Republican attack against the United States Postal Service grows, as the do-nothing Congress down make your mail delivery significantly slower. Ed Schultz and Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss.
Read more: 15,000 postal service jobs could disappear | MSNBC.
Senator Sanders: Save First-Class Mail
The Postal Service in January plans to shut down as many as 82 mail processing plants, eliminate up to 15,000 decent-paying jobs and end overnight delivery for first-class mail. Sen. Bernie Sanders has teamed up with Sens. Jon Tester and Tammy Baldwin to prevent the Postal Service from making these devastating cuts. They’ve called on Congress when it reconvenes in November to impose at least a one-year moratorium on the cuts. Altogether, 51 Senators signed onto a letter including Majority Leader Reid and six Republicans (James Inhofe, Roy Blunt, John Thune, Susan Collins, John Hoeven and Orrin Hatch). They want the moratorium to give Congress time to enact a comprehensive postal reform bill.
The Postal Service says it needs to make cuts because it is going broke. In fact, the Postal Service has made nearly $1 billion in profits since the fall of 2012. What the Postal Service says puts its accounts in the red is a $5.5 billion annual payment Congress required to pre-fund 75 years of future retiree health benefits. The $5.5 billion a year mandate was insisted upon by George W. Bush. No other government or private sector entity in America is burdened with this mandate. In fact, the Postal Service has not made the payments for years. What’s more, the payments are not needed. The fund already has enough set aside to cover the health benefits. Sanders has introduced a bill in the Senate that would end the pre-funding mandate and allow the Postal Service to sell new products and services.
If Ed wants to show that the pre-funding is wrong, he should just look at some of the things he stated and put 1 and 1 together to get 2. There has already been almost 150 plants closed and thousands of A.O.s along with the staffing for these places since the mandate was created in 2006 if Congress was to ask for the amount of money for 75 years using the current number of employees the Postal Service would already have finished paying it. Then all of a sudden the need for any future closures becomes null and void, in fact the Postal Service would be making a profit and according to this prefunding not have to worry about anymore retirement payments for the next 75 years. Good-bye Postal meltdown, Good-bye privatization. Then Koch brothers will have to come up with another plan to get postal funds.
By-Gone Days says:
I can tell u this an I’m sure a lot of ya’s notice it to….
When management is gone the place runs smoother an stress is GONE!
“Every time.”
The APWU and NALC have had the opportunity to take on more management roles, specifically leave administration. But they don’t want it. Easier to complain about how mistreated they are while earning more than those who supervise them. The unions’ only solutions are to insist on practices that will bankrupt the USPS just as they did the steel and auto industries.
AHHhhhh ~~ DemonRats have the senate and president so why blame Republicans? Y’all ate a lot of poop and voted for the dem fools ~ gave them money too. Maybe that ios calling the wrong people fools….
I can tell u this an I’m sure a lot of ya’s notice it to….
When management is gone the place runs smoother an stress is GONE!
“Every time.”
An not to out do you enew, let’s bring back horse an buggy delivery, people would love it!
I don’t smoke anymore but can I still get one of those little ash trays I use to set at my manual case? I could use it to put my nuts.
Stop modernization of the USPS! Bring back the LSMs and manual distribution cases! Hand cancel all letters and packages! Lets hire, hire, hire more bodies! Fire the PMG and let the unions and employees run the place. I give it one week before total collapse and chaos reigns! But, we all know thry don’t want to run the place otherwise who would they blame? They need management (good or bad) to blame. That’s the way it be!
censored for being a republican….who cares in last 17 years accumulated over 1700 shares of UPS and 1700 shares of FDX seed money of 40K came from a federal law suit I won from a criminal PD&C plant manager…..vote republican…..it may save you from ebola.
hey all you infidels its that time of the year to bring out the democrat scare goblins…..oh the democrats are for the little guy they like to say lol. 1978 democrat jimmy carter deregulates US Airlines & Telecommunications Industry……..10’s of thousands lose jobs. 2014 president Ebola prints up 34 million green cards/work permits for criminal illegal aliens who will now be able to take your jobs away. (funny govt always said there were only 10-11 million illegals, savage said 30 million, ebola king prints up 34 milion cards-looks like savage was right-again)we need checks and balances in this country, not another hitler…..voting republican right across the board. screw these stupid unions and their 1% raises. get ebola and you will not have to worry about your job. guess you can say that with our 1% raise and true 7% yearly inflation that our govt lies about. 7% x 5= 35% 7% x 10= 70% 1% x 5= 5% 1% x 10= 10% in ten years your purchasing power will be down 60%. do you math wiz’s get the picture. democrat plantation….no thank you.
You better vote Democratic or kiss your jobs goodbye. Quit being stupid an d vote for your jobs! Voting Republican IS stupid
You better vote Democratic or kiss your jobs goodbye. Quit being stupid and vote for your jobs!
So what happens if the Postal Service ignores the Senate’s request to delay shutting down any more plants? Even a majority of 51 probably won’t make a rat’s ass difference to Donahoe, who’s being paid to destroy the Postal Service. Sanders better get crackin’ and get some legislation passed soon, and then who knows what will happen in the House. It’ll probably get killed in Issa’s committee, never to see a floor vote. Congress is useless to anybody but themselves and the corporate thugs who own them. But we’ll vote the same corrupt SOB’s back in because for some reason at election time we all of a sudden think they’re great people, and it’s the other Senator or Representative who is killing us, not our own. We have got to wake up and quit being dumbasses! That’s exactly what Washington wants us to think, and we are ultimately responsible for our own demise because we buy the fucking spin and horseshit. The incumbents of both parties must go, NOW.
We have been singing this same old song for quite some
time now. Get rid of the 5.5 Billion payment per year
and there is no talk about closings and job losses. It
was implemented with bad intentions from the start. The
intended recipient of this money would have been other
government projects that needed funding. Mr. Sanders has
the right idea but i’m afraid the repubs are going to gain
control in the elections changing that path to one of demonic
means toward postal employee’s. Special interest groups will be
licking their respective chops going forward. It looks rather
grim folks with nothing accomplished and time is ticking in
favor of the repubs. Scary stuff!
Sondria, your don’t deserve a job. You probably vote republican too.
how bout an early out offer for workers with less than 20 yrs?..their the ones who can milk the p.o for decades….gimme 1 yrs wages for severance and im gone tomorrow…along with tens of thousands of others…and lets propose a bill to get the dead weight phony light duty people off the roles…90% of all light duty cases are COMPLETE BULLSHIT. AND WE ALL KNOW IT…
Many overtimes at PDC, Post Office is booming, what’s wrong?
They havent figured out that the jobs go but not the paid employees. Give us an early out and then abolish jobs.
Ed Smuck is a disgrace…..He takes money from union’s and then and only then will he fight for them…Change is comming everyone, wake up….Nov. election Republicans take the Senate and 5 day will happen…Obama wants 5 day delivery, the same Obama who all you union lovers supported…Change and I can’t wait…
So what about the other 65 thousand jobs?
Didn’t they say 80 to 100 thousands job needed to go?
Or just another postal dream wish?
Sounds like a good idea. That’s why it will never happen. They have been stealing money out of the postal service for years. They are not going to stop now. Think about it, the Republicans want to privatize the Postal Service. Why would they want to prefund future employees health benefits when they want to close the place? They are just trying to find a way to take money out of it.
I think more Americans should be aware no taxpayer money is used. why do ups fed x have a deal to deliver their packages? Postmaster General Donahue is selling out the P O. Thanks for your awareness what is going on. 43 years here and its sad.
Only the bozos in postal mgmt. could come up with the “strategy” of increased product prices and less service = more revenue.
The destruction of the world’s greatest postal system rests squarely on it’s corrupt mgmt.