Senator Collins’ Bill Would Help USPS Adapt to Digital Age, regain financial footing
Press Release from the Office Of Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine)
BROAD COALITION SUPPORTS SENATOR COLLINS’ POSTAL REFORM LEGISLATION
February 15, 2011
Senator Susan Collins, Ranking Member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, today introduced legislation to help the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) regain its financial footing as it adapts to the era of increasingly digital communications. The “U.S. Postal Service Improvements Act of 2011” would help the USPS achieve financial stability and future cost savings without undermining customer service.
“The Postal Service is at a crossroads,” said Senator Collins. “It must embrace fundamental change. The Postal Service must take actions to reduce overhead costs, curb no-bid purchasing, bring workforce benefit structure into line, and better serve customers to expand volume. My legislation would help spark new life into the Postal Service as it evolves and maintains its vital role in our nation’s economy. I am grateful for the support of so many stakeholders for my bill, and I look forward to working with them and my colleagues as the legislation progresses.”
The Postal Service is the linchpin of a $1 trillion mailing industry that employs approximately 7.5 million Americans in fields as diverse as direct mail, printing, catalog production, paper manufacturing, and financial services.
The financial state of the Postal Service is a concern due to a number of factors – some out of the control of the USPS and others a result of its own management. The recession, high operating costs, and the increased use of digital communications have challenged the Postal Service’s ability to remain financially viable. The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion during the past fiscal year. In addition, many of the recent proposals of the USPS to save money could have the effect of further driving away its customer base, the opposite of what the USPS should be doing to attract and maintain customers
Senator Collins’ bill would fix the overpayment by the Postal Service to the Civil Service Retirement System, estimated to be more than $50 billion, as well as the approximately $3 billion it has overpaid into the Federal Employees Retirement System. This legislation would direct the Office of Personnel Management to correct the methodology for calculating Postal Service obligations to these pension funds and would greatly improve USPS’s financial condition.
“The bill would set in motion a process that would definitively and equitably correct the actuarial errors, and overcome the administrative roadblocks, that have burdened the Postal Service and its customers with unfairly high pension-related costs,” said James R. Cregan of the Affordable Mail Alliance. “These provisions, if enacted, would go far toward ensuring the future viability and affordability of the national postal system upon which we all depend.”
The legislation also would improve the Postal Service’s contracting practices, and help prevent the kind of problems recently uncovered by the Postal Service Inspector General, which include contract mismanagement, ethical lapses, and financial waste.
“I am also concerned that the federal and postal workers’ compensation program has morphed into a higher-paying alternative to federal and postal retirement,” said Senator Collins. “From July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010, the Department of Labor paid approximately $2.78 billion to employees on workers’ compensation, including about $1.1 billion to U.S. Postal Service employees. This program must be reformed.”
Senator Collins is proposing several provisions that would enhance efficiency and reduce costs including one to lessen workforce-related costs by converting employees on long-term workers’ compensation to retirement when they reach retirement age. This is a common-sense change that would significantly reduce expenses that the Postal Service cannot afford to sustain.
“I want the Postal Service to survive and thrive,” concluded Senator Collins. “This valuable and viable American institution with roots in our Constitution must be put back on steady course.”
A list of supporting organizations follows:
• Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers
• American Catalog Mailers Association
• Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service
• Greeting Card Association
• Magazine Publishers Association (MPA)
• National League of Postmasters
• National Newspaper Association
• National Postal Policy Council
• PostCom (Association for Postal Commerce)
Take it from a letter carrier. Congress owes us 70 billion dollars! With a B. Post masters, supervisors & the people that direct them are all trying to seem needed. They are not. It is no coincidence that we are the most injured people while on duty.Pay us what you owe, get rid of the top heavy so called managers and let the real workers do their job & the Postal Servidce will be viable for at least 30 yrs ahead!
According to The federal Times, the PO has one supervisor for every 5.5 employees, an obscene ratio. If they eliminate 65,000 more jobs, none will be in management. They eliminate the supervisor’s position but not the person and he or she becomes unassigned…but still working. Looks like they want a 4.5 to one ratio!
I’m burning mine up, doorknob. Too bad I don’t care what you think. hahaha
FMLA is a get out of jail free card to many who just don’t want to come to work.
They take off whenever they like for so called medical issues …..which in turn puts more work on their co-workers.
I don’t have a problem with people who are really ill taking SL but the way FMLA is set up you can have and individual out more than their at work in a year.
congress intends to end universal service shut down rural post offices, and rural delivery, because its not profitable, then sell the remaining assests to private industry. destroying the postal service to provide funding for earmarks projects,for these power mad, greedy , out of control members of congress. next they will sell off parks services assets to pay for more out of control earmark projects. where does it end?
Let me see if I understand this correctly,
First, Sen Collins sponsors legislation in 2006 that forces the Postal Service to pay $5.5 billion a year of completely unnecessary charges.
Second. When it was discovered TWO YEARS AGO, in two seperate audits that the Postal Service has been overcharged by the Treasury for about 40 YEARS, refuses to act to correct THEIR mistakes blaming the Postal Service for losing money.
This is a classic example of governmental “boondoggle”. Also referred to by the congressional boys and girls as fix it until it breaks. Now, Congress prepares to change the best agency the government has and punish the small towns ( not many voters there, eh? )by taking away their post offices, delay the mail and lose jobs by closing local area processing plants, and NOT return the monies that Congress illegally took from the Postal Service that would keep it solvent for 20 years.
What say we, the alleged voters, fire Congress for malfeasance ? We, the taxpayers and citizens certainly deserve better.
pofatman,
You are a fucking stupid ass dumb fuck. Shut your fat ass up because you are making a fool out of yourself…AGAIN!
“pofatman” don’t work here….if he did, he would not write stuff that isn’t true…employees USE THEIR OWN LEAVE, sick or annueal, it’s THEIR LEAVE TO USE.
“writing people up when they are abusing the system” is so far off the wall that it’s funny……WHAT ABUSE??
FMLA has it’s rules that are based on Federal LAW, not a NEGOTIATED BENEFIT as the result of a UNION CONTRACT.
“pofatman” is just that…. a POOR FAT EXCUSE for a human being…errrr….that means HE MUST BE A MANAGER OF SOME SORT….maybe a MOTOR VEHICLE MANAGER PERHAPS….or one of those ‘OUTSIDE HIRES’ that the USPS sneeks in the door….you know, “a friend of friend” that needs a job until they find something better in the “MAILING INDUSTRY WHORE HOUSE”.
Hey fatman get off your fat
ass and understand the law. Sooner or later if you abuse to much of anything it will come back to bite you. If dummies keep doing stupid shit sooner or later their luck will run out. Leave the doughnuts alone fatass.
FMLA law is 12 weeks unpaid leave but the idiots at the po and unions got together and made this bastard child so its screw your co workers and take off all the time you want. IF there was no pay for FMLA it would not be abused as much. some of my high paid coworkers would continue to rape the system
Eliminate the Postmaster positions where there are less than 10 post offices in a city. Put the next highest manager in that position and eliminate a 100k employee. Give them early retirement or rifs.
Fatman. Paid FMLA? FMLA is paid with the sick leave and annual leave the employees have acrued. Just to let you know.
well the first thing they can do is get rid of the paid family leave (FMLA) that system is so abused its un believeable also supervisors/managers dont do their jobs of writing people up when they are abusing the system
If you really want to fix the postal service,ask the employess what to do.They get all the information they think need from the customers and the supervisors but not the hourly employess.Why not.
in order for the Postal Service to survive it has to meet its delivery and processing with more advanced technology to process mail. The network will continue to shrink but some of the plants need a complete overhaul. Customer service needs a better focus and equipment to handle service to the customers more efficiently.
Man, you are bitter!
Band-aids from people who know everything about nothing!!!! Senator, sit back and watch the dam cave in. Major problems require major changes. Walk a few miles in our shoes, observe the handcuffs, see the problem from the inside perspective, then write your bill!!!