APWU: PMG’s Message Is Clear – Postal Employees May Face Layoffs For First Time In History

September 30, 2008 by
Filed under: APWU, election, postal finances, usps 

16,000 Postal Employees Lack Years Required for Protection Against Layoffs 

USPS’ Bleak Financial Picture And the Presidential Election

Postmaster General John E. Potter informed the unions and the Postal Regulatory Commission this month that the Postal Service has experienced a 12 percent reduction in mail volume and that in Fiscal Year 2008 (ending Sept. 30), expenses will exceed revenue by approximately $2.3 billion. I do not challenge this assessment, as any casual review of mail processing plants or postal vehicles will reveal dramatic reductions in mail volume.

The 2008 deficit is not the largest the USPS has ever suffered, but for the first time in postal history, the losses cannot be recovered by postage rate increases.

The 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which was hailed by many in the postal community as the savior of the Postal Service, may ultimately be the single most damaging factor in its demise. Under the law, the only means for the USPS to recover the losses are:

  • Substantial mail volume increases;
  • Significant productivity improvements, or
  • Invoking the law’s “exigency” clause.

(The exigency clause offers an exception to the law’s prohibition against increasing postage rates above the rate of inflation; it permits such increases in “extraordinary or exceptional” circumstances.)

Regrettably, there are no prospects for increases in mail volume or for productivity improvements sufficient to offset the current losses. Invoking the exigency clause — in order to increase postage rates more than the rate of inflation — would run the risk of accelerating the transformation from hard-copy communication to electronics. (Industry observers suggest that if postage rates rise too sharply, major mailers would abandon hard-copy communication in favor of e-mail and other technologies.)

To make matters worse, the 2008 deficit of $2.3 billion is expected to be matched in Fiscal Year 2009 with losses of an additional $2 billion. This means it will be necessary for the Postal Service to borrow $5 billion over a two-year period.

Although the Postal Service has the authority to borrow up to $15 billion, far in advance of reaching that limit, the Postal Regulatory Commission, Congress and the next president will be under tremendous pressure to privatize the Postal Service.

In response to the financial crisis, the Postal Service has announced a hiring freeze. And, in a meeting with union leaders and management association presidents, the Postmaster General pointed out that 16,000 USPS employees lack the six years of continuous service required to achieve protection against layoffs.

The PMG’s message was clear: For the first time in our history, postal employees may experience layoffs.

This looming crisis is the reason that the 2008 election for president and Congress is so important to postal employees. When serious discussions occur about the future of the Postal Service — and they will — postal unions must have a Congress and a president who understand our concerns. In the face of mounting federal deficits, the nation will decide the future role of the government in providing postal services.

As postal employees cast their votes in the 2008 election, protecting our employment must be a decisive factor in the choices we make. This time the decision cannot be based on abortion, guns, terrorism, or experience. This time it’s about your job.

And simply put, John McCain favors privatization; Barack Obama believes in public services.

The candidates haven’t had an opportunity to vote on postal privatization — yet — but they have voted on the privatization of other federal jobs: Obama voted against the Bush Administration plan to outsource and privatize hundreds of thousands of federal jobs; McCain voted for Bush’s program and voted to privatize federal jobs in 2006, 2004, and 2003.

I know that I cannot tell a member who to vote for. However, it is my responsibility to share with our members what I believe is in their interest as postal employees.

I strongly advise you against jumping from a five-story building without a parachute, but if you chose to do so, that is your right. You also have the right to vote for John McCain, but that decision is no different than the decision to jump.

This election is about your future as a postal employee. It’s about your job.

William Burrus
President

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Comments

No Comments on APWU: PMG’s Message Is Clear – Postal Employees May Face Layoffs For First Time In History

  1. bart simpson on Tue, 30th Sep 2008 1:09 pm

    2. I deliver mail every day with .36 cent postage on it from big mailers. How about making everyone pay the same rate? .6 cents a letter on a million letters is how much money? multiply that by how many millions of letters each month mailed at a lower rate, and that is how much money?

  2. ken on Tue, 30th Sep 2008 3:14 pm

    3. I think privatizing may be the best solution. Eliminate the unnecessary levels of management. My office has run on as few as 1 supervisor for a year. Now we have 5. Eliminate them by how many offices nation wide.

  3. eric on Tue, 30th Sep 2008 3:25 pm

    4. oh great lets all vote for someone with a terrorist name who wants to get rid of our armies weapons (guns) and kill our future (abortion). lets vote on a president (union pres.) that puts more pressure on the post office about their freeze on hiring of craft employees but not on stupervisers. 4 is more than enough when only 1.5 do anything anyways. .5 is only if they don’t have to get up from their chairs to help someone.

  4. Nixieman on Tue, 30th Sep 2008 6:43 pm

    5. Oh, sure, they have to point out the clerks who could possibly be laid off, but nothing about the useless managers who are not covered by any layoff protection? They could shed one half or more of the USPS managers and no one would notice…except we wouldn’t get those once a year notices, programs or contests that they come up with to let people know they still exist.

  5. anyone on Tue, 30th Sep 2008 7:11 pm

    6. Jesus where to start. This last article just captured everything that is a lie about your employer, USPS.
    1. I thought you were already a “private” company that stood on your own two feet? To wit, “In the face of mounting federal deficits, the nation will decide the future role of the government in providing postal services.”
    2. Once again we see that your “company” will deliver one letter a year and make enough to pay every one. To wit,
    “…..but for the first time in postal history, the losses cannot be recovered by postage rate increases.
    3. Your argument that the USPS stands on it own just went out the window. To wit, “To make matters worse, the 2008 deficit of $2.3 billion is expected to be matched in Fiscal Year 2009 with losses of an additional $2 billion. This means it will be necessary for the Postal Service to borrow $5 billion over a two-year period.”

    Get use to this. All your retired “brothers and sisters” sold you new hires down the road. Don’t forget them when negotiations roll around. You may need to get some of that money back just to save your sorry asses.

  6. postalboy on Tue, 30th Sep 2008 7:46 pm

    7. Thats right I dont mind jumping out of a building as long as Im not going to fall in the lake of fire. So let money and greed cast your vote and I will let my religious beliefs and conscience dictate mine. Neither candidate is what I want but I will choose the lesser of the two evils and go for McCain because GOD is in control of my finances but he doesnt force us to make the right(christian)choices. Burass you put your faith in the failing dollar and I choice to put mine in an everlasting GOD.

  7. Smirk W. Chimp on Wed, 1st Oct 2008 3:39 am

    8. Good God. This country has some stupid people in it.

  8. justone on Wed, 1st Oct 2008 6:33 am

    9. anyone,

    To Wit, your an idiot! and Smirk your dead on, unfortunately a great percentage work for the Postal Service in ALL pay grades.

  9. anyone on Wed, 1st Oct 2008 9:28 am

    10. justone,

    Remember when the PO decided to join the internet age and painted their web address on the jeeps? If so, then you will also remember that they painted http://www.usps.gov. Oops, can’t have that. Forgot we tell people we are a private company and stand on our own two feet. Quickly changed that to http://www.usps.com. Read “Free the Mail” then respond to me.

  10. anyone on Wed, 1st Oct 2008 9:56 am

    11. …and if you can’t respond to my assertions then I guess you can call me an idiot. That works.

  11. mzfaye on Wed, 1st Oct 2008 12:00 pm

    12. at my office the employees are being sent up to 500 miles away. i guess that would be UTAH. Or the Sierra Mountains or that vast wasteland in Nevada. The goal is to get these people to quit, they were crying (I would too). Say I just bought a house, car, LIFE and I see these old geezers at the post office bragging about 30 years in and they tell me I gotta go. Well I take that back I got 30 years in and I’m no old geezer LOL. Oh my god, this is all a big freekin mess.

  12. John on Thu, 2nd Oct 2008 6:13 am

    13. Postal boy, are you kidding? You think god is your accountant? And what “god” are we talking about? Jesus, Allah, Jehovah,…? If you are Christian, I believe Jesus opted out of politics with the “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” speech. I hate such self righteousness.
    I believe that “god” has left us to handle our own affairs to the best of our ability. Once we bring religion into it the next thing you know we’ve got the next Inquistion or jihad. If you want a religiouly run country, go live in Iran.

  13. Numbnuts on Sun, 5th Oct 2008 2:03 am

    14. My God has a hammer.
    He has bigger balls than your God too.

  14. MoreBloatedManagament on Sun, 5th Oct 2008 2:16 am

    15. Can we get back to the topic at hand? Potter needs to fire himself. That is our only chance. All of you religious psychos, go find a crackpot board somewhere else to rant about all of your make believe, magical crap.

  15. L334 on Mon, 6th Oct 2008 7:38 am

    16. Gee, how bout a little help from congress….how bout a little regulatory control on the private sector competition….how bout a little reigning in on the postal service’s reckless subcontracting/contracting efforts……which is basically privatization of the postal service without an “official” decision to privatize…..how bout usps actually gets off it’s butt and modernizes to offer comparable goods and services to the public that our private sector competitors offer……how bout we shed all the contractors that are greedily leeching off the usps profits…..uh, how come fedex and ups aren’t trying to subcontract/contract out all the work at their factilities?………because it’s a terribly idiotic business concept to pay someone more what you can do more efficiently for yourself!…..brothers and sisters……let’s just ask congress what brown and fedex can do for them?….once the usps is defeated maybe they will stop the lobbying and congress reps will lose money….seems like that’s all they care about these days….doesn’t matter that the average u.s. citizen will have to pay more to fulfill their shipping needs…..usps management has been efficiently running the postal service into the ground in order to support all the doom and gloom rhetoric in an effort to bust up the unions (similar to the auto industry) and justify more private leeching of the postal cash cow! greedy corporates laugh at all of your lame lack of organization and cohesiveness on the issues………they are stealing the country right out from under everyones noses, spending mountains of money on lobbying to limit everyone’s rights and increase corporate rights and flagrantly funneling billions of tax payers dollars into the private sector! i dare say there are many families that are now set for generations, but millions barely able to survive! don’t fall prey to distraction tactics and stay on point!!!!!!!!!

  16. Jack on Wed, 8th Oct 2008 5:54 am

    17. Re: Privitization

    The USPS has had a form of this beginning February 3, 1993 – it’s called Plant Verified Drop Shipment!

  17. From Postal Worker to ALL on Wed, 8th Oct 2008 9:08 pm

    18. How about if EVERY Postal Worker mail….yes! mail… all their bills out each month. If we are 700,000 strong multiply that times 5 to 8 each month. We secure our own future. If you have kids in college, send them care packages. Start mailing letters again instead of email. Pass this on and see how numbers look on their same period last year (sply)chart. If that doesn’t work…. take back the money Potter gave himself and his top managers each year.

  18. MoreBloatedManagament on Thu, 9th Oct 2008 1:38 am

    19. I’ve actually suggested that to people at work. But they are all dumbasses. “I like doing it on the computer and e-mail, it’s easier”. I mail all my sh&t because of what you said, postal worker, but also because I think eventually this crap will all fail and then what will people who are depending on it do then?

  19. sheshe on Fri, 10th Oct 2008 2:08 pm

    20. WAKE UP PEOPLE. PRIVATIZING THE POSTAL SERVICE NOT ONLY ELIMINATES ALOT OR THE JOBS, AS WELL AS THE PAY. SO DON’T THINK FOR ONE MINUTE THAT YOU WILL RECEIVE THE SAME PAY WHEN PRIVATIZING TAKES PLACE.

  20. anyone on Fri, 10th Oct 2008 5:56 pm

    21. L334 Says:
    October 6th, 2008 at 7:38 am

    “Gee, how bout a little help from congress….how bout a little regulatory control on the private sector competition…” You guys make my case every day. We should put shackles on all the FedEx and UPS drivers. Make them stop and talk to their customers while delivering packages.

    “Dear Congress, we can’t compete because we have a monopoly on the mail. Because of the monopoly we never modernized, gave the unions everything they wanted and thought you would protect us from technology. We know we can always raise the price for our services as our customers can’t go anywhere else. But now that technology is making mail obsolete and UPS can run our collective asses off we need your help.”

  21. RANGER99 on Thu, 30th Oct 2008 3:31 pm

    22. I SERVED 12+ YEARS IN THE ARMY, AND ONLY ONE WITH USPS; I GUESS I’M SCREWED. WHEN YOU REALLY THINK ABOUT IT, WHOEVER IS ELECTED, ITS GOING TO TAKE THE ENTIRE FIRST TERM TO GET THE U.S. AS A WHOLE OUT OF THE MESS PRESIDENT BUSH, JR GOT US IN. NO ONE CAN REALLY SAY WHAT WOULD BE BEST FOR THE USPS, BUT WE, AS USPS EMPLOYEES, NEED TO KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK UP UNTIL OUR LAST DAYS-WHETHER WE RETIRE OR GET LAID-OFF.