Bipartisan Bill Would Maintain Next Day Delivery Standard
Congressman Brian Higgins is cosponsoring H.R. 2459 the Protect Overnight Delivery Act introduced by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. The bipartisan legislation, which has 72 cosponsors, would protect overnight postal delivery by preventing the Postal Service from weakening delivery standards.
“The Postal Service is looking to grow their business yet they continue to cut services that decrease competitiveness and leave customers looking elsewhere,” said Higgins. “This bill would maintain the quick turnaround of mail that businesses and consumers rely on and guarantee the Buffalo facility at William Street will remain open.”
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has plans to transfer employees out of Buffalo to Rochester as early as 2015. The relaxing of next day delivery would be required for operations to be moved from the William Street mail processing facility to Rochester.
Higgins discussed the legislation on the House Floor:
Mr. Speaker, The United States Postal Service continues to try and fix themselves financially with service cuts that will undermine the agency not strengthen it.
I am pleased to be a cosponsor of my colleague, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro’s legislation, the Protect Overnight Delivery Act, to prevent the postal service from weakening service standards.
Eliminating overnight delivery would threaten hundreds of postal facilities across the nation, including the William Street facility in my Western New York community.
Mr. Speaker, while the Postal Service is certainly in need of reforms, this is the wrong way to do it. Once again, the Postal Service is making ill-conceived decisions that hurt both workers and consumers.
Congressman Higgins has been critical of United States Postal Service (USPS) business decisions to remove neighborhood post offices, close the Buffalo processing center, and reduce access to services. The Congressman recently became aware of new plans to slash hours at the USPS Buffalo Airport Retail facility and is concerned it will diminish services to local businesses and residents as well as decrease the USPS’s ability to remain competitive. Working in conjunction with Buffalo’s Old First Ward Community Center, the Congressman was also recently successful in preventing the removal of a mailbox frequented by seniors living in the area and visiting the center.
Rep. DeLauro noted that moving from overnight to two or three day delivery standards will not only slow mail delivery, it will result in 508 closed processing facilities and an estimated 30,000 jobs lost.
Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad, So Sad
I agree that reasonable overnight delivery standards should be maintained but Congress needs to stop talking out of both sides of it’s mouth. Don’t cut service, don’t close my post office but continues to strip the organization’s ability to compete. Stop using the Postal Service to balance the budget. Stop playing politics and look at the issues. Do whats right for the American Public. Yes even those less fortunate than the rich politicians who don’t even know where their mailbox is. The average citizen depends on the organization and needs it to viable.
usps is going to be another Detroit.
keep your eyes open wide to see.
Has the management in the postal service ever read about to get production results, work with the postal employees, stop degrading them, timing their bathroom breaks, counting their rubber bands and support their efforts to keep the postal service operating efficiently and a good balance should come together. Chevy did it, both union and management put their thoughts together and they dug themselves out. Too bad the post office cannot see the daylight and put a workable and profitable plan in place and also save their jobs and thousands of the working force jobs.
Give me a break. The crooks in Congress created this USPS mess. The Public wants a Post Office that runs like private industry [ service that provides a cash flow! ] and the Union wants everything to stay the same. Now it is cry, cry, cry. “Do not close my Post Office”. “Do not raise my postage or cut my service”. “Protect my job”.
Please support this bill.Buffalo is a major hub both domestic an internationally. The Postal Service keeps tearing apart relocating to out of areas which makes mail deliveries inefficient,causing extra travel time an expenses. These decisions are working at tearing us apart,causing travel an delivery problems,added expenses,an stress on employees by mgmt to make untimely deliveries causing more stress an expenses unneedlessly.Manage meant needs to be cleaned out of harrsssing managers and manageable times common sense an efficient travel to existing facilities like Buffalo to keep productive timely delivery of mail. Please help the working force keep costs down in an efficient manner. Management is burrying us in unnessisary debt.