WASHINGTON – Today, a bipartisan group of senators joined the effort to fix the serious, but solvable challenges facing the U.S. Postal Service. Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) joined Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, as sponsors of the Improving Postal Operations, Service, and Transparency Act of 2015 (iPOST), which Sen. Carper introduced in September.
iPOST reflects the views of a broad range of stakeholders and offers a compromise solution to the difficult issues that Congress and the Postal Service have struggled with for years. The bill includes a comprehensive package of reforms that would place the Postal Service on firm financial footing, stabilize and improve service performance, allow for the development of new products and services, and enhance transparency.
“Whether we come from rural, urban, or suburban communities, my colleagues and I all agree that now is the time to act on comprehensive legislation that will stabilize and modernize the U.S. Postal Service,” said Sen. Carper. “I thank Senators Moran, McCaskill, and Blunt for joining me in this effort. I know that their support will help make a great bill even stronger. Our economy still depends on a healthy and robust Postal Service. It’s our duty in Congress to pave a fiscally sustainable path for the agency that will enable this American institution to return to solvency, improve service, and thrive in the digital age. I look forward to continuing to work with Senators Moran, McCaskill, and Blunt, our colleagues in the House and the Senate, Postal Service leadership and employees, stakeholders, and postal customers to refine this legislation and ensure the Postal Service thrives long into the future.”
“The United States Postal Service has long been an important part of American communication and commerce, but its deteriorating financial condition threatens its future,” Sen. Moran said. “We’ve also seen postal service quality across rural America decline as the USPS’ debts and future liabilities rise. Failure to make reforms now will cause the Postal Service’s financial crisis to worsen and increase the cost of any future fix. To protect taxpayers from the costs of a truly bankrupt postal service, Congress must act to put the agency on a path toward solvency. These reforms offer a serious policy framework to return the Postal Service to economic stability and preserve postal services across the country.”
“This bipartisan legislation will help modernize our mail system and more effectively serve the millions of rural folks in Missouri and across the country that rely on the postal service as a source of communications and commerce every day,” Sen. McCaskill said. “Ensuring the Postal Service endures through the 21st century is critical for everyone from the modern entrepreneur to the grandchild placing a card in the mailbox, and I’m proud to help lead this bipartisan effort to sustain it.”
“I have heard from Missourians from all parts of the state that depend on a strong and efficient U.S. Postal Service,” Sen. Blunt said. “This bill will help get the Postal Service on stable financial footing and modernize the post office. I am glad to join my colleagues in support of the iPOST Act.”
The financial condition of the Postal Service has been deteriorating for years, but the 2008 economic downturn and the continuing transition to digital communications and commerce have hastened its downward spiral. The Postal Service currently owes $15 billion and faces tens of billions of dollars more in unfunded pension and health care obligations in the years to come. It ended fiscal year 2015 with a net loss of $5.1 billion and now has a net deficit totaling more than $50 billion. For an institution that operates at the center of a $1 trillion industry that employs more than 7 million people, a financial outlook this bleak is alarming — and shouldn’t be ignored. Without serious, long-term reform, this iconic American institution – enshrined in our Constitution – will take on more and more debt.
For more information, including a section-by-section summary of the bill and bill text, please visit: www.carper.senate.gov/postalreform
why is the Postal Service the only employer that must prefund it’s health care costs? Because some want the Postal service to have “loses from operations” each year so the bastard businessmen can purchase the Postal Service! Now some have said the tax payer will have to bail out the health care costs of the Postal workers. Every day the American tax payer subsidizes business operations. The cheap bastards pays their employees as little as possible, while the tax payer pays for food stamps, Medicaid, welfare and the earned income tax credit! Now that subsidizing business is just. I would not want to take profits from the greedy! It is an mental disorder for one to hoard anything, however, we are told hoard money!
Same story, another day….. Nothing is going to happen especially with an election year coming up…… just a couple of congressmen looking for PAC $ from the unions byou releasing some statement
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
whatever
“Stellar Steve” makes some very good points. I can’t see the unions merging because they will fight like hell before they turn over the tons of dues they collect. In theory it’s not a bad idea, but I doubt the AFL-CIO would go for it, either. In an age where unions are threatened by Republicans and moronic GOP voters who don’t have the sense God gave a walnut, the more unions the better for political purposes.
I do agree wholeheartedly with the thorough and complete gutting of the management structure. The districts and Area have totally monopolized every single office and reduced managers, supervisors and postmasters to bean counters who can’t make decisions of any importance.
It is not the local supervision that is at fault here. District is far removed from day to day reality and impose stupid unattainable demands on offices that simply cannot be done. Local offices get disciplined and are pressured far more than I would ever tolerate. They then all too often pass the misery on to the craft, completing a cycle that makes local morale in too many offices hit rock bottom and stay there. My office is pretty good and I’m glad. I have had terrible experiences in the past with now retired managers who were absolutely tyrannical and just as incompetent as they were mean. We have our differences, but not at that level.
That doesn’t mean other offices aren’t run by mini-Hitlers and others who abuse their craft with delight. I believe among the first management personnel to get the axe after district and Area if the USPS were to restructure would be those local supervisors and management with the worst records of behavior and abuse. Then of course you would go to their job performance on other tasks.
But I would create an independent body that would oversee Headquarters, who will have a fit if they lose their Area and district offices. This body would not answer to anybody in the Service. They would closely monitor and take action against the kind of managing that has brought the USPS to its knees.
There would be no closing of plants, ever. Customers would be treated with respect, emphasis on accurate and reliable service restored, and the non-career positions removed and reverted back to the PTF style work force. Truly bad employees, like city carriers who hurt the rest of their craft by having routes a third or more shorter than other routes and get paid overtime for doing a lot less would be more susceptible to discipline and removal. Overburdened routes would be adjusted, and hard working employees duly recognized with the reinstatement of incentive pay and wage increases.
My name is Oz and I live in the Emerald City. Proposals like these will never see the light of day in postal reality world.
How about telling us what changes r actually included in this”bipartisan” USPS,”reform” bill?
I agree with most of what Stellar Steve says except for one or two things, the main one being about bonuses. In my opinion, bonuses are what have ruined the post office. Greedy managers do what is best for their pockets first and foremost and the post office and the work force suffer. They really don’t care if the operations run smoothly or not. The micromanaging/bullying day-to-day environment is beyond toxic. The staffing is so cut to the bone that it is almost impossible to get a day off even for a doctor appointment. I would also like to see the union toss the slugs, scammers, and thieves out of the membership and let them fend for themselves because the rest of us have to pick up their slack. One last thing, in my particular plant, the nepotism is so rampant that those relatives coming in feel entitled to do whatever or not they so choose; it is a serious problem. I joke that they get their FMLA package during their orientation. They know how to work the system from the get go.
Here is a rare postal related comment, not that I mind the political ones. If they truly want to “modernize and stabilize” the Postal Service, they pretty much have to take it apart and start all over. Just fixing the Post Office without making drastic changes would be like rearranging furniture in a hoarder’s home…you can’t do it unless you throw a bunch of crap out, first. If I were in charge, I would scrap all current management, and create a new, more streamlined system of running the place. Headquarters, a version of it, at least, would still run the Postal Service, but would be occupied with real educated people, and all the useless programs that have nothing to do with personnel and the mail would be scrapped. The District and Area offices would be gone, so as to avoid any needless micromanaging, which is all these people do, anyway. Every Post Office and plant would be run by a postmaster, plant manager or a Lead Clerk, depending on the size of the office. All communications would go directly from Headquarters to each Post Office, and the person in charge would actually be able to run his/her office with only Headquarters looking over their shoulder. Management would be more accountable, with success bringing bonuses and promotions, and failure bringing a loss of a job. The craft could stay the same, but what if all postal crafts were merged into one work force, being able to bid into different jobs with their seniority. If you wanted to load trucks, sort mail, work the window, deliver the mail, you could bid as you wished. This would stop the inter craft fighting for certain jobs. It would also create one unified craft union, instead of the current multi union system we have now. Those in the various union positions would lose many jobs, but what would be left is a stronger, more united union. Along with a more streamlined management system, that would actually follow the union contract, things would go rather smoothly, I would assume. One other thing to include is enforcing the “Sanctity of the Mail”. Those of us hired decades ago lived by that creed, but lately is is overlooked. Too much mail is handled by non-postal people, if you really want to make the handling of the mail special, either eliminate or drastically cut down the number of contract post offices and presort houses that do the work of postal people. With today’s automation, you do not need to give out huge discounts for presorting mail, our machinery can do it. Simplify the postage rates, go to a “Good, Better and Best” system of classes of mail, giving customers the ability to pay for speed, or lack of speed, such as with advertisements, etc. Oh, well, got a little carried away here, hope you enjoyed it.
As usual more bs from politicians that caused the postal service problems to begin with
from the 1850″s……….to make it more like UPS lol!
post office pensions and hbp benefits are mostly prepaid. With the prefunding ending in 2016, its time for congress to find another way to keep the postal ee’s in poverty, with no area colas, and milk the public with another back door tax. You notice they still can’t fix the 20 trillion national debt, soc sec going bankrupt and payments to be reduced by 30% in 2033, medicare and Medicaid going bust. AND Obama just wants to give checks to every country that promises to fix air pollution. Why does the us continue to spend money for everything everywhere outside the US, and let our crumbling infrastructure go.
“The Postal Service currently owes $15 billion and faces tens of billions of dollars more in unfunded pension and health care obligations in the years to come.”
Let’s see, pension funds are actually overfunded by millions and the prefunding mandate from 2006 expires in less than a year. Just what are these guys talking about?!