OIG: USPS Fails to Justify 19 Types of ‘Worksharing’ Discounts for Big Mailers
In a report issued Dec. 23, 2010, the USPS Inspector General’s Office (OIG) echoed what the APWU has been saying for years: Worksharing discounts for large mailers mail are too high.
The OIG’s study (Report Number MS-AR-11-001 [PDF]) echoed the results of a March 2010 report by the Postal Regulatory Commission [PDF], which concluded that in many cases the Postal Service grants discounts to large mailers at a rate that exceeds the costs the USPS saves when it accepts pre-sorted mail.
The OIG found that the Postal Service’s “justifications for 19 workshare discounts that exceed avoided costs by approximately $104 million were not supported by detailed documentation.”
The OIG also concluded that the revenue loss may be even greater because “Postal Service cost avoidance models may not accurately reflect avoided costs for workshared mail.”
The APWU has long contended that the discounts are excessive and deprive the USPS of hundreds of millions of dollars in much-needed revenue. The union has also pointed out that excessive discounts violate the Postal Service’s obligation to provide “universal service at uniform rates” for all postal customers, and are illegal under the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which stipulates that postage discounts may not exceed “postal costs avoided.”
APWU President Cliff Guffey praised the report’s conclusion and called for an end to excessive discounts. “I am pleased that the USPS Inspector General has confirmed that many worksharing discounts fail to meet the standards established by federal law,” he said. “I am troubled, however, that the OIG has soft-pedaled its criticism of the methodology the Postal Service uses to determine cost avoided. The APWU has demonstrated time and again that the USPS can process mail in-house for a fraction of the cost at which discounts are set.”
“As we have said many times: Workshare discounts improperly reduce postage costs for big mailers at the expense of the USPS and undermine the Postal Service’s ability to serve citizens and small businesses in every American community.”
Noting that more than 80 percent of the mail the USPS delivered in FY 2008 received workshare discounts totaling $15 billion, Guffey called for more comprehensive analysis of the problem.
“The big mailers have an army of lawyers and lobbyists that pressure the USPS and the Postal Rate Commission to retain and expand these excessive discounts,” he said. “It’s time for the new Postmaster General to eliminate these giveaways.”
source: APWU News
Senator Susan Collins Introduces Postal Reform Bill
Filed under: mailers, postal, postal news, postal reform, press releases
United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Senator Susan M. Collins
For Immediate Release
December 2, 2010
BROAD COALITION SUPPORTS SENATOR COLLINS’ POSTAL REFORM LEGISLATION
Sen. Collins’ Bill Would Help USPS Adapt to Digital Age, regain better financial footing
Washington, DC – 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 2010” 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 changes to revitalize its business model, enabling it to attract and keep customers. This legislation would help spark new life into the Postal Service, helping it evolve and maintain its vital role in our nation’s economy. I appreciate the support of a number of groups including the National Newspaper Association, Affordable Mail Alliance, PostCom, and the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers in this reform effort. ”
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 $50 billion, as well as the $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.
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:
Affordable Mail Alliance
Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers
The Association of Magazine Media
Conde Nast Publications
National Association of Postmasters
National Newspaper Association
PostCom (Association of Postal Commerce)
PMG Potter Honored With Lifetime Membership In Mailers Group
Postmaster General Jack Potter is an official lifetime member of the Mailers’ Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC).
The group — which includes representatives of more than 100 commercial mailers and mailing associations — extended that honor to Potter at its quarterly meeting this week, as members recognized the PMG for his career-long support and dedication to the mailing industry. Potter will retire from USPS Dec. 3.
“Stay the course,” Potter told the group. “The mailing industry works very well as a team. If anything, we need to work together even more closely now than 20 years ago when I first attended an MTAC meeting.”
Potter said the Postal Service and mailers have strong successes to build upon. “Our strengths are our people,” he said. “People are the mainstay of our organization and people are the heart of the mailing industry. If we stay together as a group, I see much progress in the future.”
DPMG and COO Pat Donahoe, who will become PMG when Potter retires, also addressed the group, committing to mailers to continue to improve service — which in fiscal year 2010 reached record levels, despite declining mail volume.
“A major goal of mine is to make a better customer experience,” said Donahoe. “Dependability, reliability and service on the one hand, and positive customer experience on the other — those things together, along with increased visibility, give us real opportunity to grow the top line.”
Donahoe said the Postal Service will focus on becoming leaner, smarter and faster; realigning operations to match the steadily declining mail volumes predicted for the coming decade. He also outlined other business strategies for USPS going forward, including strengthening the business-to-consumer channel.
source: USPS
European Company Mails Fake Bags Of Blood In Its Direct Mail Campaign
A European company mails bags of fake blood to prospective clients to emphasize its unrelenting work ethic.
Some marketing agencies promise to give blood,sweat and tears to clients. But Touch Branding has been intent on backing up that claim with a branding effort — including an edgy mail campaign — built around a bold message: “We’ll give our blood for good branding.”
The Prague-based marketing firm has pushed the idea in dramatic fashion, mailing real blood bags filled with fake blood to potential clients throughout the region around the European metropolis.
Touch Branding creative director Martin Marušinec says the primary goal of the campaign, which launched in 2008 and continues today, is to introduce the firm as a branding agency to the creative directors of ad agencies in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The mailer includes a letter with a short introduction to the company and a link to its website, which resembles a blood bag.Touch procured the authentic blood bags from a company that had a surplus of bags that were past their expiration dates. The fake blood was created from a recipe that company executives found online.
“It was fully produced in-house,with the cost of around $1 per piece,”Marušinec says.
Marušinec says the promotion was devised as a mailer because the company was confident the piece would leave a lasting impact. “We felt that direct mail would work the best because once they unpacked the blood bags, there was no way they wouldn’t pay attention to the message we wanted to deliver,” he says.
The promotion’s positive response confirms that the campaign did just that. Marušinec says the agency has landed several medium- and large-scale branding projects through the targeted ad agencies. The campaign has also won several awards and received positive media attention worldwide, a bonus that Marušinec says gives his firm a long-term advantage over the competition.
Affordable Mail Alliance Reaches 1,000 Members
Washington, DC – The Affordable Mail Alliance – a growing coalition of non-profits, Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, major trade associations, consumer groups, and citizens representing the vast majority of the mail sent in the United States – today announced the addition of its one thousandth member group.
Formed in response to the US Postal Service’s July 6th announcement that it would seek to raise rates far beyond those currently allowed by law, the Affordable Mail Alliance has been steadily picking up new members since its inception. Growing from a handful of organizations, these members range from traditional powerhouses like the American Forest and Paper Association to non-profit organizations like the Disabled American Veterans to small local publications like Oklahoma’s Countywide News.
“We are proud of the alliance we have built-over a thousand groups, large and small, from around the country, who have joined together on this issue,”said Tony Conway, Affordable Mail Alliance Spokesperson and Executive Director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers.
The Alliance gained members following recent Postal Regulatory Commission hearings during which the Post Office admitted that it is not facing an immediate cash crisis, as it had previously claimed. The alleged crisis, which the Post Office said would require a severe price increase at ten times the rate currently permissible by law, was contradicted by their own leadership during the hearings. The Post Office now claims that the rate increase is needed to prevent a longer-term profit slowdown over the next decade.
The coalition comprising the Affordable Mail Alliance has argued that emergency provisions included in the postal laws do not apply to the Post Office’s current situation, and that USPS should seek to take more substantial steps within its own organization before raising prices for the millions of consumers the Alliance represents.
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), a key author of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, agreed that the proposed increase was unwarranted. In her official comments to the Postal Regulatory Commission, Senator Collins said that the law’s ‘extraordinary or exceptional circumstances’ test has not been met by the USPS, “the provision was not intended to be used under the current circumstances,”but rather in cases such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks. The Post Office’s “failure to sufficiently update its business model,”she said, was not sufficient for special consideration.
The one thousand groups that have now signed on to the Affordable Mail Alliance, based in all regions of the country, provide a picture of broad-based discontent with the Post Office’s proposal.
“There is a reason that a thousand non-profits, local newspapers, successful companies and small businesses from across the country have joined the Affordable Mail Alliance to say enough is enough. We’re tired of being asked to foot the bill for the USPS’s failure to control costs,”said Conway. “The Post Office’s proposed rate hike hurts mail customers and it’s just bad business.”
Pitney Bowes Offers New Tabletop, Dual-Head Tabber System for U.S. Mailers
Filed under: mailers, postal, postal news, press releases, usps
STAMFORD, Conn., August 23, 2010 – Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) today announced it is offering a new tabletop, dual-head tabber system for U.S. mailers. The Pitney Bowes W360 Multifunction Tabber System provides several tabbing applications and stamp affixing in one solution to help mailers meet the latest United States Postal Service (USPS) tabbing regulations and efficiently prepare letter-size self-mailers and booklets for delivery.
The USPS requires that letter-size self-mailers and booklets – mail not placed in an envelope – arrive at the Post Office properly sealed and tabbed to allow for smooth processing in sorting equipment. Mailers who take advantage of this can work towards qualifying for automation discounts. Self-mailers and booklets that do not comply with USPS standards for tabbing and sealing will be considered nonmachinable and assessed at higher postage prices.
The W360 Multifunction Tabber System can simultaneously apply up to 1.5″ adhesive tabs to the top and sides or opposite sides of the mail piece in a single pass, to help meet USPS regulations. The system can also apply up to three USPS stamps in a single pass for added flexibility.
“Self-mailers and booklets can be a highly effective way to connect with customers and prospects to help increase sales leads, quickly communicate offers, news and information, and build customer loyalty and retention,” said Debra Thompson, vice president, marketing, U.S. Mailing, Pitney Bowes Inc. “Our new W360 Multifunction Tabber System enables organizations to properly prepare letter-size self-mailers and booklets to help qualify for automation discounts, while offering increased productivity and flexibility to meet a variety of applications.”
The W360 Tabber System can apply up to 25,000 tabs per hour for single tabs and handles material up to 1/4″ thick for flexible material handling. An optional conveyor stacker equipped with an optical sensor communicates directly with the system to organize and collect output, and pauses when the stacker is full.
The Pitney Bowes W360 Multifunction Tabber System can tab a variety of documents and materials including newsletters, educational offerings and communications, pamphlets, letter-sized booklets, double postcards, wallet-sized booklets and promotional coupons. Tabs are available in a variety of sizes and can be clear, paper or translucent.
About Pitney Bowes:
Celebrating its 90th year of innovation, Pitney Bowes provides software, hardware and services that integrate physical and digital communications channels. Long known for making its customers more productive, Pitney Bowes is increasingly helping other companies grow their business. Pitney Bowes is a $5.6 billion company and employs 33,000 worldwide. Pitney Bowes: Every connection is a new opportunity™. www.pb.com
Mailers:Postal Employees Over Compensation Costs USPS And Public Needless $Billions Annually
Filed under: Benefits, mailers, postal, postal news, PRC, usps
“The Affordable Mail Alliance – a growing coalition of nearly 1,000 non-profits, Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, major trade associations, consumer groups, and citizens representing the vast majority of the mail sent in the United States – submitted further comments to the Postal Regulatory Commission yesterday. The comments focused on last week’s hearings at the Commission, where the Postal Service admitted that it is not facing an immediate cash crisis – the original rationale for demanding a rate increase ten times the rate of inflation.”
Excerpts:
The Postal Service’s August 2 Response and testimony on August 10-12 also confirm the Postal Service’s failure to show that it would face a cash crisis—or suffer any losses at all—if it adhered to “best practices of honest, efficient, and economical management.” 39 U.S.C. § 3622(d)(1)(E). The Alliance’s July 26 motion summarizes decades of official reports, from the 1968 Kappel Commission to the present, documenting the Postal Service’s inefficiencies and the uneconomic costs that result from them. Specifically:
• The Postal Service maintains an inefficiently large network of undersized and obsolete mail processing facilities. Motion at 21-25.
• The Postal Service has an oversized work force, inflexible work rules, and low productivity. Id. at 25-30.
• The total compensation of Postal Service employees—more than $80,000 per employee on average—is well above the amounts paid in the private sector for comparable work. According to the Postal Service’s own experts, this compensation premium is probably more than 30 percent. This inefficiency costs the Postal Service and the public $10 to 14 billion or more in needless costs annually. Id. at 30-34, 55-56.
The loss of mail volume to the Internet was not an unforeseeable surprise. The Postal Service had notice of this threat years before significant volume losses occurred. Id. at 35-39.
• The Postal Service’s failure to cope effectively with the 2008-2009 recession is further evidence of structural inefficiency. The average firm in the private sector saw its revenues collapse by nearly as much as the Postal Service; and many large firms saw their revenues collapse by 20 percent or more. Well-run private firms, including the Postal Service’s competitors, responded to the downturn with immediate headcount reductions and other aggressive and painful austerity measures that resulted in a return to profit relatively quickly, even while sales volume and revenue remained depressed. The Postal Service, by contrast, contented itself with a business-as-usual incremental approach to cost cutting that allowed productivity to plummet and unit costs to get further out of control. Id. at 39-55.5
• The Postal Service’s financial loss projections in this case assume no major improvements in cost control in the future. Id. at 55-57
The Postal Service has many cost-saving opportunities available to it that remain to be pursued seriously. Given the magnitude of the Postal Service’s inefficiencies, even a modest improvement could result in billions of dollars of additional savings annually. For example:
(1) The Postal Service makes much of the supposed legal obstacles to closing retail post offices. But the Postal Service cites no legal obstacles (including restrictive language in appropriations bills) to the closure of most Processing & Distribution Centers and other central mail processing facilities. Since 2005, however, the Postal Service has closed only 2 of its 270 P&DCs. “U.S. Postal Service: Strategies and Options to Facilitate Progress toward Financial Viability,” Report No. GAO-10-455 (April 2010) at 13-14, 31. Instead, the Postal Service boasts because it saved $68 million—only about 1/10 of one percent of total USPS revenues—from area mail processing consolidations (“AMPs”) in the past year. Tr. 1/60-61 (Corbett).
(2) A number of enterprises in the United States have asked their employees to reopen existing collective bargaining agreements in light of the recession. See Motion to Dismiss (Aug. 2, 2010) at 15, 45-46. Given the supposedly parlous state of the Postal Service’s finances, reopening of existing collection bargaining agreements with postal labor would be a logical step. During the August 10 hearing, however, USPS witness Corbett admitted that he was completely unaware of whether such relief would be sought. Tr. 1/100.
(3) Two of the Postal Service’s national collective bargaining agreements expire in November 2010 (with the American Postal Workers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association), and two more in November 2011 (with the National Association of Letter Carriers and National Postal Mail Handler Union). The expiration of these agreements presents a timely opportunity to negotiate reductions in head counts, greater freedom to employ layoffs and furloughs, and improved flexibility in work rules and employee utliization. Successful negotiations could narrow, or even eliminate entirely, the forecast 10-year shortfall.
(4) The expiration of the same collective bargaining agreements also presents a timely opportunity to deal with the more than $10 billion in above-market compensation that the Postal Service concedes it pays. The Postal Service, however, already appears to have taken the renegotiation of these compensation premiums off the table. Tr. 1/120-121 (Corbett). Instead, the Postal Service appears content simply to try to reduce its share of the total cost of the health benefit packages—from the current 81% down to 72%, the percentage paid by other federal agencies. Id. Even a full nine-point reduction would save the Postal Service only about $750 million per year. This is a small fraction of the $10 to $14 billion or more in excess costs that the Postal Service incurs each year because of the existing compensation premiums. Moreover, even these limited savings would occur with halting slowness: the Postal Service does not seek to increase the employee contribution by more than one percentage point per year. Tr. 1/121 (Corbett).
At that pace, even the $750 million savings target will not be reached until 2020.
(5) The Postal Service suggests that seeking relief in arbitration from inflexible hiring and work rules and above-market compensation premiums is useless because arbitrators tend simply to rubber-stamp the status quo. USPS Response at 31-33. But the Postal Service has not invoked its right under 39 U.S.C. § 1207 to arbitrate its major collective bargaining agreements in years, and certainly not since the beginning of the recent recession. It is premature to assume without exhausting the arbitration remedy that arbitrators today would ignore the supposedly “extraordinary” and “exceptional” economic developments since the last arbitration decisions, and the desperate financial straits the Postal Service says it now faces as a
result. This is particularly so given the number of economic concessions made by unionized employees of state and municipal government employees downturn. Motion to Dismiss (July 26, 2010) at 45-46; Brophy (Consumers Union) Impact Statement. At a minimum, best practices of “honest, efficient and economical management” certainly require that the Postal Service at least exhaust its administrative remedies under 39 U.S.C. § 1207 rather than throwing up its hands and shifting $3 billion in costs annually to mailers as the stakeholders of first resort.
(6) Finally, the Postal Service’s analysis of the legal implications of the “honest, efficient and economical” standard is as inaccurate and one-sided as the Postal Service’s discussion of the facts. The notion that the standard of “honest, efficient and economical management” requires the regulator to ignore inefficiencies that result from past decisions by the regulated company (USPS response at 23-25) is contrary to precedent and would have perverse consequences. It is well-established, for example, that the standard of
honest, efficient and economical management supports the disallowance of capital investment in long-lived assets as imprudent when made, even though the investment was the result of past decisions, and is now sunk and irrevocable. Missouri ex rel. Southwestern Bell Tel. Co. v. PSC, 262 U.S. 276 (1923); Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, 535 U.S. 467, 485-486 (2002). Indeed, the regulator may deny a regulated company a return on a sunk longlived investment that was prudent when made but “rendered useless by
unforeseen events.” Verizon, 535 U.S. at 484 n. 6 (citing Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U. S. 299, 311-312 (1989)).
In any event, a very large share of the Postal Service’s excess costs is neither fixed nor sunk. Inefficient Processing and Distribution Centers, for example, can be closed or consolidated in a relatively short period. Likewise, as previously discussed, the Postal Service’s major collective bargaining agreements are up for renegotiation when they expire this year or next, even if the Postal Service is unwilling to seek to reopen them during their term.8 as well as private sector employees—including the unionized employees of the Postal Service’s customers—since the beginning of the current economic downturn. Motion to Dismiss (July 26, 2010) at 45-46; Brophy (Consumers Union) Impact Statement. At a minimum, best practices of “honest, efficient and economical management” certainly require that the Postal Service at least exhaust its administrative remedies under 39 U.S.C. § 1207 rather than throwing up its hands and shifting $3 billion in costs annually to mailers as the stakeholders of first resort.
see full pdf file submitted to PRC
Printers Head to D.C. to Urge Block of Postal Rate Hikes
Filed under: mailers, postal, postal news, press releases, rate increase, usps
Press Release
Printing Industries of America’s members from across the country are gathering on Capitol Hill next month to oppose an emergency postal rate hike proposal that would dramatically bust caps on postal rate increases imposed by Congress in 2006.
The USPS is petitioning to raise rates higher than allowed by current law, claiming that the recession and continued move from mail to electronic communications mean the agency needs to charge higher rates to stay afloat. Printers are rejecting this proposal and will go directly to Congress to urge decision makers to follow.
The grassroots effort is part of Printing Industries of America’s Print’s Voice 2010 Conference taking place September 14–15 in Washington, DC. This legislative conference, free for members of Printing Industries of America, will focus on the 2010 elections and key legislative issues in the areas of environmental, labor, and tax policy. A special session on postal policy will feature a keynote from USPS executives, lawmakers overseeing postal reform policy in Congress, and a presentation of new industry data related to mailing and postal policy. Conference attendees will then take to Capitol Hill for lobbying visits with their senators and representatives.
“With the decision to raise postal rates looming, it’s more important than ever that printers stay educated on the politics that affect their business,” said Lisbeth Lyons, vice president of Government Affairs at Printing Industries of America. “Print’s Voice 2010 will equip printers with the resources necessary to have their voice heard in our government. Additionally, face-to-face meetings with Congress is a valuable step to increase the visibility of the printing and graphics communications industry among lawmakers and to urging policy positions that positively affect the printing industry.”
The conference is divided into three different segments:
The Politics
“Equal time” political preview and predictions by Democrat and Republican senators/representatives and political parties.
The Issues
Senators/representatives will provide an overview of hot-button election issues and predictions for how election results will impact future debate. Issues include: Estate tax, card check, health care reform, and Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
The Industry
The “Printers Vote” boot camp conducted by Lisbeth Lyons and her team will educate participants about three models of civic education and Get-Out-The-Vote programs.
For more information, visit www.printing.org/printsvoice. To register, contact Printing Industries of America at 202-730-7970 or govtaffairs@printing.org.
source: Printing Industries Of America
Mailers Group Says USPS Is Misleading Public on Its Finances
Filed under: mailers, postal, postal news, press releases, usps
Press Release
Affordable Mail Alliance Responds to USPS Earnings Report
Washington, DC – The Affordable Mail Alliance today responded to the United States Postal Services’ earning report. The report contends that the USPS will not have the capital to continue opeartions into FY 2011. This claim is false.
As the Postal Service said just a month ago in its rate filing, even after making this year’s Retiree Health Benefit payment, USPS will end FY 2010 with $1.3 billion cash. Further, on October 1, the first day of FY 2011, the USPS will have access to another $1.8 billion. In addition, a potential shortfall could be eliminated by waiving either the FY 2010 or FY 2011 Retiree Health Benefit payment of $5.5 billion.
“We’re saddened to see these dubious cliams by the Postal Service and would hope for a more constructive dialogue with customers instead of making misleading public statements,” Tony Conway, Affordable Mail Alliance Spokesperson and Executive Director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers.
“Unfortunately, the Postal Service seems to be attempting to justify their proposed rate hikes of ten times the rate of inflation – a move that would drive away more consumers and worsen the financial situation they’re highlighting in this report.”
PRC Is Taking Affordable Mail Alliance’s Request To Dismiss Rate Case Under Advisement
Filed under: mailers, postal, postal news, press releases, rate increase, usps
The Postal Regulatory Commission issued the following :
ORDER TAKING MOTION TO DISMISS UNDER ADVISEMENT
(Issued August 4, 2010)
On July 26, 2010, the Affordable Mail Alliance filed a motion to dismiss the Postal Service’s proposed rate adjustment.1 Answers to the Motion were filed on August 2,2010, by the Postal Service and several other companies and organizations.2 These filings make a number of factual allegations that require further exploration during the upcoming proceedings established by Order No. 485.3 Given the need for further investigation of these factual allegations and the absence of a deadline for action on the Motion, the Commission is taking the Motion under advisement and will rule on the Motion at an appropriate time.4
1 Motion of the Affordable Mail Alliance to Dismiss Request, July 26, 2010 (Motion). The Affordable Mail Alliance describes itself as “a coalition of large and small businesses, nonprofit organizations and associations of mailers that together account for a majority of the mail sent in the
United States.” Id. at 1.
2 Response of the United States Postal Service to Motion of the Affordable Mail Alliance to Dismiss Request (Postal Service Response); Response of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association to Affordable Mail Alliance’s Motion to Dismiss; Answer of the Saturation Mailers Coalition, Valassis Direct Mail, Inc., Valpak Direct Marketing Systems, Inc. and Valpak Dealers’ Association to Motion of the Affordable Mail Alliance to Dismiss Request; Public Representative Answer to Motion of the Affordable Mail Alliance to Dismiss Request; Response of Intervenor National Association of Letter Carriers, AFL-CIO to Motion to Dismiss of Affordable Mail Alliance, all filed August 2, 2010 (“Responses”).
It is Ordered:
The Motion of the Affordable Mail Alliance to Dismiss Request and the responses thereto are hereby taken under advisement.
By the Commission.
Ruth Ann Abrams
Acting Secretary
3 Notice and Order Concerning Rate Adjustment for Extraordinary or Exceptional Circumstances,July 8, 2010, at 6.
4 Neither the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, Pub..L. No. 109-435 (2006) nor the
Commission’s rules of practice impose a deadline for action on the Motion.Web Leveraged to Provide 24/7 Access and Enhance Training