Tester meets incoming Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan to discuss strengthening USPS
Also concerned about USPS failing to comply with GAO request for data on mail volume
1/29/15 (U.S. SENATE)-Senator Jon Tester today met incoming Postmaster General Megan Brennan for the first time to discuss strengthening the Postal Service and the need to improve delivery standards in rural states like Montana.
Tester emphasized the Postal Service’s delivery standards have become a disaster for USPS and for the Montana families that rely on the Postal Service to deliver medication, election ballots and ultimately, to stay connected. He also voiced the need to reform funding of the Postal Service’s employees’ retiree health benefits to maximize returns and limit the waste of current funds.
“I live in the sticks and I’m telling you the Postal Service is critically important for rural America. Folks around the country rely on the mail every day for essential deliveries,” Tester said. “I was pleased to meet Ms. Brennan and I look forward to continuing our dialogue to restore mail delivery standards in rural America.”
Tester highlighted that closing processing plants and cutting service standards will greatly impact the speed of delivery around the country. Since 2011, 141 mail processing facilities have been closed, including six in Montana. Eighty-two more facilities are expected to close by September of this year – a plan that Tester calls “short-sighted.”
Tester is a member of the Senate’s Governmental Affairs Committee that oversees the Postal Service. He has been critical of the previous Postmaster General for taking steps to privatize the agency and opposed the committee’s postal reform bill because it did not preserve strong enough mail delivery standards in rural America or adequately support postal workers.
This week Tester sent a letter to Brennan calling on the USPS to ensure accuracy, as well as its accountability to others, when tracking how long it takes for mail to get from place to place.
Excerpts from Tester’s letter to incoming Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan:
GAO also informed our staff that the Postal Service could not comply with a request for data regarding the mail volume affected by transportation changes that resulted from the 2012 service standard changes, specifically as it pertained to alterations to Alternative Means of Transportation (AMOT) agreements. We appreciate that other information was provided, including a list of AMOT contracts that existed from 2011 to 2014. We also understand that a number of factors can contribute to a decision about how best to transport mail. However, we are concerned that the Postal Service believes it cannot track how its service changes affect the ways in which it transports mail and parcels through its network.
With all of these points in mind. we ask that you provide the Committee with further information regarding the following:
• The system chosen to replace the EXFC system, and a timeline for when the Postal Service plans to transition from the EXFC system to the alternative tracking system;
• The Postal Service’s plans regarding the apparent gaps that exist in its delivery performance data for bulk First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, Periodicals, and market dominant Package Services;
• The reason why the Postal Service declined to provide ODlS·RPW data to GAO for its analysis when it had already been used for a similar purpose by the Postal Service itself;
Tester's letter to Incoming Postmaster General Megan Brennan by senatortester
A friend of mine who is a clerk at my office was asked by his neighbor, “Why does it take so long for my mail to be delivered. The response was, “If you used a Forever stamp for postage it will take forever for you mail to be delivered”!
Dear Mr. Tester,
If Congress wants to save the postal service all you have to do is recalculate the pre-funding using the current number of employees instead of the number of employees we had at the postal services highest productivity years and you will be able to cut the amount of money they are required to pay in half. Then they will be back to profitable and if the overpayments were returned to them they would be able to update their fleet of LLVs (delivery cars) and improve on the service in the future. And if you really want to make the Postal Service rise higher then you thought, then let them do the postal banking that everyone is talking about. Finally instead of cutting service try and improve it. The postal service could be helpful to other government agencies like the FBI since they see the people at their houses everyday and know who is suspicious or doing things illegal. Or come up with new products like prepaid postcards at theme parks for both foreign and domestic postage so people will be more likely to mail out a postcard since they won’t have to go out and buy a stamp for it.
Maybe Congress was just waiting for Donahoe to leave, knowing that reasoning with him was a waste of time, and that Issa would see to it that no positive postal reform would ever make it out of committee. Of course Issa wants destruction of the USPS and only the densest among us haven’t figured out that Donahoe was his butt boy and a totally incompetent boob to boot.
We’ll have to wait and see how Brennan behaves once she’s at the helm of the leaky ship, but I don’t have a very optimistic outlook because she was the one behind the first round of plant closings. However, if Congress can exert enough pressure and actually pass legislation that forbids the management from continuing down its death spiral, we may have a fighting chance.
One thing I don’t worry about: whether the Postal Service will continue. First, we have the Constitutional requirement to provide universal service, and no state will vote to remove the amendment that language is in. Not being a Constitutional scholar, I don’t know which amendment that clause is in, but I suppose I could be less lazy and look it up. But it’s there, and that’s what counts.
Second, the computer world has pretty much topped out. At this point we will get new apps, gadgets and other technology, but just about everybody who is going to be computer savvy at least to a point is there already. Some senior citizens aren’t as interested, but most actually do have computers, if for no reason to keep up with friends and relatives. My 80 year old mother in law has been online for a long time, and while she would be the first to tell you she’s no expert, she’s figured it out well enough for her needs. I don’t think the number of users will increase once the oldest among us pass on.
Which means there are still magazines, junk, utility and other bills, and most importantly, parcels that will always be with us. The USPS has at least tried to stay on top of the parcel business, with cheaper rates and just as good service as competitors provide. One hopes CCA’s will get more accurate with a little more experience so we can capitalize on that cash cow. Right now though, management pushes them to run, run, run, encourages them not to take lunches or breaks, and places zero emphasis on accuracy or reliability. Leave it for the old regular.
Well, most of us old regulars aren’t going to hang around much longer, so what will we be left with? That’s what you get for trying to have a Wal-Mart style workforce.
“places zero emphasis on accuracy or reliability.” Exactly. Our last group of PSEs that came in are just too bad to believe. They were hired to replace the last bunch that stopped coming to work. They were put in front of a machine and told to run it. They did not even know what an e-stop was. NO TRAINING. The through-put is in the toilet and the jams are thru the roof.
Except as a occasional source of future sensitive Jeffery Dalmer type supervisors, the PSEs, on the whole have proven to be a costly mistake. Just look at the turnover rates released by the OIG.
Low pay and no benefits and no future . . . SURPRISE! WE got the bottom of the barrel. We are now competing with 7-11 for those who can make change and we lost.
Now management is attacking the one thing we had left: The pride of getting the mail out on time. It used to be you could get fired or promoted to supervisor for delaying the mail. Now the PMG gets paid to do it. Now its “who cares . . .we got all day . . . and the next day . . .”
pay peanuts and you get monkeys………….the bottom of the barrel is and will always be the low IQ, uneducated postal mismanagement. 99% have no college education and could not work in a Fortune 500 Company……….why are our management standards on par with the private sector?
And I thought Macon was the only one with this problem! It is terrible trying to get the mail out and this 0400 cutoff. We are 896’ing webs of mail to send to the carriers while the DB’s could be used to DPS the mail. How is this saving money?
Megan doesn’t have a brain! Let’s start from the beginning… Ms. Brennan started her postal career straight from college.. I guess she couldn’t find a job in her chosen field after graduating. She was a ptf letter carrier in Lancaster, Pa for about 9 months.. She got hurt and was on permanent light duty.. PMG Donahue was the Postmaster in Lancaster, Pa at the time… Ms. Brennan became a 204b under Donahue and later a full – time supervisor, then MDO, then Plant Manager, etc, etc… As Donahue kept getting promoted he brought Megan along with him…. And now to Headquarters and now to the new PMG… So like I always been saying.. Nothing will change.. She thinks, talks and acts like Donahue.. A true Republican!!! Hates unions, hates normal everyday people. Typical mentality of upper postal management..
My real question is.. I wonder if she’s gonna promote her brother in Pottsville, Pa???? He’s a Delivery supervisor in charge of letter carriers and window clerks…I guess we’ll have to wait and see… BTW….. With cutting overnight delivery standard.. Here in Harrisburg, Pa P&DC.. There’s soooooo much mail sitting around and tons of overtime being given!!!!! Yeah, we’re broke. What a JOKE!!!!! It’s just another ploy to get closer to privatization.. It’s a shame that the American people believe what they hear and see on TV.. Bunch of BS!!!! But must say most Republicans are narrow- minded and lack common sense.. That’s all for now…
That Brennan only worked as a carrier for only nine months is telling. I never knew anybody who got into management that ever put in more than a year or two as a letter carrier, and like her either conveniently got “injured”, started serious sucking up, snitching on co-workers or whatever it took to get inside.
Face it – these lazy assholes don’t want to do real work. They just stare at a computer, which pretty much does their work for them minus putting in a few figures here and there. They don’t train, manage or really do anything to help get mail out. What they do is harass and intimidate those who let them, and suck up to an embarrassing degree.
Nine months as a “carrier”, and no doubt Brennan thinks she’s seen it all. You ain’t seen shit, baby. You didn’t make it an entire year. One thing managers fail to accept is that so many of us out here are far more intelligent and qualified, but we don’t want the stress and abuse. It may shock some to read this, but money isn’t everything. I have remained a city carrier for 30+ years, I’m proud of my work, get the right mail to the right person and still maintain a 940 possible delivery route. I’ve done more for the public and the Service than 100 managers could even dream of, and that goes for all good city letter carriers. The shitty ones get in management.
Don’t expect Megan,Donahopeless sidekick and crony to change the downward course they are taking it unless of course Congress does something and passes a bill with teeth that stops anymore closures and confirms the five BOG nominees,which is even more doubtful now that the Koch Brothers control both houses.
Pre funding is over in 2016. By the time congress acts on this issue it will be over. Congress should make sure that something like this does not happen again and they should stop using the post office as a slush fund. Besides poor management, Congress is our biggest problem.
Pre funding is supposed to end in 2016, but the P.O. still only made payments for the first 2 years.
The USPS did not default until 2012. It owes a total of 21.8 billion in payments that they missed in 2012-2014. Hopefully congress will act on this and let the USPS of the hook for the balance.
Well they can’t or won’t tell us we’re the all employee rec. funds go either.
Point being? if you can’t do the little things, then how can you do the big things?
I’m surprised she can even speak English, the question is can she understand it?
Well it has taken these “Bosses” long enough to find out how sorry their surveillance of this business has been over these past 40 years since they abandoned it ! Hopefully your overnight delivery to your door as long as to my door ! !