USPS Stuck Between Rock and a Hard Place —Michelson

Don’t get me wrong. The Postal Service shares plenty of blame for all of its problems. With entrenched unions and collective bargaining agreements in place, the agency remains overstaffed, both at the worker and, especially, the supervisory, levels. Total employment has been reduced from 787,000 full-time positions in 2001 to roughly 584,000 today. But, it’s been all through attrition, not the aggressive steps needed to lower overall payroll and head counts. With shrinking mail volumes and bloated staffs, idle employees end up being assigned to perform automated tasks. As might be expected, bureaucracy also runs rampant within the USPS, with claims of lengthy internal studies and unnecessary analysis for what should be obvious cost-cutting business decisions.