Postal Service May Cut 120,000 Jobs

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is considering cutting as many as 120,000 jobs.

Facing a second year of losses totaling $8 billion or more, the agency also wants to pull its workers out of the retirement and health benefits plans covering federal workers and set up its own benefit systems.

Congressional approval would be needed for either step, and both could be expected to face severe opposition from postal unions which have contracts that ban layoffs.

The post office has cut 110,000 jobs over the last four years and is currently engaged in eliminating 7,500 administrative staff.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/08/11/us/politics/AP-US-Postal-Problems.html

with one of the workers I learned that the PO was slated for closure a few days ago with the staff getting a mere one day notice that they would be out of work. For some unknown reason the Postal Service has backed off for the time being but the worker told me that everyone feels like they're dangling from tenterhooks not knowing from day to day if they'll have a job.

The lady who has delivered my mail over the past 13 years is a contractor who drives her own minivan.

than cutting 120,000 jobs.

Where is President Obama on this matter? Why isn't he trying to protect these jobs? Shouldn't the number one goal of this administration to be to keep or create jobs?

Source: Washinton Post

SEATTLE — The financially strapped U.S. Postal Service is proposing to cut its workforce by 20 percent and to withdraw from the federal health and retirement plans because it believes it could provide benefits at a lower cost.

The layoffs would be achieved in part by breaking labor agreements, a proposal that drew swift fire from postal unions. The plan would require congressional approval but, if successful, could be precedent-setting, with possible ripple effects throughout government. It would also deliver a major blow to the nation’s labor movement.

In a notice informing employees of its proposals — with the headline “Financial crisis calls for significant actions” — the Postal Service said, “We will be insolvent next month due to significant declines in mail volume and retiree health benefit pre-funding costs imposed by Congress.”

During the past four years, the service lost $20 billion, including $8.5 billion in fiscal 2010. Over that period, mail volume dropped by 20 percent. The USPS plan is described in two draft documents obtained by The Washington Post. A “Workforce Optimization” paper acknowledges its “extraordinary request” to break its labor contracts.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/usps-proposes-cutting-120000-jobs-pulling-out-of-health-care-plan/2011/08/11/gIQAZxIM9I_print.html

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They are proposing to lay off 120,000, then cut health AND retirement benefits, and break existing Union labor contracts in the process.

All because the postal commission won't grant them a reasonable increase in the price of postage. If commercial junk mail paid it's fair share- say, 50 cents, we'd be awash in money. Is it worth keeping the 44 cent first-class stamp, and destroying more than one hundred thousand jobs?

I didn't see the post before. Sorry. PLease remove.

But we live in the land of the galactically stupid.

can we do anything to influence them, or is it too late?

Economic news anymore is a cross between some really deadly game of dominoes and someone stomping on my heart while clubbing me on the forehead.

I am afraid to open LBN or turn on the TV sometimes.

Fox News | Boston Herald | Howie Carr - whatever they say, it's true.

He uses his insurance to cover him and his wife. He brags about how he survived having a heart attack and the great health coverage he got.

I'm sure he's freaking out now.

is a big part of the reason he has such good health insurance. How does Mr. Teabag feel about that?

the hell with him

sending a letter across the country is a bargain, even at 50 cents. In Canada a stamp is 59 cents plus tax which bumps it up to 66. I resent the tax because 7% of it was just foisted on us by a crooked government who lowered taxes to corporations and raised it on the people... but the price of the stamp itself is not the issue and very few complain about it. I would willingly pay more if jobs were at stake.

Source: Washington Post

In an attempt to stem its financial hemorrhaging, the U.S. Postal Service is seeking to reduce its workforce by 20 percent, including through layoffs now prohibited by union contracts. USPS also wants to withdraw its employees from the health and retirement plans that cover federal staffers and create its own benefit programs for postal employees.

This major restructuring of the Postal Service’s relationship with its workforce would need congressional approval and would face fierce opposition from postal unions. But if approved, eliminating contract provisions that prevent layoffs and quitting the federal employee health and retirement programs could have ramifications for workers across the government and throughout the national’s labor movement.

In a notice to employees informing them of its proposals, with the headline “Financial crisis calls for significant actions,” the Postal Service said “we will be insolvent next month due to significant declines in mail volume and retiree health benefit prefunding costs imposed by Congress.”

The Postal Service plan is described in two draft documents obtained by The Washington Post. A “Workforce Optimization” paper acknowledges “that asking Congress to eliminate the layoff protections in our collective bargaining agreements is an extraordinary request by the Postal Service, and we do not make this request lightly. However, exceptional circumstances require exceptional remedies.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/usps-proposes-cutting-120000-jobs-pulling-out-of-health-care-plan/2011/08/11/gIQAZxIM9I_print.html

yup.....the USPS has found it more expedient to hire them at a comparable rate of pay w/o any frills...they can & do get rid of them. This includes those rural contract employees. It been found that the USPS somehow has put in more than was necessary into the benefits program...its all up front and they have not been able to get that back so they have stopped doing the up front contributions. The USPS is a mess, trying to keep up. The new rounds of planned closing of PO's are those that the government doesn't own. They plan on downsizing to local Walmarts, malls and other storefronts which require less space and $$. Check it out.

just to drain money out of the system and lower benefits.

a few thousand years...

and collapse of government

I see Fed Ex making a bundle and UPS

This makes me so angry. You can see that the plan is to eliminate the Post Office so that big business can profit. This reminds me so much of what Scott Walker is doing in WI.

as it is. We just had to pay about a grand out of pocket for my wife's E.R. visit. Great coverage...

.... military one might think of cutting there first.

His reasoning was that subsidizing interpersonal communication and commerce in this way was good for the fabric of the nation.

It still holds true today. I don't want to be forced to pay Fedex fourteen dollars to deliver a letter. And that's what will happen.

email, text messages, msn, etc.

Repeating the right wing meme about email has gotten old. Person to person first class envelopes was never a large part of postal revenue. You can't email a parcel. And the USPS does a lot of internet business.

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UPS and FedEx, not so much. FedEx left a laptop "somewhere" that was supposed to be delivered signature required, and when I saw on the web that it had supposedly been delivered, but no one had even rung my doorbell, let alone asked for a signature, I phoned them up. They sent the driver to see me and he cursed me out and accused me of stealing it.

They also have a nice habit of leaving heavy boxes against my outward opening door.

I have bought and sold 100's of items on ebay and use UPS to ship. Only had 1 problem where UPS broke the item. UPS fully refunded me the value of item! What I like about UPS over the post office is that their tracking is so much better. I know exactly where my shipment is the moment it is picked up and enters the tracking system. So if I am buying on ebay shipped by UPS or fedex, I know exactly on which day it will be delivered and at what time because the driver drops it off at about the same time, fedex between 8 & 9am and UPS between 1 and 2 pm.

After that I left instructions to leave on open door side. Thought it was a Hoosier thing. But people are stupid all over. Not having common sense.

I will gladly pay a few pennies more per stamp to let them retain jobs/benefits/wages. I know I'm a dinosaur, but feel they do an amazing service. Some of us who still use snail mail are more then willing to pay a little extra.

Fedex & UPS costs much more for letters. For packages I prefer UPS.

Hardest-working people I've ever met. They deserve our support.

And this talk of privatizing what the USPS does is crazy. Nobody can do what the USPS does, for as little as it costs us!

are uniformly very nice, courteous, home town people. I would gladly pay more to keep USPS viable.

Disaster capitalism at work again ...

would they still be in business?

operation to automobile manufacturing?

If not, what is your point?

that the USPS is becoming obsolete because of the things mentioned above i.e. e-mail, smart phones, fax machines, etc.

The Ohio Board of Education has just announced that cursive writing will be taught in K-12 at the discretion of the local school administration. That doesn’t sound like they expect many letters to be written and mailed.

Just how do you re-tool the hand delivery of letters and keep the same number of workers? Even in the production industries there are fewer people because of the increasing use of robotics.

A career in the USPS is not what I would be advising to young people today.

two Dems and two Rethugs, all appointed by Bush between 2004 and 2008.

Only 3 Commissioners at a time can be from one Party, so it is not surprising that Bush had to appoint a couple of Dems.

What is surprising: Obama has nominated another Republican to fill the open slot.

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds - only Congress can do that."

Will carrier pigeons make a comeback too?

The place has gone downhill and looks like a ghost town at times.