While it is clear that the intended target was Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos (who is also owner of The Washington Post), what is less clear is the reason for the sudden interest in the pricing of packages. It’s probably because of recent media attention resulting from a policy campaign by the United Parcel Service (UPS).
For more than 40 years, UPS has been trying relentlessly to force the Postal Service to raise parcel rates. If successful, this effort would essentially drive business away from the Postal Service and result in more volume at higher prices and greater profits for UPS – good for its shareholders, bad for American businesses and households.
Unlike its competitors, the Postal Service already is required, by federal law, to make a profit on every package it delivers – including those for Amazon. Also unlike UPS and FedEx, the Postal Service is required by law to deliver to every address in the country six days a week.
If the president truly wants to make the Postal Service “smarter and richer,” he has the power to do so.
He can start by nominating a full slate of competent and qualified candidates to the Postal Service Board of Governors (BOG) and by filling a key vacancy on the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). While the vacant BOG is a problem President Trump inherited, as of today he has offered only three nominations for the BOG, even though all nine seats are vacant. Meanwhile, the PRC, which is central to the Postal Service’s ability to set postage rates appropriately, is missing its fifth member. Indeed, sensible postal pricing hangs in the balance right now at the PRC as it works to create a new postage rate-setting system.
If the president wants to ultimately raise rates, it can be done only with a functioning Board of Governors and a Postal Regulatory Commission at full strength.
Beyond making these nominations, the most important thing the president can do to make the Postal Service smarter and stronger is to remove the crushing financial burden placed on the Postal Service by the 2006 congressional mandate to pre-fund future retiree health benefits decades in advance, something no other public agency or private company is required to do. This policy change, which President Trump’s predecessor did not achieve, has bipartisan support. It would immediately restore the constitutionally mandated Postal Service to financial stability, enabling it to continue to serve 155 million businesses and residences six (and sometimes seven) days a week while continuing to provide the most affordable postal rates in the industrial world.
Come on Trump make the United States Postal service Great Again!
good job good benefits good pay dont care about any of the bs stated above the po will be around forever enjoy your retirement when it comes. You are responsible for your own happiness.
The carriers that hate the union so much should just quit the union, stop crying! you know you can depend on President Donald Dump, he will lead you to the promised land. He was such an honest businessman. Went bankrupted six times. Using the law, he withheld wages from working men and women. He has cut the number of Federal Safety Inspectors, doesn’t care about workers. But you know that and don’t care. You angry employees will always be on top. Nothing will ever happen badly to you. You don’t need the union, you can handle Postal management all by yourself.
This union is nothing but a bunch of liars, and con artists at the top. All they want is our $ so we can get the standard 1% raise on our contracts, and tell us what a “win” it was for us. Our routes are longer, the parcels are heavier, the LLV’s are worthless and worn out, we have scan points on our routes even though they have GPS tracking on our scanners, and the union is against curbside delivery even though it would be safer for the carriers especially when it comes to ice, snow, and dogs. Our union also supports Whole Life Insurance policies through the MBA (it’s in the last postal record) which are a bad product anyway, because when you die your beneficiary only gets the face value of the policy- the cash value of it goes to the insurance company (in this case the nalc) even though it’s your $ that you earned on the policy. Google Whole Life Insurance if you don’t know what I’m talking about. When I called the MBA and asked about this, they lied directly to me. Yeah some great union Rolando.
Donald Duck has been given good advice on how to help fix the USPS by Mr. Rolando. Instead of taking this good advice, he will likely continue to act like his $h^]hole don’t stink. Mickey Mouse (or Bugs Bunney, or maybe even Snoopy) needs to introduce Donald Duck to the children’s storybook “The emporer’s new clothes”. I know, I know, he doesn’t read books. Just some more sound advice that the moron in chief will likely ignore…can’t fix stupid…
stuck record, you are one clueless SOB.
I know the fix was in a few years.
That guy that ran against Rolando.
I didn’t get his mailing until 2 weeks after the election.
Rolando doesn’t have that power, but Donahoe did.
He helped Rolando get reelected.
Whose this Noble dude.
Got my vote already.
I love the way President Trump called out the Postal Circus criminals………Marvin Runyon had their number, so does President Trump. Trump will be reelected in 2020 and my UPS, FDX, AMZN will double in price, heck my TSP is up $120,000 since bath house barry went back to Mans Country Fanook Bath House, Chicago, IL. Pan American Airways went bankrupt for a lot less red ink than the Postal Circus, why should this money loser stay in business…..this ain’t Communist Russia! of course the postalized minons will cry, so what. our parking lot is filled with Nissan, Honda, & Toyota’s…..postal worker don’t give a hoot about American auto workers, so why should average Americans give a hoot about this money loser and piss poor service!
first of all the pre funding didn’t end three years ago. And as for the employees that think President Dump is going to help you, think again! The Carrier plant that “saved 1000 jobs” in Indiana is getting rid of more employees today. I read in the Washington Post that the great President isn’t going to enforce the mine safety laws since 17 miners have died in mine accidents. Costs the mine operators too much. And he wants to kill the Black Lung safety laws. So go right ahead and bend over for the Ratpublicans. You don’t need a union, you can go down the drain all by your self!
Not paying the retiree heath care prefund could be the downfall of the USPS as we now know it.
Trump could null and void the CBA, restructure the pay scale and institute massive layoffs because of USPS’s failure to live up to their financial obligations.
It will make Ronny’s PATCO firings look like a Boy Scout jamboree.
The pre funding is BS..The USPS hasn’t paid that for years and is still losing money.Opening Sunday to deliver JUST Amazon parcels is favoritism.Dumber and Poorer!!!!!
Keep hammering the pre funding nalc. You do know that actually ended 3 years ago right? And we didn’t pay it anyway the last few years and aren’t liable for it so why keep bringing it up? How about we actually start charging what we should. Trump is right on this one
Right on!
I have to admit that I didn’t really consider this point when I posted my first comment, but I agree with Jeff – the NALC is defending the management more than the carriers. Management could have just as easily responded, but Rolando did it for them. I understand it’s suicide to bite the hand that feeds you, and that we must remember that the management is the employer, or in retiree’s cases like myself, pay our retirement and if you’re under 62 with 30 years in, the supplemental annuity.
It is true the prefunding has not been paid for some time now, and that requirement supposedly expired in 2014. That’s a hard one to argue unless Congress demands back payment even though the Republicans under George W. Bush were the ones who created the prefunding requirement so they could steal from it with abandon.
It just seems to me though the NALC is not the organization it used to be. Under Sombrotto and Young, it had bite. COLCPE worked. Now, it seems like it’s more interested in lukewarm support of its dues payers and instead doing little to stop the workroom floor abuses, the disaster called the CCA program, and many reports of management ordering carriers to falsely report parcels being delivered, only to have them arrive two or three days late. That is something the union should not tolerate.
Mr. Rolando and other NALC officers on the national level, you know damn well the management will leave carriers to hang if they are cornered and questioned about this willful delay of mail. Carriers may be disciplined, and management will lie and claim they never gave orders to falsify the scan information. In branches where NALC representation is non-existent, and I know of many, carriers won’t know to document such orders with witnesses, and won’t bother to report it to a steward who is lazy and may be nothing more than a workroom floor snitch against fellow carriers, and tattletale on street behavior he or she overhears. I know there are officers like this – one even helped a favorite supervisor that had worked at his branch office give out letters of warning to people in my branch when our old scanners would not work. I grieved the LOW’s and won. The management did the same thing in his city, and he flatly refused to file a single grievance. Bad enough to be a traitor to your own branch, but when I found out he was fucking with MY branch, I made a call or two, and made it plain I better not hear his name mentioned in my office again or I’d settle the matter personally!
This is not what members pay dues for, and they don’t pay dues for upper level union officials to sell out, either. It’s time all NALC branches tired of being double crossed to vote out those officers, and demand stronger representation at the national level as well.
Union Letter Carrier Branch 6000, LI, NY has the same misguided mindset, they want us to “sell” customer connect and give the leads to the lazy po mismanagement bums in sales that sit on their arse in 70 degrees room temp, while we are out in minus 5 degrees and get bonus money off the sweat of our brow. these unions are all in on the status quo/feather bedding of this corrupt agency. the only place I would ever “lead” them would be off of a cliff. I would rather see the place go bankrupt first. copy that smarton/darton/carton.
Here they go again; the NALC being a spokesman for the USPS. Ever since Rolando the Clown took over, they’ve spent more time and effort doing that, than representing those of us who PAY THEIR SALARIES.
Hey NALC, the postal circus has enough overpaid and under worked spokespersons already.
Why are you too doing it ?
NALC = joke of a union.
Hey Fred Rolando keep putting your head in the sand. The NALC has given management everything they want the last 14 years after Sombrotto retired. The carrier profession has become a Burger King. Vote for David Noble clean sweep in 2018.
First of all, Trump is the last person who needs to be talking about doing anything smart. Second, his mental stability is about as keen as a cat trying to balance on a hammock. Third, Trump listens to absolutely nobody.
The best hope for the USPS is getting the GOP out of office, and getting a truly good Democrat in the White House in 2020, and I do not mean Hillary Clinton or Oprah Winfrey. The last thing we need in this country is a Republican lite egomaniac owned by Wall Street and out for her personal glory, or another media superstar with zero political experience. We tried that with Trump, and he is being ridiculed severely as he continues to demonstrate how stupid, childish and mean he is. As Robert Reich mentioned recently, the only thing Trump is “smart” at is being a conniving, lying cheat and con artist. Like any other high powered psychopath, he is completely void of compassion, personal responsibility, or having even a shred of cooperation with anybody.
The GOP passed the galling but not surprising tax bill to cash in before midterms, because these rats are all about ready to desert their sinking ship that will inevitably sink in the next couple of election cycles, as millenniums and younger voters replace the old racist redneck hatemonger population. They have demonstrated they are very motivated, anxious for serious political reform every which way, and getting out the vote in numbers gerrymandering and the Electoral College can’t defeat. In fact, the Electoral College may be breathing its last breath before long, as more states will be pressured to pass one voter, one vote laws that render the EC worthless. Without the EC, the Republicans cannot win the Presidential elections, ever, and they try to interfere with voting, voter fraud, practice voter intimidation wherever they think they can get away with it, and prove they are indeed criminals so devoid of character and integrity they have to act like third world countries who rig elections and likewise prevent people from voting, and deliberately miscount ballots. Republicans are absolutely no different.
We are rightfully worried about Trump, but I firmly believe the disgraceful way the GOP and Trump have embarrassed the nation and the level of high treason crimes that have been committed will be the start of their downfall. It may not be in 2018, where we need to concentrate on at least getting one of the Houses back in Democratic hands, but if the Democrats are smart in 2020 and make sure Clinton does not get the nomination or rigs it again, many of the horrifying wrongs going on now will be addressed.
same reason they never released information on the No Bid Real Estate Contract Scam between Democrat Sen Diane Feinstein, her husband Richard Blum, and that crook former Postmaster General Donehow. all criminal activity blessed by the Postal OIG……….its called corruption and Democrat Crony Capitalism at a postal facility near you. DOJ Jeff Sessions is reviewing this criminal act!
fot the same reason they do not tell you why Democrat Sen Diane Feinstein, husband Richard Blume and former Postmaster Pat Donehoe had a No Bid Real Estate Bid Scam that got Feinstein/Blum over a Billion Dollar profit, right under the nose of the Postal OIG. Judical Watch outted the story, DOJ Jeff Sessions is reopening the crime!
Why wont the Postal service release any information about what they charge Amazon and how much they profit? Delivering on Sundays had to be losing money.
This once proud union has utterly abandoned its membership. Thank God I switched crafts before it was too late. When I saw hats with LED lights built in as official uniform pieces I knew it was over. Pity the poor carriers, out after dark so to make Bezos that much richer.
President Trumps’ tweet is the opening salvo on the PO.
Trump will try to privatize the PO and in the process
throw all the craft workers down the crapper. Get out
while you can. The end is near. Toolbags watch out. Trump
has your number too. Mismanagement cant be hidden forever.
of course the dummies want to maintain the status quo……do you really think Rolando wants to give up the 2 hour, 5 star restaurant lunch’s on K street (lobby alley) or a few pats on the head from his handler IOD Muffin Meagan Brennen? this bum needs to go!