US Postal Management’s Dysfunctional and Failing Culture
by: Mark Jamison; A retired Postmaster having served the town and community of Webster, N.C. Mark can also be read on Save The Post Office, a blog discussing the state of the USPS.
“In the following weeks, Mr. Green would go on to scream at me, ALL YOU ARE IS A LIABILITY, YOU EXIST ONLY TO REDUCE OVERTIME,’and enforce a rule no one ever explained to me: We had to be off the clock by 5 p.m. Before I broke my toe, the rule was you had to be off the street and back at the station by 6.
I tried to explain to Mr. Green, who strictly enforced the 5 p.m. deadline, that most days I wasn’t able to leave the station until after 10 a.m., often with more than eight hours’ worth of mail to deliver. When you factor in travel times to auxiliary routes, I could not finish by 5 p.m., even running between houses and never eating lunch. His response? ‘You’ll have to work off the clock.’ If I weren’t willing to do this, he explained, I might not be worth having around. He offered another alternative: Get the routes done faster than required or every morning admit to him that I wasn’t capable of doing my job. An often-toxic work environment had become untenable. Mr. Green didn’t behave this way just to CCAs; I watched him dress down carriers who had worked for the Post Office for decades.” “Blues on Wheels,” Jess Stoner The Morning News.
I worked for the Postal Service for thirty years, the last fourteen as Postmaster of Webster a small town in the mountains of North Carolina. Over the years, I became an increasingly outspoken critic of the Postal Service. While I was still employed, I began participating in cases before the Postal Regulatory Commission. I also began contributing to the website Save the Post Office, a site started and edited by Steve Hutkins, a professor at NYU who became concerned about changes to his local post office. STPO has done some of the most detailed and in depth reporting on postal issues and I would encourage anyone interested in the fate of the Postal Service to take a ramble through the site.
Last week the folks here at Angry Bear were kind enough to host an STPO post I did titled “What are People and the Post Office for?” The “crisis” surrounding the Postal Service is in some ways much more complex than what has been reported in the broader media. In some ways, though it is very simply an attempt to eliminate a well paid unionized work force while privatizing an essential national communications network.
One of the aspects of this issue largely ignored is the dysfunctional institutional management culture that has infected the Postal Service. Since postal reorganization in 1971, the management of the Postal Service has abandoned any pretense of fulfilling its public role while pursuing dreams of corporatization. One consequence of this behavior has been a terribly hostile workplace. The phrase “Going Postal” has entered the lexicon after multiple incidents of workplace violence. Stephen Musacco has a tremendous book “Going Postal: Shifting from Workplace Tragedies and Toxic Work Environments to a Safe and Healthy Organization” detailing the history of the failing postal management culture. I have also written about this at Save The Post Office.
Now there is a wonderful article by Jess Stoner in The Morning News. “Blues on Wheels” highlights the short tenure of Ms. Stoner as a CCA (City Carrier Associate), a temporary category of worker who delivers mail. The article chronicles in sad and brutal detail the difficult conditions under which mail carriers work.
One of the most popular memes in today’s society of the self is to claim that folks who do regular jobs are not worth the money they are being paid. To listen to some folks everybody else is lazy and overpaid and the problems of our society would all be solved is we simply bucked up, worked hard and paid people what they’re worth (which usually demeans anyone who performs physical labor of any sort) . It’s a toxic variation on the myth of meritocracy that ultimately treats human labor as merely an input to production and eschews any concept of human dignity or the value of honest labor.
Over the years, Congress has held hearings about the toxic postal work environment but they never amount to very much. In all the discussion over the last five years over about the Postal Service’s business model, it’s cash flows, it’s finances, and it’s long term liabilities; there has been virtually no attention paid to the fundamental lack of competence embodied in the culture of postal management. Toxic work environments are only part of the problem. Processing plant closures and arbitrary methods of scheduling have created situations where carriers are delivering mail late into the night. There are reams of OIG reports demonstrating wasteful and dishonest practices by postal management.
The Right tells us the privatizing the Postal Service is the answer; but, the current management of the Postal Service has already done everything they can to act like a private corporation. The treatment of employees at the Postal Service is a reflection of our disdain for the human element of labor across society. Regardless of what changes are made to the postal business model the plain and simple fact is that those changes will result in failure because the Postal Service has a corrupt and largely incompetent management culture. Mail delivered somewhat efficiently is more a testament to the efforts and pride of the hundreds of thousands of clerks, carriers, and mailhandlers that care about their communities; that and simple inertia.
It is far past the time for Congress to take a serious and unstinting look at the way the Postal Service is managed, the honesty of its projections, and the competence of its managers. Ms. Stoner’s piece touches on a small piece of the postal puzzle but it ought to serve as a wakeup call.
Just another reason to eliminate the leadership of both parties. For having the opinion of solving foreign religious differences is more important than solving issues of infrastructure or jobs in the USA.
The management approach described here is nothing new to those in the manual labor force of an company approaching the size of the post office.
As it was explained to me by a college friend in the business management track, there was essentially an x and y theory. One said to use horse whip the other a carrot and he boiled it down to me. Guess which one has won. It is a product of letting the economic elites setting the boundaries of what is valuable and what is not.
The postal service will not get helped until those in congress decide they do not want to privatize it and simultaneously break the union.
Regarding: “One of the most popular memes in today’s society of the self is to claim that folks who do regular jobs are not worth the money they are being paid.”
I’ll repeat again that such was not the condition, and the economic elite was less able to convince the populous of such as they would learn the wrongness of this thinking every time the garbage collectors went on strike in a big city, namely in NY.
As I always say: “What would Jimmy Hoffa say?”
Then big answer — the only overall answer — is legally mandated, centralized bargaining (as in for all) — which is the only way to rebuild democracy (assuming we ever had it) both economically and politically. Which will team equal financing and lobbying with 99% of the vote.
IOW, become Germany-West.
Only way to change the culture — all of the culture — and potentially overnight. Only way means there is no other way. Just mention it out loud and everyone will line up early to vote for any politician who promises to institute it.
So…
If the USPS is privatized, who/what is going to be interested and have the workforce and capability to collect, move, and deliver the mail in the USA?
Any takers?
I’m betting Walmart is the only choice, because they have the retail locations, possible floor space, low paid workforce, and a distribution system that can move the mail.
I’m sure they will be more than happy to put PO Box sections in all of their stores. Of course, you will have to go to their stores to pick up your mail, and they will have a monopoly on any advertising placed into their boxes.
Is this what we want?
http://www.postalnews.com/ Tues. links
Mr. Postman, you’re close. Amazon is Wal-Mart on steroids. They aren’t a book seller as much as a logistics company. The Negotiated Service Agreements they are entering into with the Postal Service are largely secret but looking closely it’s easy to see how deeply Amazon’s tentacles are and how they are changing the postal network.
Amazon relies on the post office for it’s business model. Wal Mart does too.
And no I want the government to always be there to offer me an alternative and freedom from the psych ops advertising that is never ending and the forever rent seeking that is going on.
@ Daniel Becker
Not for the squeamish.
Current Postal Management style (in my humble opinion) is geared towards intimidation, bullying and discipline to achieve short term goals. And that starts at the top. It is all about defense. By that I mean that everyone is just trying to keep themselves out of trouble, at all costs. labor contracts are being violated on a daily basis.
It is an ignorant and destructive style. Using the horse, whip and carrot analogy mentioned earlier, you had better keep a tight hold on the reigns while constantly using the whip. I doubt that horse will show any loyalty. It’s only a matter of time before that horse will find a way to stop being whipped. On the other hand, treating the horse humanely and rewarding it with the carrot should cultivate loyalty.
Just my 2¢
Robert
your 2 cents is correct. but there is something about beating some other living creature that certain people enjoy. not only at the post office but wherever it is allowed to flourish. public or private.
i suppose it is encouraged at the post office for political reasons… but those political reasons themselves stem from the joy of dominance.. and the way you know you are dominant is when the subordinate cry in pain.
oddly, the only way i know to put a stop to this is for the “greater power” to frown at the subordinate power.. i.e. “dominate” them.
i have seen on very few occasions, that greater power do this without itself causing suffering, but it’s rare.
We need to learn the skills that will bring about constructive change to the Postal Service.
My grandfather still had dreams years after he retired around 1966 from his jobs as city carrier and rural carrier where he would only say, ‘those crazy people down at the post office!’. After 33 years I retired and am now having my own nightmares. I was a clerk, rural carrier, city carrier, supervisor and postmaster and stressed myself out trying to get the mail out day after day. I fired several people who were always causing problems and I stuck my neck out to protect honorable people that needed my help. I was threatened to be replaced in all of my jobs and the last few months of my career I was ordered to ‘shine’ my shoes, ‘or else’. I think the problem with the post office is the same as in life. Human nature left to itself is inherently not nice. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Good character is rare and in leaders even more rare.
There are so many layers of management in the Postal Service and each layer has to justify its own existence. Meaningless report after meaningless report and endless telecoms one after another are the norm in today’s postal management. The rude behavior, screaming, dressing down, and disrespect towards employees starts at the top and goes all the way down the ranks. It’s institutionalized in the Postal Service. The question is; how many managers managing other managers does the Postal Service really need?
Paul
i have to wonder if the people you fired because they were always giving problems were themselves responding to the stress that was stressing you out.
We need to stop putting people in positions of authority that have no experience. More than half of the managers have no education, but may be related to some one, or have kissed plenty of azz.. They do govern by intimidation, because they don’t know any better. Upper management (475 Le’fant Plaza), has set this precendence. 475 Le’fant Plaza is a joke. It’ s full of interns, and the career postal employees just don’t care. They are more worried about getting that bonus, that they haven’t deserved. The Postal Service is being over run with contract employees, who wouldn’t give a sh*t what happened, as long as their Company’ is getting paid. This is evident, by the bad contracts that are being written, due to the inexperienced contract negotiators for the Postal Service, and OIG is aware of this.
Yes the post office is really bad theses daysm Maplewood has moved into union post office. They didnt ask the customers or the worker. Its more travel time. The trucks are raggy, time will be going back soon. But the post office preaches safety.it all about money. The poon and post master will get raise , but customer service drops greatly. It really sad.
The original post has one thing very right, the USPS management is dysfunctional. There is so much incompetence in the management structure it is almost jaw dropping.
There are a lot of issues that cause this though. One could blame management for just being poor managers and pretend the unions are the ones getting shafted….but that would ignore the fact that the vast majority of USPS supervisors and managers came from the craft. One could possibly argue that postal management is a product of a union culture (I would not, but the argument is a strong one). If one really wanted to start digging into the root causes of the postal management woes, you need to look in three directions.
1. the unnecessary bureaucratic layers in usps management
2. the unions, while I fully support an organized workplace, there are absurd lines that a union might cross in protecting its own self-interests or in trying to make a point (can someone here spell osha?).
3. Washington – the postal service is a business that is run by government. Regardless of the direction one wants to see the usps move, I am sure all would agree the current direction provided by Washington is no direction at all. The usps is in a situation where it needs to adapt. But those in the seats of power that need to make the tough decisions and are not making them.
But someone has to…. and who is left when Washington passes the buck?
Can’t say anything as there is always retaliation and need to have a job. It sure beats working for minimum wage. So just put my nose to the grindstone. Speaking up for contract and non-toxic workplace got me put in my place to just be meek and say nothing. If they say jump, have to ask how high and as long as it is legal will do it. Yes, I do pay union dues and the union couldn’t stop management and supervisor bullying. Co-workers all look out for themselves. We are only a union in name only.
I worked there for over 30 years. Management’s main concern was kissing the ass of the person who was most likely to give you your next job. Total unconcern for the job at hand, getting the mail out. Most floor supervisors only cared about trimming the workforce by any means, it made them look good to the next higher flunky. Take the work away from the clerks, send it to another plant, file a report that we have no mail and that justifies closing the plant and fooling the public. As for Congress, what a joke, the republicans want to close it down completely, only a few democrats, not enough, are willing to fight. The pulic doesn’t give a crap. They think postal workers are overpaid!!! Another joke! New postal workers fall below the poverty level, and most will never get to retirement, if there is one by that time. The pension laws were changed in 1984, no more civil service pensions, bet you guys didn’t know that. PAT ATTENTION!!! Time for talk is past, it’s time to act. Un-elect the fools, get people who care about our country.
The mandate for the pre-funding of 75 yrs in advance for future health benefits was done in 2006 a time when the postal service was at a all time high and the number of employees was at its peek, since then the postal service has closed almost half their plants and by retirement and not replacing the man power has cut the number of employees workforce in half, so why has the amount of money required for the pre-funding been updated to reflect the current staffing and future retirement estimates. If the numbers were updated the postal service would already have finished paying of the pre-funding and could begin there recovery from the past losses. U.S.P.S. is starting to make a profit again and with out the prepay it would already have made a billion dollars this year. As for management a comment stated that most supervisors come from craft, but that doesn’t mean that they come from the same craft as what they are managing. Most times you will have a supervisor that was a mailhandler in charge of clerks or carriers, who doesn’t have a clue about how to do the job or what time frames the work requires only what upper management has set their goals/dreams of what the employees should be able to do on a perfect day with perfect mail. In order to have the abliltiy to manage a workforce you have to have experience doing the job and know the answers to the employee’s questions. A doctor may be smart, but he can’t just walk into the cockpit of a airplane and know how to fly it.
The management pathologies you describe are not just in the post office. I worked in a job with similar conditions for 14 years. I was amazed I didn’t go to jail punching a boss out. I never could understand how a person barely making more than I was just out of school didn’t think I knew what I was doing, and I ran over 50 million dollars worth of equipment, night and day (rotating shift). In 14 years, I had 6-8 holidays off. I figured I lost about 10 years off my life because my sleep patterns were messed up. I’m a nursing school graduate now, (saved enough to leave and go to school, didn’t stay one more day than I had to) but I’m am a lot more cynical about the state of work life in america. One day people in this country are going to say “what’s the use of going to work”. They’re underpaid , overworked, threatened, treated like s***. Every time I went to a meeting, They were taking more benefits, from us. Not one of those managers could do what I did, even though I offered countless of times to train managers in the operation of the plant I ran. They’re closing the plant now, I wonder what all those “Masters” are going to do now. Probably going to make some barely making it convenience store clerk’s life hell.
I am convinced by what everyone here says about huge problems among Postal Service management.
But I would just like raise a question about our postal service business model.
Does it really make sense to ask mail carriers to deliver mail to every home every week-day?
For those who need to get a letter or package very quickly, we have one-day delivery under the U.S. Postal service (which works quite well) as well as Fed Ex (which is quite efficient and not that expensive for light items.)
Meanwhile, a growing number of Americans–as well as businesses– communicate by e-mail.
The world is chaining and what some call “snail-mail” really doesn’t need to reach every home every day.
In other words, there is no reason for carriers to be forced to work off-hours with no pay.
If they delivered regular mail to homes and businesses every other day, working conditions could be much better.
I am not calling for lay-offs– just taking the pressure off postal workers that causes them to “go postal”
If delivering every other day means that they don’t have 7 hour of work to do each day, I would suggest that they might be assigned to what has happened to those letters and packages that do go missing.
Or, perhaps some older workers could afford to (and would like to) ratchet down to a shorter week.
Again, I’m not calling for killing jobs, just making the postal services jobs more humane.
This is in reference to Maggie Mahar’s comment. To start off, Maggie, please don’t take offense to my response (the printed word often takes on the emotions of the reader not the writer), I am not criticizing you.
First, it is very rare when a carrier is forced to work without getting paid. That is covered by labor laws. The problem is being forced to work 10 or more hours day (and into the night) when they would like to go home to their families. To add insult to injury, I have been disciplined for working those long hours because a computer or supervisor believes that the job should not have taken that long.
Second, (in my opinion) email has never significantly hurt the USPS business model. If you think of the emails that you send, ask yourself if you would have sat down and written a letter, put it in an envelope and mailed it. I think that you’ll find that the answer is No. You probably would have picked up the phone and made a call. Now, on the other hand, electronic statements and bill pay HAVE seriously cut into the USPS’ business.
Third, I’d like to comment on your claim that most people do not need to receive mail every day. I have to agree that I could live with receiving mail every other day, as could most private residents. But you are missing one large point. You (or I) do not pay to receive mail. MAIL IS PAID FOR BY THE SENDER. If I am paying for a letter or package to be delivered to someone, I expect that it will be done as quickly as possible. If I am in business, that becomes even more important.
I could go on, but this is way off the original topic and I think that I’ve said enough. By the way, right, wrong, or indifferent, I’m glad that you made your thoughts known.
Robert:
You were fine and your response is appreciated.
Maggie,
Think of the postal network as infrastructure, the ability to go to 153 million addresses every day has tremendous value and potential. There are any number of services that could be combined with the existing postal platform that would take advantage of the network of both carrier routes and post offices.
Postal vehicles could be platforms for all sorts of data collection related to weather and pollution monitoring – there are a number of studies. Postal carriers are links in their communities and provide a tremendous social value, there are many stories of carriers that come to the aid of customers. Postal management wants to monetize relationships like that but I would suggest the value is already there. The real problem is that we’ve forgotten how to value things we can’t monetize.
Yes, you and I have good access to the internet. You probably use e-mail and electronic bill pay. Large swaths of the country have mediocre internet service and are at the mercy of cable and telecommunications monopolies. Millions of Americans still rely on the Postal Service as their primary means of receiving and paying bills, millions also rely on the money order system. These are not merely the most vulnerable among us but people who we would consider middle class.
The management of the Postal Service has worked to degrade the value of first class mail, that is a primary part of their shift towards privatization. Imagine though if a reliable mail system didn’t exist. Payday lenders and other bottom feeders are salivating at an environment where people would have to pay for the privilege of receiving and paying bills.
In its dockets regarding five day mail delivery the PRC concluded that savings would be minimal while the costs of losing that six day advantage could be considerable. The strain on mail carriers is the result of the Postal Service attempting to drive people harder as a means of saving money. Unfortunately many of the folks delivering mail, like the woman in this story, are being paid mediocre wages, given little training, and are abused by the dysfunctional management culture.
The solution is not to surrender more postal jobs while cutting useful infrastructure. We’ve seen 300,000 good middle class jobs disappear in the last seven years primarily as a result of accounting gimmicks. The Postal Service has been the largest employer of veterans and disabled veterans. It has also been a primary entry point into the middle class for those at the bottom of the economic spectrum, especially people of color.
The solution to the abusive treatment described in this article and the problems that arise from the methods of postal management is insist that we treat workers with the dignity that any human being deserves.
The solutions you propose would cut jobs and would cause further deterioration in our postal infrastructure. The conditions you are responding to are result of attempts to squeeze costs by squeezing workers. They are the result of a race to the bottom designed to funnel $65 billion of postal revenues into private hands through outsourcing and outright privatization.
We hope to present several pieces from STPO here on Angry Bear as well as some additional reporting and commentary. I hope you will follow that dialogue. I think that the questions are bigger and more difficult than the ones you pose here.
robert–
No offense taken.
Whether to not postal workers are paid for the long hours, my point is that they are unnecessary.
If we are paying of the 10 hour days we are wasting taxpayer’s money. If we are not, we are exploiting people.
Responding to your second point: today, I often send an e-mail when,when in the peat, I would have written a letter.
An e-mail is like a letter (and unlike a phone call) in that it gives me a chance to choose my words–particularly important in many business situations as well as when communicating with friends and family.
Third, when sending a package, a letter, or paying a bill, it does not matter at all to me whether it takes an extra day (or two) to get there. The only exceptions are if I forgot someone birthday, or forgot to pay a bill.
In the first case, I pick up the phone. In the second case, I either send the payment by overnight mail, or pay by phone.
I can think of no situation where a businessman would use the mail (even when delivering products) if it was crucial that the message or product was delivered on a particular date.
I have always found the U.S. postal system to be pretty reliable, but not completely predictable (I am not one of those people who bashes the postal system as an example of govt inefficiency. ) But If time is of the essence, businessmen use U.S. postal next day delivery, .Fed Express, e-mail, or the phone.
Today, int eh world that we live in, I see no need (either form the point of the sender or the recipient) to have regular first-class mail delivered every day.
And of course, today, so much of the mail that post-men deliver is junk mail. None of us want to get it every day.
Something has gone very wrong with the U.S. postal service business model when so much of the service involves delivering that mail (and pushing mailmen to deliver it quickly).
Mark–
You write: “Postal vehicles could be platforms for all sorts of data collection related to weather and pollution monitoring – there are a number of studies. Postal carriers are links in their communities and provide a tremendous social value, there are many stories of carriers that come to the aid of customers.”
My response: mail men are not trained to collect data or track pollution.
If I need help, I would call the fire dept. (Firemen regularly help elderly people who fall and can’t get up. They also have an infrastructure that links them to all homes. The chances that a mailman would come along at just the right time are pretty slim.)
You are right that a great many people don’t have access to the Internet.
But this is not a reason that we need to have a postal service delivering mail every day.
People who pay bills by mail could easily add an extra day to how long for the bill to get there. (Those who now pay bills late would still pay bills late. Those who now pay bills on time would still pay bills no time.)
On jobs. We should not support a daily postal service in order to preserve jobs –just as we should not keep unneeded hospital in order to preserve jobs.
The purpose of our health care system –and our postal system–is not to provide jobs. The purpose is to provide a service that is needed.
Certainly, we do need to create more jobs–but we need to create Productive jobs that add to the wealth of the nation and/or provide needed services that keep us safe: repairing infrastructure, expanding the number of nurses and other trained health professionals to help older people who need long term care, expanding the number of teachers and paras available in our schools, expanding the number of people keeping our parks and streets clean . . .
These are jobs that many of today’s postal workers would find far more satisfying that what they are doing today. Training them to do these jobs would help them–and the nation.
My point is that there are a great many Productive jobs that government could and should create. Continuing to pay mailmen to deliver junk mail every day is not one of them.
I realize that the postal system has a long and noble history, going all the way back to stage coach delivery.
But as the world changes, some businesses and business models become antiquated. We need to transition to other models.
Finally, we could make far better use of Vets in many other places. For disabled vets, I would think that delivering mail would, in many cases, be far too strenuous, and working in a post office would only exacerbate the depression that many vets suffer. (Not because of dysfunctional management, but because the job of sorting mail and selling stamps is by its nature, boring.)
Maggie,
With all due respect I suggest you educate yourself on the subject before commenting.
First, in your response to Robert you mention a potential waste of taxpayer money due to overtime. Tell me, how much taxpayer money is spent on the post office?
After you tell me that we can begin to have a conversation on the subject.
You are certainly entitled to your opinions on the issue. Fascinating to hear what jobs you consider boring and how things could be so much better if only… Your understanding of mail infrastructure, the value of physical networks, the value of that infrastructure to people who aren’t you and don’t do things like you seems rather limited.
I’m don’t want to insult you, I have tremendous respect for what you write on this site with respect to healthcare, but you’ve just spouted out pretty much every individualistic Right Wing trope that comes along with relation to the post office but also the value of work and the human beings who do that work.
I find it offensive especially because it’s so uninformed. A comment section isn’t the place to answer your points. Tell you what, you do the reading, make an effort to understand what’s at stake and what’s involved and if you still have the same responses I will respect that and agree to disagree.
Maggie,
The USPS is self funded and receives no taxpayer money. Actually it does receive a minute amount to cover the free (“franked”) mail that you receive from your congressional representatives, periodically (with a signature in the upper right corner where the stamp would go).
In fact 100% of the USPS’ financial woes can be attributed to the Postal Accountability And Enhancement Act of 2006. This act of Congress requires the USPS to set aside $5.5 billion per year to “prepay” anticipated benefit costs for retirees for the next 75 years. Then Congress has taken that money and used it to lower the federal deficit. So in effect, the USPS is funding the taxpayers and not the reverse. Without having to pay his $5.5 Billion/year the USPS would actually be showing a profit and the debate over postal jobs and the efficiency of the USPS business would be moot. The USPS business model does work as it is now.
But, fixing this would not correct the ignorant way that postal managers treat their subordinates. That will take a new attitude starting from the top and trickling down.
Robert,
The revenue forgone appropriation, about $100 million/ year, is provided for Free Mail for the Blind and Overseas Voting. Congressional franking is paid for under different provisions and is reimbursed based on cost as any mail user would pay. A history of revenue forgone, which is actually quite important to the discussion since it involves how we compensate for universal service and reduced rates for periodicals and non-profits, can be found here:http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/3514
Mark & Robert
Mark: First, I actually did some research before writing my comments. (I usually do.) Below, I quote from some of that research.
In particular, I do understand how the Post Office is financed by the “government in that it receives govt loans that let it fulfill its healthcare promises to its workers. I shouldn’t have said “taxpayers” sorry. I explain this the USPS’ rather complicated financial situation in the reply below. (Public sector finance as well as private sector finance is one of my areas of expertise.)
When I originally replied to your post, I was trying to avoid going into so much detail, but in the process, I simplified a complicated story.
Mark, you call me “uninformed” and suggest that I am an “uneducated commenter” because I do not agree with you, and because you assume that my expertise is limited to healthcare.
In fact I have been writing about healthcare for only nine years— a small part of a long career.
Before that I wrote about politics, economics, stock and bond markets, various industries (including the newspaper industry—which becomes relevant here—the Internet, cable television, and public utilities, Fannie Mae), global economics, currencies, the EU, the Middle East, Russia, Washington’s politics, the U.S. government—and government bureaucracies.
I have studied unions and the history of labor in the U.S. I also have studied organizations run by for-profits, non-profits, and the government.
On balance, I have found that, in many cases, non-profits tend to do a better job of serving society than either for-profits (which put shareholders first) or government (which tends to be very slow at innovating, and bogged down in its own inside politics, plus influence from lobbyists. In this case, that includes the unions representing postal workers, and lobbyists representing direct mailers.) Much like the lobbyists representing doctors and hospital workers, they are mainly concerned about preserving their own jobs, income stream ad benefits—without regard to what patients need.
This is the expertise that I bring to any subject that I write about.
Finally, I read all of the time and so was well aware of the problems the USPS faces.
For instance, I recall a Bloomberg news article I read a while ago. I just looked it up. Bloomberg reported that:
–An investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek, show the service is so dependent on low-profit junk mail for revenue that it has a marketing officer tasked with lobbying banks not to switch to electronic statements.
–Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warns that it could default on those loans
–Donahoe has proposed shuttering 3,700 of the nearly 32,000 post offices across the U.S.
In the long run, closing branches doesn’t get to the root of the fiscal problem: Eighty percent of the USPS budget goes to salaries and benefits. By contrast, United Parcel Service Inc. spends 61 percent on those costs, and FedEx only 43 percent. Postal employees pay a smaller share of their salary for health care than most other federal workers, and, as reported by the Washington Post, more than 850 senior managers get their health care absolutely free. (No wonder the USPS workers’ union wants to hold onto those jobs.) Why should postal workers pay a smaller share of their healthcare than other Federal employees? http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2011-08-03/u-s-postal-service-needs-fewer-workers-to-keep-delivering-the-mail-view
I am not anti-union , but I do oppose unions that over-reach.
Robert — On whether e-mail is replacing letters: In 2012, NPR’s Democracy Now! Reported that First-class mail volume, which has fallen 25 percent since 2006, is projected to drop another 30 percent by 2016. The agency faces a cash shortage of $100 million this October stemming from declining mail volume that could balloon to $1.2 billion next year.http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/1/as_us_postal_service_faces_default#
Mark, I think the main reason we don’t agree is not that I am uninformed, or incapable of grasping the structure and importance of the postal service, but the fact that you are writing from the perspective of an insider, and I am writing from the perspective of an outsider.
As a retired U.S. postmaster, you view the U.S. postal system with some nostalgia, as you talk about “the sanctity and importance of the mails.” http://www.savethepostoffice.com/jamison I respect that nostalgia, but let me suggest, respectfully, that you are writing about a time and place that no longer exists—when “community newspapers were essential” and people didn’t read newspapers online. (This includes small, local papers.)
(It has been more than two decades since I have held a newspaper in my hands. We now longer need to chop down trees in order to spread information.
I read newspapers, magazines and journals online –as do most people who read small journals and/or do a lot of reading. School children are expected to read online. This is why we have computers in their schools. Going forward, the govt will be making sure that all children have computers in their homes.
Robert, you remember a time when mailmen also had relationships with families who stayed in one home for 20 years—and housewives knew the mailman who had been delivering their mail for 20 years. These days, mailmen deliver to empty houses in our small towns, cities and and suburbs– dogs locked in, barking indoors, and no one home. Everyone is at work or school. This strikes me as a lonely job, and not one that is supporting social cohesion in the community.
Coming From Outside the Postal System—and looking to the future, not the past, I see things differently. Let me suggest that in many cases outsiders offer a useful, critical perspective. They don’t assume that because things have always been done one way, they should continue to be done that way.
Make no mistake. I am not someone who ever knocked the postal service as an example of govt’ inefficiency. Over decades I have had a largely good experience both sending and receiving mail. I also appreciate the mail service’s overnight delivery, though it’s worth noting that they provide that service in a partnership with Fed Ex. Fed Ex is a for-profit company that does a very good job of providing services that business and individuals need. But the World Has Changed. I believe that you, and the postal workers union, are still thinking “inside the box.” Jim Jarvis, by contrast, thinks outside the box. (He is hardly a conservative.) A columnist, blogger and author of What Would Google Do? (2009) he writes:
“Imagine an America in which everyone has an internet connection, a device to use it, and a printer.” (Note 71% of U.S. households already have broadband Internet, and by 2017, 74.1 percent, or about 94.7 million homes are expected to have broadband}.
Jarvis then tells us what Ruth Goldway, the chairman of the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission, said when the head of the U.K.’s Royal Mail International asked her what Google would do with the Postal Service. Goldway replied, “They’d give every household a computer and a printer. And I’d add, of course, a broadband connection.” (Note she says “give” not sell. )
At this point , wiring everyone in the U.S. is not possible, but we’re heading in that direction. Add public places where the Internet is available (from libraries and schools to Internet cafes) and before long, nearly everyone should have access. Today roughly half of families who qualify as “poor” already have the Internet and at least one computer.
In the not-too distant future, I suspect the government will be involved in making Internet access as close to universal as possible, much as we are striving to make healthcare universal. The Internet is fast becoming a necessity—particularly for families with kids. Daily delivery of a dwindling number of first-class letters – plus a huge amount of junk mail is not a necessity.
Jarvis continues: “Goldway was just speculating. As someone who believes in the Postal Service’s universal service obligation, it makes sense that she’d wonder about universal connectivity. “Now,” he adds, “as is my habit — I’ll take it farther — When we all are connected, do we need a Postal Service? Or what kind of Postal Service do we need? What still needs to be delivered? What are the economics of that delivery — who’s being served and who should pay? Do we still need daily (let alone Saturday) delivery? Do we need to guarantee physical delivery to every address in America? How much could we save? Can the market take over delivery of things while the net takes over delivery of information and communication? What’s the impact on publishing and advertising, on retail, on education? . . .
“The US Postal Service as we know it is, in a word, like much of the rest of the economy disrupted (or, if you prefer, Doomed). I think it’s time to ask the radical question: Do we need it?
“If all of us are connected, we don’t need the USPS to deliver letters; email is precisely the reason that first class mail is already plummeting.
Mark, Let me add, that as PBS reports, today “the USPS has been increasingly reliant on junk mail — advertisements, catalogs and other unsolicited mailbox “gifts” — to keep the service afloat. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/the-u-s-postal-service/11433/BusinessWeek notes that revenue from junk mail increased by 7.1 percent in the last quarter of 2010 .
PBS adds that it’s not just the postal workers’ union but “direct mailers, the creators of the junk mail that sustains the system, “ who object to downsizing the system. They argue that Saturday deliveries are crucial times for sending advertisements while recipients have their minds on weekend shopping.” http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/the-u-s-postal-service/11433/ Like a more and more Americans, I do most of my shopping online, and I find out about sales when I go online –looking at the sites that interest me (Macy’s, etc.) not the companies that stuff my mail-box with unwanted ads.
Jarvis continues: “We consumers are, in my view, subsidizing the delivery of advertising because 71% of the USPS margin available to cover its costs comes from first class, only 21% from advertising. Yet in 2009, the USPS delivered an equivalent number of ads vs letters and by 2020 it will deliver far more ads (86 billion ads vs. 53 billion letters, according to the USPS projection).
“ Should an ad-delivery service be the province of a government-anointed entity? I don’t think so.”
Mark– I totally agree with Jarvis. I hate junk mail. It’s a waste of trees and a waste of my time. And the fact that the U.S. government is lending money to the USPS so that it can continue to fund health plans that are not available to other Federal workers strikes me totally unacceptable. Eventually under Obamacare, I would like to see postal workers—like all workers—pay a share of their premiums based on their ability to pay—as they do now in the State Exchanges.
Instead of lending money to the postal service government can lend money to many other entities that provide services that we actually need.
Post office supporters like to pretend that businessmen who are “anti-New Deal” want to privatize the post office. But as this Angry Bear post acknowledges “the U.S. Postal Service is obviously not a product of the New Deal ] http://angrybearblog.strategydemo.com/category/politics#sthash.sjqaEBgL.dpuf
The postal service is not a social welfare program—except, perhaps, for postal Workers and the Direct Mail Industry which sends us junk mail.
Jarvis continues “So let’s zero-base the Postal Services’ services: Once more, information and communication can be handled electronically. Commercial delivery should be handled commercially. There will be an increase in parcel delivery as more and more retail moves online; that’s a profitable business the market should take over.
“Junk mail should pay full freight — if it is still delivered once mobile becomes a better, more targeted, and more efficient delivery mechanism for coupons and such (and if do-not-mail lists threaten to cut their volume).
“Do we need six-day-a-week delivery to every one of 150 million addresses in America then? No; delivery of things is made on an as-ordered basis. What about out-of-the-way addresses (see: Sarah Palin)? Maybe that requires some subsidy, but that would be minimal.
“What about the post offices? The USPS presentation shows far lower costs if these services were run through partners (e.g., other retailers), online, and self-service machines.
“What about delivery of government paperwork? Well, it’s ludicrous that we’re not given the option to fill out the census online. We are shifting our taxes online.
“Mind you, I have nothing against mailmen anymore than I have anything against pressmen,” Jarvis adds. “ It’s just that they work in antiquated industrial structures and we can find not only efficiency but improvement of service thanks to digital — if we are all connected. http://buzzmachine.com/2010/03/23/post-postal/ PBS reports that other governments—specifically Germany and Switzerland, that are getting out of the mail delivery business—as they join the 21st century.
Mark, you asked me what I know about how the post service is funded and finance.
You’re entirely right, of course, the U.S. Postal System covers its OPERATING Expenses by selling stamps and postage. I should have made that clear. When I referred to “taxpayers” funding the postal service, I should have referred to “government funding of non-operating expenses.” I was trying to write a quick comment, but that was sloppy.
But I would point out that your response simply echoes this ad paid for by the American Postal Workers Union:
“Members of the American Postal Workers Union handle more than 165 billion letters and packages a year. That’s about 34 million pounds every day. Ever wonder what this costs you as a taxpayer? Millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions?” a voice says in the 30-second ad.
“The answer: ‘Not a single cent.’`
“Deliveries are solely funded by stamps and postage, the voice says. The ad was put together by the American Postal Workers Union” http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/five-things/the-u-s-postal-service/11433/ But , in fact, as you know, that’s not quite true. Things are a little more complicated than that.
Politifact.com, which fact-checks statements like these offers a brief history of postal I
service funding:
“Before 1971, the Postal Service received annual appropriations from the federal government. Since then, it has operated independently, with revenues generated through the sales of postage stamps and services.
“But Congress does give the Postal Service $100 million a year to compensate the agency for revenue loss by providing, at congressional direction, free mailing privileges to blind people and overseas voters, a congressional report noted. The $100 million is less than 1 percent of the Postal Service’s annual budget.” (Let me note that this is a small money and involves paying for what is actually a public service.)
“In 2012, the Postal Service pulled in about $65 billion in revenue, it says on its website. That’s $10 billion less than what collected in 2008, the year the Great Recession took hold.
“By some reports, the Postal Service is losing $25 million a day. The volume of mail the Postal Service handles has declined by nearly 27 percent since 2008, as Americans rely more on email communications instead of letters.
“The Postal Service’s debt rose from nothing to $10.2 billion between federal fiscal years 2005 and 2009, according to a congressional report. . .
“In 2006, Congress passed legislation requiring the Postal Service to pre-fund its future retirees’ health benefits at a cost of approximately $5.6 billion per year.
“The Postal Service has cut expenses through a hiring freeze, offering early retirement to longtime employees and closing some district offices. It’s also increased revenue in recent years through several increases in the price of a postage stamp.
“In 2009, the Postal Service began Borrowing Money from the U.S. Treasury Department to Deal With its Troubles. Some news accounts report the service reached its borrowing limit of $15 billion in September 2012.
“Sally Davidow, a spokeswoman for the union, said the Postal Service had to borrow the money to offset the health benefit changes. She argued that health benefits are not part of the Postal Service’s operating expenses.
“(The Postal Service) is required to pay that money back,” Davidow added. “Borrowing money is different than relying on taxpayers.”
This Raises a Question. HOW are they going to pay it back? By going into another business like “data collection?” (as you suggested in your last comment)
Data collection is much easier done in other ways. Going forward the census will be moving to Internet. The days of census workers going door to door (and missing a great many people) are fading fast.
And if the USPS is going to go into another, hi-tech businesses, that would involve extensive re-training of employees—and hiring many younger, employees to replace older, less-well-educated and less tech-savvy employees who are not able to make the transition.
Politifact continues:
“Davidow argued in the union’s defense that the Postal Service has $46 billion in its retiree health benefits fund, but the federal government won’t let the agency borrow from it.” Why won’t the government let the agency borrow from its retiree health benefit’s fund? The danger is that if it begins borrowing, they won’t have the money they need when the time comes —especially if the postal service continues to handle less and less mail. The govt is lending the money so that postal workers can know that their health benefits are backed up by the full faith and credit of the U.S. govt.
Politifact notes that a November 2012 press release the postal service acknowledged “that it had a record fiscal year deficit of nearly $16 billion. The agency attributed about 70 percent of that net loss to the health care requirement.” Politifact sums up: “the American Postal Workers Union claimed in its television ad that the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t operate on taxpayer dollars and a it’s solely funded by stamps and postage. The Postal Service has borrowed money from the government in recent years, primarily it says, to cover the cost to pre-fund employee health benefits. The first part of the statement is on target. The second part, however, gets a return to sender. We rate this claim Half True.”
Dan–
Please see my reply to Mark’s 1st post re: the postal service
http://angrybearblog.strategydemo.com/2014/09/us-postal-managements-dysfunctional-and-failing-culture.html#more-27382
My reply is dated Oct. 15
I agree with many of the other comments here that a major dysfunction of the Postal Service is its managers. Think about those individuals who are promoted into management. It’s those who try to make a name for themselves by firing or disciplining as many employees as they can. It’s usually someone who has no conscience or remorse about injuring another person in order to achieve their own career advancement. This is a classic definition of a sociopath. And the more sociopathic you are, the more likely you are to be in higher management. Regular employees get confused when confronted by supervisors or managers that yell and scream at them and constantly denigrate and demean them. Why would they behave in such an uncivilized and unprofessional manner? It’s because you are dealing with mentally ill individuals with a thirst for control over the lives of others. When you start viewing managers in a light of mentally disturbed individuals, their actions make a lot more sense.
JR:
Thank you for stopping by to comment. Unfortunately what you point out is not just confined to the USPS; it can be found in other industries as well. It does not have to be as overt either and can be as subtle as employees going through a screening process at the end of each shift. A counter to this would be the availability of more jobs available in the economy which would present an environment for employees to pick and choose where they wish to work leaving less Labor friendly companies with a means to be profitable.
Then too, I wonder what Issa and some of the others would do if exposed to the same type of mentality.
It’s something which happen on hire levels but it will going to hamper the lower employes. USP Management’s Dysfunctional is any how higher authority decision