.
“The Postal Service has a great future,” Rolando said, noting the “unlimited” future of e-Commerce, but the USPS needs improved leadership. The current Board of Governors suffers from too many vacancies and too little business expertise.
“We’ve got to get a governance structure in there that has a vision for how to run a $65 billion company,” and that understands the concepts of growth and profits, Rolando said.
ELIMINATE PRE FUNDING AND 6 DAY DELIVERY REMAINS A WASTED COST. SUPPLY AND DEMAND CONTROL THE MARKET PLACE AND THE USPS DEMAND FOR SERVICES AND PRODUCTS HAS DECLINE. COST EFFECTIVE MEANS MUST BE IMPLEMENTED AS DEFEICT COST FACTOR IS BULIT IN WITH PRESENT PROVIDED SERVICES, EXCESS EMPLOYEES TO MEET WORKLOAD DEMAND AND WASTE IN NUMBER OF POST OFFICE BUILDINGS THAT NO LONGER SERVE THE PURPOSE THEY CAME IN EXISTENCE TO PROVIDE IN THE 20TH CENTURY. TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES IN COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY HAS FOREVER CHANGED THE COMMUNICATION PROCESS. FORMER POSTAL CUSTOMER NO LONGER PURCHASE A POSTAGE STAMP FOR DELIVERY OF A MESSAGE TO A PHYSICAL ADDRESS IN A 2-3 TIME FRAME. the 21st century means of communication is electronic instant messaging. Social security, and treasury checks are required to be direct deposit. GO PAPERLESS SAVE THE ENVIORNMENT BANK ELECTRONICALLY!COMMON ADVERTISEMENT IN BUSINESS ADS.
USPS needs a buyout of all Civil Service Employees (1984-cutoff date)replace with lower pay scale. Reduce street delivery to 5 days or less a week. Take action to gain market in parcel and Express Priority as means to generate revenue. Reduce high level salary positions at headquarters, areas, and district levels that do not directly exist to generate revenue or operate cost effective.
5 day delivery makes no cents as mail volume has decreased resulting in massive monetary losses.6 day street delivery of bulk business advertising mail is high distribution cost with low revenue generation. NALC paints this wasted cost as an Oasis in the middle of a decaying financial sand dune. There is a place for fairy tales and the tooth fairy but reality must be dwelt with. Ignore what exist and failure
to take action to avoid will devour. Rolando is dreaming will be a nightmare as he enters REM STAGE.
I want to know why middle management jobs aren’t being eliminated. When times get tough, every other company in america would slash middle management jobs. Yet the postal service keeps the same amount or even increases their numbers of those jobs. A complete waste of money.
Maybe the NALC should partner with the Obama administration and get the auto industry to develop electric vehicles to deliver city routes. I drive round trip 6 miles each day and I refuel every other week. That’s about 5 miles a gallon. What a waste being that the USPS has one of the largest fleets. The savings would be a windfall. What about new scanners that do everything we need done to increase sales and productivity. It seems that allocating obsolete AT+T cell phones is not only a waste of money but an outright embarrassment given the breakthroughs in technology. The USPS has adopted a bandaid approach to not scare away the privateers and profiteers that Donahoe has cozied up to. These steps and elimination of prefunding will go along way to increase the business and provide good middle class jobs for a long time to come.
nalc and post office management are both crazy, one size does not fit all, some inner city routes r so boarded and vacant, that i have walked down an entire block to deliver one magazine. two shootings on my route last week. if you want saturday you go deliver it. my life is more important than taking one magazine to the last house on my relay. get rid of saturday in these inner city routes. crime, drugs, murder’s u can have it nalc and management.
As a carrier for the USPS, I would like to echo Fredric Rolando. I believe he has diagnosed our financial problems accurately. If we could get the politics out of the picture with the money the USPS pre-funds it’s future retirees health benefits with, we’d be well on the road to recovery. Cutting service is not the answer.
Sucka The great leader is questionable! You are totally correct on compromise rather than demise.
The NALC has not made this big of a mistake since they supported The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). 5 day delivery with packages delivered Saturday’s makes since. If volume is dropping than spreading the mail through the week makes sense. Carrier routes will be consolidated eliminating more routes. Rolando is probably one of the best and smartest Presidents to represent the NALC, but their comes a time to compromise rather than watch the demise
Fred I want to first congratulate you on being a superb leader. I agree with you that there is a need for leadership within the USPS.Innovation is a must for this service to survive.We need people that can look forward and bring out some ideas that will right the USPS ship and take action to accomplish the same.
Thanks
Richard E. Jones
SCSLCA CDL DST #2