Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

Congressional Republicans seem intent on letting the U.S. Postal Service run out of cash, but even the pundits can't figure out exactly why. Republican leaders in the House refused to say why they have failed to bring either of two bill up for votes, but here are a few of the choicest theories:

• Fear: House Speaker John Boehner is perhaps “afraid voters would blame his members for the closing of underused post offices,” wrote Gail Collins, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times.

• Avoiding embarrassment: “Most likely, there’s not enough support in the House to pass any bill,

The Postal Service’s 2012 Holiday Mobile Shopping Promotion will offer online merchants an upfront 2 percent postage discount on Standard Mail and First-Class Mail letters, flats and cards that include a mobile barcode or print/mobile technology—such as a QR code—that can be read or scanned by a mobile device and leads the mail recipient to a mobile-optimized shopping website.

Talk of early-retirement incentives for U.S. Postal Service employees may have temporarily backfired: Career employees of the U.S. Postal Service have apparently been retiring in record-low numbers. The number of full-time employees shrank by only 1.6 percent in the past year, according to a statistical report USPS released Friday.

That’s a minuscule net attrition rate in an organization that is hardly hiring any new full-time employees, where half the employees are 50 or older, and where nearly half the employees are eligible to retire.

The net loss of only 8,141 full-timers between June 2011 and June 2012 is a far

Even before the Postal Service begins closing hundreds of processing centers to cut costs, several businesses say they are beginning to see a decline in service. In Wisconsin, Publisher’s Diversified Mail Service, a direct marketing firm that sends out 50 million to 75 million pieces of mail a year, said there had been delays in getting promotions delivered on time.

Last year, Time Inc. complained to the postal authorities after subscribers reported significant delays in getting their copies of Sports Illustrated, People and Time.

The post office says several factors have led to what it calls minor delivery delays:

Consider this statement written 31 years ago by then-Postmaster General William F. Bolger: “The main disadvantage of the Postal Service’s present status is that the ‘safeguards’ that accompanied independence have tended to grow to the point that new fetters have been substituted in part for the former ones. The Postal Service continues to be overregulated, and its managers continue to have difficulty finding the authority to execute certain decisions that are necessary to modernize the service and operate the postal system efficiently.”

The overregulation of the U.S. Postal Service has become even more apparent and more damaging today. Congress demands that

Don’t look now, but a key piece of the U.S. Postal Service’s downsizing drive this year is at risk of getting smoked before it even gets started. It’s the piece that involves closing or consolidating 48 mail processing plants in July and August.

As part of that effort, the Postal Service is seeking a legally required advisory opinion from the Postal Regulatory Commission on a related proposal to revamp first-class mail delivery standards.

In a 29-page complaint filed last week, the (American Postal Workers) union called on the PRC to bar the Postal Service from proceeding until the opinion comes out.

Brown Printing has strengthened its distribution offerings by adding Fairrington Transportation’s co-mail capabilities to its network. Brown will also continue its long-standing relationships with Print and Mailing Solutions (PAMS) and Clark Distribution Systems for comprehensive and efficient mail and newsstand consolidation.

Chastising the Postal Regulatory Commission for taking 12 months to issue an opinion on ending Saturday delivery, Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE) is asking the panel to work faster on other proposals to streamline the U.S. Postal Service. A drawn-out process for considering such changes would “run the risk that the Postal Service could be forced to act on its proposal before the Commission has had a chance to share its thoughts and findings,” Carper wrote.

That could result in USPS making “serious mistakes in implementing a service change that might have been avoided had postal managers had the benefit of

Last month, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe announced the launch of a “digital solutions group” intended to sniff out potential money-makers in the online sphere. More recently, the USPS inspector general has singled out one in particular: Putting the agency in the digital authentication business.

In a nutshell, the idea is to let the Postal Service verify that people and businesses are who they say they are online. Lest you start imagining Big Brother in a blue uniform, let’s note that—at least in the IG’s conception–the use of any such service would be voluntary, accompanied by “clear, comprehensive and concise” privacy guidelines.

New York Congressman Brian Higgins sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors Chairman Thurgood Marshall, Jr. asking the board to take immediate action to replace Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “Under the Postmaster General’s leadership, the USPS displayed a complete lack of transparency and accountability throughout the process, which casts serious doubt that the current leadership is up to the task of leading the Postal Service through these challenging times.”