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Thursday, February 14, 2013

Postal Service plan to cut Sat. mail short on details of effect on mail volume, postal union leader says

Some postal employees are displeased with Postmaster General Pat Donahoe's Wednesday remarks to Congress about the U.S. Postal Service's move to end Saturday delivery of first-class mail, an attempt to stanch its multi-billion-dollar deficits.

National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando wrote in Postal News that Donahoe didn't have a firm grasp on how the reduced delivery schedule would affect mail volume, a crucial component of the move's financial impact. He said Donahoe's $2 billion estimate of savings "lacks credibility because his previous estimates have been found to be wildly inflated by, among others, the Postal Regulatory Commission — in part because they don’t reflect the lost mail volume that would result."

Referring to polls cited by the Postal Service, and its costly pre-funding of retiree benefits, Rolando wrote, "When people are given a false choice, such as between ending Saturday delivery or seeing stamp prices rise and/or the Postal Service go bankrupt, they choose the former. But when given a question that reflects the actual source of the red ink, such as whether they’d prefer to lose Saturday delivery or have Congress fix the pre-funding situation, they overwhelmingly choose the latter." (Read more)

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