Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

Mail customers are generally willing to accept lower levels of service such as ending six-day mail delivery to keep the U.S. Postal Service operating—and especially so if they are aware that the agency does not draw on tax revenue—a study by the USPS inspector general has found.

“Educating citizens on the self-funded nature of the Postal Service and the challenges it faces could help garner citizens’ support for cost-saving initiatives,” the report said, adding that “there was a consensus that the Postal Service must carry on,” with almost all participants saying they would be negatively affected if it ceased to exist.

This week Structural Graphics will show how sound and LED lights can brighten and impact any marketing effort. Structural Graphics worked with the Nationwide Financial team to produce a Retirement Flexible Advantage sales aid which featured LED lighting housed inside a Popper mechanism.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) offered an amendment to a bill (H.R 4011) going through committee that would ease restrictions on private carriers bidding to carry postal service deliveries to certain parts of Alaska.

Cummings withdrew his proposal for lack of support. Cumming's amendment would create new officer charged with leading the development of products and services that would enable the Postal Service to meet changing customer demands. It would also authorize the Postal Service to offer a range of non-postal products including check cashing services.

Though the Postal Service has been able to grow revenue by capitalizing on opportunities in Shipping and Package Services and has aggressively reduced operating costs, losses continue to mount due to the persistent decline of higher-margin First-Class Mail, stifling legal mandates, and its inflexible business and governance models.

Wisconsin's paper mills and printing press operators, collectively the single biggest industrial sector in the state, suffered a setback Thursday when a U.S. Senate committee advanced legislation that would make permanent last month's temporary 4.3 percent increase in postal rates.

The increase, which went into effect Jan. 26, originally was meant as a two-year emergency reprieve to stabilize the U.S. Postal Service, which has been bleeding losses in the tens of billions of dollars over the past seven years.

The Senate committee approved a price shock that adds another twist in a downward spiral, said Joel Quadracci, chief executive of Quad/Graphics

On Thursday, the Senate committee on homeland security and government affairs voted 9-1 to advance to the Senate floor the Postal Reform Act, a bill sponsored by chairman and ranking member Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). In its current form, the bill would make permanent the emergency rate increase and give the U.S. Postal Service carte blanche the authority to set future rates.

The number of options for the mailing industry to fight the postal hike are dwindling. Last month the mailing industry filed an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals, a process that could take months.

The U.S. Postal Service reported Friday that Postmaster General Pat Donahoe received total compensation of $436,540 last year. Some people will see that as a shocking amount for a government employee.

But here’s the real shocker: The CEOs of the Postal Service’s two chief rivals, FedEx and United Parcel Service, at last report each earned more than 27 times what Donahoe made.

The most highly compensated postal employee in Fiscal Year 2013 was actually Ellis A. Burgoyne, the chief information officer and executive vice president. His $230,000 salary, $233,000 pension gain, and $7,000 in other compensation gave him a total package of

Leaders of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee were scheduled to approve a wide-ranging postal reform bill. But an amendment from Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), backed by the powerful mailing industry, to strike a plan allowing higher postal rates appeared to be gaining support.

The committee tabled its deliberations at midday. Aides said the Baldwin amendment, along with another proposal from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to remove a federal ban on guns in post offices, would require more study.

The delay underscores the challenges lawmakers continue to face as they try to satisfy businesses, labor unions, rural and urban

Unions representing U.S. Postal Service employees offered a stark rebuke of an updated, bipartisan postal reform measure, which now includes a provision to remove USPS workers from the federal employee health care system.

Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the respective chairman and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced a substitute amendment to replace the 2013 Postal Reform Act they originally put forward in August, ahead of a committee markup scheduled for Wednesday.

The revised language would require the Office of Personnel Management to create a Postal Service Health Benefits Program, and to

The price of first-class U.S. postage stamps jumps from 46 cents to 49 cents today, the largest rate increase in 11 years. But two lawsuits; one to stop it, one to extend it, have already been filed in federal court.

The U.S. Postal Service requested the increase last year as way to help the sort-of agency recover from its staggering financial losses during the recent recession. On December 24, 2013, the Postal Regulatory Commission approved the request, but added a condition that it must phased out by 2016.

Arguing that "temporary" just won't cut