Mailing/Fulfillment - Postal Trends

As mail volume continues to plummet and more Americans use the Internet to pay bills and keep in touch, Google executives, social media experts and some of the most passionate tech evangelists are planning to meet in Crystal City in mid-June to sort out how to save and remake the nation’s mail delivery service.

The conference, PostalVision 2020, is designed to bring together “the people who understand what this technology has done, is doing and will do to digital commerce and communication in America,” according to John Callan, a longtime mailing industry consultant organizing the meeting.

EveryDoorDirectMail.com capitalizes on the popular new simplified mailing program from the U.S. Postal Service. Visitors can target households and businesses, anywhere in the country, via a “point and click” mapping technology dubbed “U-Select.” Combined with Taradel’s graphic design and flyer printing rates, small business owners can design, print and mail giant full-color, glossy flyers for as low as $0.29 per home, including postage.

So much for “Solidarity Forever” - Much of the U.S. Postal Service’s projected savings from the proposed contract with its largest union apparently comes from reassigning duties currently performed by members of other postal-employee associations. Some tasks typically performed by postmasters, supervisors and carriers could be shifted to clerks and other employees represented by the American Postal Workers Union—in some cases, lower-paid non-career employees.

USPS claims it would save $3.8 billion during the course of the 4.5-year contract but has not spelled out where those savings would come from or what assumptions go into its calculations.

Today, Representative Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, held a hearing on the tentative collective bargaining agreement reached last month between the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the United States Postal Service. The move pushes Congress into uncharted territory.

Chairman Issa claims that the collective bargaining agreement is too generous to postal workers and will hurt the finances of the USPS, which lost $8.5 billion in fiscal year 2010.

“I have never heard of a congressional hearing being called into a collective bargaining agreement,” said APWU President Cliff Guffey.

The U.S. Postal Service has proposed a review process that officials say could help expedite decisions on facility closures and result in the shuttering of thousands of locations this year. Postal employees work out of about 32,000 locations nationwide, but with a growing number of customers buying stamps and packaging material at pharmacies, groceries and office supply stores, officials said Thursday that it is time to scale back.

The computerized system announced Thursday would allow top officials in Washington to begin reviewing sites by the summer and assess a location’s feasibility within 138 days—a sharply shorter period of review

The controversial proposed labor contract between the U.S. Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union includes an unusual bonus for the world’s largest postal union: a USPS-funded incentive of up to $7,000 annually for thousands of “non-career” employees to join APWU.

The incentive would come in the form of a health-insurance benefit for “postal support employees”—the new name for casual and temporary workers. After one year on the job, they could sign up for employer-sponsored health insurance, with USPS paying 75% of the premium if they choose the “APWU Consumer Driven Health Plan.” (See pages 173-174 of

Here’s one way labor unions are hindering staff reductions at the U.S. Postal Service—telling their members the truth about the challenges of retiring from the USPS. Consider this statement from a recent article for members of the National Association of Letter Carriers:

“The Office of Personnel Management continues to struggle with timely completion of new retirees’ annuities,” writes Ernest Kirkland, NALC Director of Retired Members. “Again, each member who is considering retirement should try to have a five-month reserve of his or her anticipated retirement income available prior to retiring. Saving 440 hours of annual leave for payment

Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican Congressional leader who has been boldly advocating a downsizing of the Postal Service, suddenly doesn’t sound so brave. At a recent Congressional hearing, according to postal commentator Eddie Mayhew in his newsletter for publishers, Issa said there were probably post offices in every district that could be closed, but that he hopes “there isn’t one or three in mine.” Is this really the same man who just four months ago told The Washington Post, “There are too many postal workers, too many distribution centers, too many post offices and a reluctance to make those changes?”

Recent widespread press reports and public outcry about supposed plans to close 3,000 post offices were a misunderstanding, U.S. Postal Service officials said today. The trouble started when USPS gave the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) a list of about 3,200 stations and branches that would be part of a study of which facilities to discontinue, the Postal Service said in a PRC filing today.

Postal officials provided the PRC today a list of 356 postal facilities where service has been suspended. But it asked the PRC to keep the list of post offices, stations, and branches secret for now

Many Postal Service employees report working longer hours recently, and the statistics back them up. Overtime hours have increased more than 11 percent this fiscal year vs. the same period last year even though the workforce is smaller. Complaints about letter carriers out delivering mail until 8 p.m. may not be isolated cases. Payroll statistics the U.S. Postal Service released yesterday indicate that overtime hours per full-time city delivery carrier have increased more than 20 percent over last year.

Part-time city carriers are also keeping busy, working nearly one hour of overtime for every six of straight time