“If passed today, either bill would provide at best one year of profitability, and at least a decade of steep losses,” said Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. “Unfortunately, both bills have elements that delay tough decisions and impose greater constraints on our business model.”
Although the contracts with the National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union, AFL-CIO expired at midnight Sunday, the Postal Service and the two unions agreed to extend the negotiations deadline until Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011 at midnight.
Problems within the U.S. Postal Service have led to local postal carriers being forced to deliver mail late into the night and supervisors allegedly ordering the dumping of bulk mail at the Redondo Beach (CA) Main Post Office. Photographs taken Monday morning by Easy Reader staff at the Redondo Beach Main Post Office appear to confirm these allegations. The photos show recycling bins and trash bins filled with bundled mail—specifically, the Local Values advertising mailer issued by the Los Angles Times Media Group and the PennySaver USA advertising mailer.
Carriers say that reduced staffing, mail route consolidations, and confusion resulting from
For decades, this massive operation ran fairly smoothly, expanding along with the country and taking advantage of the new technologies brought about by railroad and flight. Mail volume increased from 50 billion pieces in 1953 to 75 billion in 1966. Even so, the postal service often ran deficits. Its mandate of universal mail access almost ensured that it would go in the red. By the middle of the 20th century, the postal service was losing $600 million a year, and that's when the system starting breaking down.
In 2006, Congress passed a law requiring an annual prepayment of retiree health
It's still not clear whether the U.S. Postal Service's $1.4 billion investment in the Flats Sequencing System will pay off, according to the chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission says. Mailers had hoped FSS would reduce the Postal Service's costs of handling catalogs, magazines and other flat mail. But, more than ever, USPS claims it is losing money on the two main sources of mail sorted by FSS—Periodicals and Standard flats.
The football-field-sized machines have helped USPS reduce costs by reducing the manual handling of mail by letter carriers, clerks, and other postal workers. But for at least seven reasons, it
The U.S. Postal Service, which is projecting a $14.1 billion loss this fiscal year, is discussing restructuring options with potential advisers, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Officials at the Postal Service have met in recent weeks with Moelis & Co., Rothschild and Perella Weinberg Partners LP, said the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. As of last week, the service hadn’t hired any of the firms and was still deciding whether it needs an outside adviser, the people said.
Wall Street firms have been employed by U.S. and international governments in a number
Millions of dollars worth of pallets and trays are being stolen from the U.S. Postal Service every year, but the agency can't afford to implement systems for tracking the equipment. Mail-transport equipment (MTE) is in such short supply in parts of the country that some businesses report that they have not been able to send out scheduled mailings.
The USPS Office of Inspector General is trying to spread the word that MTEs “may be used only to transport mail, and borrowers of MTE (such as private mailers) are responsible for its proper use and return.”
The Postal Service has spent over $24M
A recent customer survey conducted by ThinkShapes Mail indicates an extremely high customer satisfaction rating among users of shaped mail pieces. Owner Karen O’Brien says shaped mail increases the response rate over “regular” direct mail by two to three time.
The country’s two largest publication printers sparred this week over who has the biggest, baddest programs for helping customers save money on postage. Quad/Graphics fired the first salvo yesterday when it announced that, “It is now breaking company and industry records for co-mail pool sizes, aggregated volume and customer postage savings.”
It took only a day for North America’s largest printing company to respond.
“We’re operating the most full co-mail production lines in the industry,” Thomas J. Quinlan, R.R. Donnelley’s CEO, said today during the company’s quarterly earnings call. “Our offer is unmatched distribution that includes co-mailing of Standard, Periodicals and
Senators announced a bipartisan plan Wednesday to help keep the financially ailing Postal Service solvent and continue six-day mail delivery for at least two more years. According to the Senate bill: The Postal Service would receive a refund of nearly $7 billion it has overpaid into the Federal Employee Retirement System.
The agency would be required to use part of the refund to set up a buyout program aimed at reducing staff by 100,000.
Agency payments of about $5.5 billion into an account to fund future retiree health benefits would be reduced by spreading out the payment schedule.
