Who Is Kidding Who On the Cost of Labor At USPS?

Who is Kidding Who?

( Mar 9, 2010) Lets get real.  For the past many months we have been hearing how the Postal Service is going down the toilet financially.  The people at USPS headquarters continue to put much of the blame on the cost of labor and the need to reduce expenses.  They brag about the numbers of employees who have left the service, either by retirement, resignation, or removal.  So, would it not be appropriate to look at employment figures and see who is taking the brunt of the decline in employees, and who might be speaking out of both sides of their collective mouths?

USPS Employee Statistics 2000-2009

2000            2009          %

USPS Headquarters (w/OIG)                         2943            3966          +34.76%

USPS Field Support (w/Ins. Service Field)     9756            7046          -27.77%

USPS Supervisory Totals                              64918           52484        -19.15%

USPS Craft Employee Totals                         708324         558693      -21.12%

Wow!  Even though total Postal Service employment has decreased by 164,775, the number of Headquarters bosses has gone up 1023!  That sure is leading by example.

These are the USPS statistics for that period, so it would be most difficult for the Big Boss to dispute the figures.  How can you need to increase your staff over 34% when you have decreased your working employees by almost 23%?  You go to Congress begging for financial relief (which we agree is needed), yet you cannot find a way to cut your own staff?

It is way past time for Congress to step in and order a complete, outside investigation into how the Postal Service is run – from the top down.  Someone must be held accountable for the discrepancies shown on this page.  WHY ISN’T THIS BLATANT OVERKILL OF HEADQUARTERS EMPLOYEES IMPORTANT?

source: Ohio State APWU

Operating Statistics – 1
USPS 2007 Annual Report – Operating Statistics
USPS 2008 Annual Report: Connecting People and Business
http://www.usps.com/financials/_pdf/annual_report_2009.pdf

24 thoughts on “Who Is Kidding Who On the Cost of Labor At USPS?

  1. I recently retired from the Postal Service but when I was still there, the only explanation I had for the stuff coming down was that the Postal Service was being sabotaged from within. That is how stupid and costly some of the actions by management were.
    Why would we sabotage ourselves? My suspicion is that many at the top (including some on the Board of Governors) would like to see the Postal Service fail so that privatization becomes a viable solution. My guess is that a privatized Postal Service would employ many in upper management at much larger private company salaries (including bonuses and stock options). Many, if not most workers would also be retained at much lower wages.
    All Congress has to do is ask one simple question. What do all these higher-level people do? We have the trucks and the buildings, and the PMG has already approved all the mailboxes, and the carriers and clerks and mail handlers are in place to do the work. So what are these people doing?

  2. I recently retired from the Postal Service but when I was still there, the only explanation I had for the stuff coming down was that the Postal Service was being sabotaged from within. That is how stupid and costly some of the actions by management were.
    Why would we sabotage ourselves? My suspicion is that many at the top (including some on the Board of Governors) would like to see the Postal Service so that privatization becomes a viable solution. My guess is that a privatized Postal Service would employ many in upper management at much larger private company salaries (including bonuses and stock options). Many, if not most workers would also be retained at much lower wages.
    All Congress has to do is ask one simple question. What do all these higher-level people do? We have the trucks and the buildings, and the PMG has already approved all the mailboxes, and the carriers and clerks and mail handlers are in place to do the work. So what are these people doing?

  3. The trouble with this information is your figures need to be supported with the proper data. Take my building for starters (the Detroit NDC) there are way too many supervisors in Maint. we have 1 manager, 3 Manger Mait. operations, 12 Supervisor Maint. operation, we have cut out staff as the following, 9 ET’s, stayed the same, 70 Mpe09 reduced to 34, 50 MM07’s reduced to 8, Cust no staffing package has been completed, However we are allowed 49 they are going to cut our staff to 37, most of the bread and butter of out staff has been cut 50% yet they still keep the same amout of management staff. Is that a sane way to run a bussiness??? What they are trying to do is get rid of all the regular employee’s and replace them with Flex, and casuals. They are attempting fulfill the own stupid prophecy by distroying the Postal Service regardless of how hard we work or make their stupid plans function. Ask your neighbors how their mail is getting to them. If you have a lair watching another lair How can the truth come out????

  4. Barack please read the comments and listen to the workers. remove Postmaster Potter before its to late. the people will vote you out if you cause the USPS to go under.

  5. Wow! Thats some good stuff, good information. These are the same Headquarter big wigs whom get paid hugh moving expenses, get their houses bought for above the going market price (as seen on National Media), receive hefty bonuses on our sweat and tears. We should all write our President Obama and ask him to can the man!

  6. I’m a 22 year carrier, we have too many supervisors at my station. I think carriers could run most stations by themselves. And use light duty to do the computer input. The supers don’t even do street supervision which is part of there duty right. Where the honest day pay they preach too us…..

  7. This table depicts nothing but raw changes in staffing.

    The size of labor forces do not matter. The cost of labor matters.

    Please provide a table enumerating the change in total compensation between the two time periods highlighted for all four subgroups presented.

    Also, please break the “Headquarters w/OIG” category into district components.

    All in all, this article is awfully simplistic and ignores fundamental measurements that are far more indicative of the burden, or lack thereof, labor is having on the variable costs of the Postal Service’s balance sheet.

  8. Let’s see now, the Postal Service has 39 Vice-Presidents (at last count), A manger to employee ratio of one manager to every eight employees ( private industry is one to twenty-five), and the headquaters staff has increased by over 30%. These are all people who do NOT touch the mail. United Parcel recently laid off 1800 managers and staff .
    Former Postmaster General Marvin Runyan said when he took over the job that ” anyone that doesn’t touch the mail is overhead; yet Postmaster General Potter has managed to increase the overhead while insisting that the labor force must be cut. Does any other business operate this way ? Is it any winder that the Postal Service is in financial trouble.
    TRhe Postal Service needs a managerial redirection and a change in managerial philosophy.

  9. Yeah, well, that’s the flying ointment. Even still, I say let ‘im have it. Life’s too short

  10. Soo, Reality. Exactly what are those figures you are referring to? If the districts have gotten rid of positions that are now HQ…tell us the figures. Oh, and I have been dying to know how the VP of Sustainability has been doing……dumbest excuse for a job position I have ever heard!

  11. USPS HQ gets paid for many things at the cost of the average Postal worker and the CBA. It is contract renewal time and HQ has been setting the stage to ask for give backs …….while HQ employees get all the perks!
    Congress needs to tell them no more bonus; no more hiring at HQ; in fact, they need to reduce the HQ staff; no more paid relocations on the USPS dollar, etc.
    However, with the way Congress does things to benefit themselves and have not stopped the bonuses of the companies that got bail out money…..you know they will not stop the out of control HQ USPS management.
    However, when Congress wants more money they seem to find a way to take it. Rather than give it.

  12. I believe J Porter (post master general) should be fire just like other (C E O ) of those company that president Obama show them the double door.
    I will call my congressman and let him know how corrupt the management of the postal service there are in the Head-Quater. All those people does not do anything but sit in an aircondition office and earn a huge pay check out of the hard-working men and women on the field, who does sweat delivering the mail and sorting the mail.some of those headquaters employee never deliver or sort mail in their entire life as a postal worker but when they talk they sound like they know everything about the service.
    May God bless the postal Carriers and thier families as well as mail handlers and their families thank you.

  13. Post Master General Potter is going to make Berrie Maddoff and the Wall Street gang look like petty criminals.

    Who has ever heard of the head of a government agency (on or off budget) make more than the President and Vice President of the United States?

    How much did the Postal Service pay these HQ Bosses in bonuses last year?

    Bonuses based on operational goals that have nothing to do with the mail getting to the customers. The “new three shell monty” and the Congress is buying it quicker than they did the WMDs in Iraq…….

  14. there have a bunch of jobs posted for HQ,all high paying. Only people that don’t work for the post office can apply for them.
    Does anyone know how many houses the USPS owns from people moving from one job to another.
    What ever happened with the investigation of Potters loans with Country wide?

  15. I agree that this POT master needs needs to go. I will call my congressman immediately. There is strength in numbers if we all call.

  16. One can make numbers say what they want them to say, and this is a perfect case of that. The number of HQ employees has grown because over the years a number of District and Area positions have been abolished and reestablished as HQ positions. No change of domicile, only a change in reporting relationship. Marketing, Transportation, Injury Comp, Labor, Environmental are some of the former Area and District jobs are now HQ positions. There may have been some growth at HQ, primarily in VP’s, but it is not as significant as these numbers were used to misinform the reader.

  17. Call your senators and representatives and Obama demand them to to fire ali Potter and his thieves!!!

  18. its about time these figures have been exposed. now the big question is what will happen??? to date..nothing.. as usual..they never hurt themselves.. ever.. i am 31 year clerk with 14 months to go. thank god.. i agree. i feel bad for those with 10 plus years left..
    i have seen alot in my 30 plus years.. how about 4 supv fired then brought back and one is now a postmaster!!! yep. .thats the way they do things..
    they screw up they just move them to a different office and in many cases give them a promotion…
    in the meantime craft employees are asked to do more with less…way of the united states these days.. as we supposedly come out of this recession will people country wide get their jobs back???no.. if they do will they make less money??? yes… why?? so corp america can steal more of our money.. feel bad for the younger workforce today..

  19. We continue to add addresses to deliver to monthly and they want to reduce carriers and add to routes to make them longer. Yet “postal management” continues to grow? Pretty soon we’ll have a supervisor or manager for every carrier – the more to take us to the office for an investigative interview or disciplinary action. Am so close to being able to retire – I can’t even imagine being a PTF w/ less than 5 years in. I would run away fast!!!

  20. The real question here would be just what are those people even doing at headquarters??
    as with many of the people in postal managment they dont do anything to move the mail they drive around and bother those of us who are working ,they walk in the office like they are gods and we all have to stop working to stand around and listen to them tell us how bad things are and how we need to do whatever we can to help the postal service??well i always ask them one question and i guess thats why i,m not liked very much (ha ) but my question is always what have you mailed today?? did you buy stamps this month ? and do you get magazines thru the mail ? do you pay your bills online? by then they usually just kind of wander off >> i would like to know how many stamps potter buys every month i know its not alot but i purposly have vowed to use at least one book a month think if every employee did that?

  21. POTTER HAS A PLAN AND NEEDS THE BIG LOSSES TO IMPLEMENT HIS PLAN. HE WAS RIGHT WHEN HE SAID HE HAS NO VISION, THE OLD PLAN ISNT WORKING. HE COMPARED THE POSTAL SERVICE TO GENERAL MOTORS. GM ELIMINATED THEIR LEADER, IT IS TIME THE POSTAL SERVICE DID THE SAME.

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