PostalReporter News Blog

Businesses and Non-profits cannot afford to Pay for the Postal Service’s Excessive Costs

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 – filed comments urging the Postal Regulatory Commission to help rein in the USPS’s excessive costs by denying the proposed rate hike.

“The Post Office needs to reevaluate their approach,” said Jerry Cerasale, Affordable Mail Alliance Spokesperson and Senior Vice President of the Direct Marketing Association. “Instead of trying to keep things afloat with a giant tax on consumers, the USPS should focus on improving management and controlling costs to get out of this mess. To do otherwise is just bad business.”

This is the Alliance’s final legal step before the PRC announces their decision on October 4.

The comments also highlight the Postal Service’s flip-flop on the cause for their request. The USPS previously claimed that such a severe rate increase was needed to alleviate an immediate and unforeseen cash crisis. But at the public hearing held on August 10, a top official admitted that the “crisis” would not prevent them from operating in their current fashion for at least the next year. The Postal Service now claims that the rate increase is needed to prevent a longer-term profit slowdown over the next decade.

“Our comments make the same case that businesses and working families are making all over the country,” said Cerasale. “The Postal Service’s proposed rate hike is unreasonable, unhelpful, and unlawful, and the more than one thousand members of the Alliance are not going to let the Postal Service take advantage of its customers.”

The comments reiterate what the Alliance has argued all along – that the Postal Service has failed to show that it would suffer from its projected losses if it followed “best practices of honest, efficient and economical management,” and has failed to meet the “extraordinary or exceptional” circumstance test of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. The increase thus should be rejected, especially at this time of economic uncertainty for America.

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), a key author of the 2006 law, has supported the Alliance’s position. In her statement following the Postal Regulatory Commission hearings, Senator Collins said that the law being cited by the Post Office was intended for use in circumstances 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.

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 grew from a small group of concerned USPS customers to a membership of over a thousand in less than two months. The Alliance has been gaining momentum in the wake of recent Postal Regulatory Commission Hearings, and this most recent action provides a strong argument to the PRC in advance of its coming decision on the issue.

Related link:  Affordable Mail Alliance Document Submitted to PRC

September 2, 2010

(HOUSTON) – Linda Taylor, 50, of Coldspring, Texas, has been arrested as a result of the return of a one-count indictment charging her with theft of U.S. Mail, United States Attorney Jose Angel Moreno announced today. 

Indicted by a Houston grand jury on Aug. 19, 2010, Taylor surrendered to agents with the United States Postal Service – Office of Inspector General (USPS-OIG) today. Following a hearing before United States Magistrate Judge John Froeschner, Taylor has been ordered released on a $5,000 bond.

The indictment  arose from an investigation conducted by USPS-OIG special agents into a complaint by a Coldspring resident residing along a route serviced by Taylor that an item she had placed as outgoing mail in her curbside mailbox for retrieval by aletter carrier had never been deliveredto the intended recipients. 

Taylor began her employment as a contractor for the USPS in May 2008. If convicted, Taylor faces a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment and/or a $250,000 fine.

The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Tammie Y. Moore.   

An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence.
A defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law.

source: United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas

San Rafael residents and businesses say recent postal route changes have severed years-long relationships with their letter carriers and resulted in unreliable mail delivery.

On Aug. 14, the U.S. Postal Service eliminated five of San Rafael’s 75 postal routes and changed about half of the remaining routes, said James Wigdel, a postal service spokesman. No carriers lost their jobs.

For a few years, the postal service has been changing routes nationwide for cost savings and efficiency, officials said. In addition to the recent San Rafael changes, several of Novato’s approximately 60 routes were adjusted at the end of July, and managers eliminated two of Mill Valley’s 34 routes, Wigdel said.

Two weeks after the changes took effect in San Rafael, carriers and customers were still reeling.

Full story

In written testimony to PRC regarding USPS’ request for five-day delivery,  Michael Crew on behalf of  NALC wrote:

Ending Saturday delivery will cause mail volume to drop, will likely produce unanticipated transition costs and could threaten the long-term viability of the Postal Service. Moreover, once Saturday delivery is eliminated, it will likely be irreversible. Rather than abandoning a valuable part of its enterprise, and cutting service to its customers, the Postal Service should seek other means to address its financial challenges, including by focusing on making its services more accessible and attractive to its customers.

I conclude that implementation of the proposal may cause a far more significant drop in mail volume than the Postal Service projects and that such a drop in volume could erase a substantial amount of the savings that the Postal Service hopes to realize by ending Saturday delivery. In addition, I conclude that implementation of the proposal may cause the Postal Service to incur larger than anticipated transition costs, further eroding the potential savings that its proposal is designed to produce.

More importantly, by ending Saturday delivery, the Postal Service would be abandoning a valuable part of its enterprise, giving existing or future private-sector competitors the opportunity to fill the gap in service. By allowing others to take part of its business, the Postal Service’s plan to implement five-day delivery could aggravate, rather than ameliorate, the Postal Service’s financial condition and in the long-run could threaten the Postal Service’s viability.

Rather than take a step in the wrong direction — a step which in practical terms would likely be irreversible — I believe the Postal Service should consider other means to address its financial challenges. In particular, it is my opinion that rather than cutting services, the Postal Service should make its services more accessible and attractive to its customers.

Read full document submitted to Postal Regulatory Commission

National Association of Postmasters of the United States (NAPUS) submits the following comments in support of the Postal Service’s July 6 request of the Postal Regulatory Commission to approve a rate adjustment due to “extraordinary or exceptional circumstances:

It would be shameful if those who argue for furloughs would have the unintended consequence of advocating against our veterans.

Since enactment of PL 109-435, global and domestic economic conditions have deteriorated sharply. In fact, 2005 was the last year in which the United States Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) exceeded 3%. While the normal business cycle experiences economic waxing and waning, the ongoing financial turmoil is quite different. As of yet,
our country is still languishing in a unrelenting recession. In fact, over the past three years, the Congress and two successive Administrations felt the necessity to take drastic
steps, attempting to stabilize the economy. As illustrated by falling mail volume and revenue decline, the Postal Service is not immunized from these dire economic
circumstances. Furthermore, the statute does not state that the circumstances must be unique to the Postal Service to prompt an exigent rate case.

A number of intervenors have commented that the private-sector institutions were able to ride out the recession through retrenchment, radical structural and pruning labor costs.
For the most part, these private-sector profit-maximizing strategies are unavailable or improper in a governmental public service agency. The Postal mission is to maximize
service to the American public. Moreover, the Postal Service must comply with a series of statutes and regulations (e.g., veterans’ preference, pre-funding retiree health benefits,
fully funding retirement benefits, and the universal service obligation); those who urge the Postal Service to freeze, furlough and fire are exempt from these requirements.
A number of intervenors and commenters have suggested that the Commission should reject the Postal Service’s request, since the federal agency has not exercised such cost-cutting strategies as freeze, furlough and fire. Those who have associated with these views have a total disregard for the impact on the service provided to the American
public, the affect on the postal workforce, and the long-term implications for the future of the Postal Service’s universal service obligation.

The intervenors seem to overlook the huge decline in postal employment over the past decade. The agency has shed more than 164,000 positions and this represents an almost
21% decline since fiscal year 2000. The Commission should recognize that “Reductions-in-Force”, within the federal government, are subject to various statutes, which among
other safeguards, protecting former members of the U.S. Armed Forces. It would be shameful if those who argue for furloughs would have the unintended consequence of
advocating against our veterans.

Unlike private sector companies that have undergone recession-necessitated retrenchments and initiated sizeable layoffs, the Postal Service provides a vital and
constitutionally mandated public service. Moreover, profit-driven entities, by their very nature, may be dismissive of the public-service aspect of their mission, if they have one at all. For the Postal Service, however, public service is its raison d’être; and, any action that undermines its core mission needs to be considered unfavorably.

NAPUS is concerned that the recently announced hiring freeze is undermining the capability of front-line postal managers and their employees to deliver quality services to
the mailing public. This compounds a major problem that is being experienced throughout the country, a concerted strategy to close statutorily protected Post Offices
through the abuse of the Post Office suspension process. (Last year, the Commission initiated an investigation of this abuse – PI2010-1.) In response to POIR-4, in the present
docket, the Postal Service disclosed that, beginning in fiscal year 2010, the agency estimates that 3,248 Post Offices will be without a Postmaster; the number of Postmaster
vacancies almost doubled over the past year. Additionally, in fiscal year 2010, 12% of all Post Offices would be without a Postmaster and foreshadows Postal efforts to suspend
(aka to close) those Post Offices.

Commission denial of the requested rate adjustment, in NAPUS’ view, would compel the Postal Service to wield its cost-cutting axe against service provided to American citizens,
small businesses and rural America. These are the prime constituency for which the universal service obligation was established.

NAPUS suggests that the Commission consider degradation of postal service standards (e.g., delivery standards, postal window hours, customer service, etc.) in its assessment of
the exigent rate request. To do otherwise, would force the Postal Service into noncompliance, which would only come to light when the Commission issues its ACR for
2011.

NAPUS urges the Commission to approve the Postal Service rate increase, which is necessitated by “extraordinary and exceptional circumstances.” We believe that the
current economic conditions are of such magnitude that the request is justified and that the Postal Service has striven to reduce costs, including cuts that Postmasters continue to
believe are harmful to customer service. Rejection of the Postal Service request will result in a cascade of service reductions that will utterly destroy our Postal Service.

read full document submitted to Postal Regulatory Commission

USPS has created a new management and leadership structure for maintenance operations at the district level. This structure provides a more centralized approach to managing key aspects of the plant and equipment maintenance function. Now, lead plants will become the focal points for maintenance operations. The restructuring will increase effectiveness and efficiency and also improve oversight and coordination of maintenance performance. Notification to potentially affected employees starts today. More information soon will be posted on the Organization Change Management website.

source: USPS

The next round of talks is set for Sept. 8. For updates, visit the union’s Web site, at www.apwu.org.

The nationwide effort to consolidate stations and branches is NOT over.

156 Stations and Branches Remain Under Review For Possible Consolidation Under the Stations and Branches Optimization and Consolidation Initiative as of March 2010. 144  Stations and Branches were reported by USPS in February 2010.  

PostalReporter note:
Top five states with facilities on possible consolidation list:
Ohio – 25
California -19
Florida- 14
Pennsylvania – 11
New York – 11

“Both federal law and postal policies prescribe a Post Office discontinuance process. In contrast, the Postal Service uses an expedited process to close stations and branches, which is not specifically covered by statute. Absent future legislative changes, the two discontinuance processes are warranted to promote a flexible, agile Postal Service to adapt to changing mailing preferences and to increase the opportunity to consolidate redundant retail facilities.”
 
“While the Postal Service developed an expedited process for closing stations and branches, it is primarily subjective and qualitative in nature. Management stated they are developing a decision tree-based retail discontinuance model to mitigate the inconsistency and subjectivity identified in our review. The project is currently in the design phase. Management plans to complete and deploy this model in FY 2011.”

OIG Audit Report – Stations and Branches Optimization and Consolidation Initiative (excerpts)

This report presents the results of our review of the U.S. Postal Service’s efforts to optimize the retail network (Project Number 10XG021EN000). Our objective was to
assess the Stations and Branches Optimization and Consolidation (SBOC) Initiative for discontinuance of classified stations and branches.1 This self-initiated audit addresses strategic, financial, and operational risks. This is the first in a series of retail optimization reviews. See Appendix A for additional information about this audit.

The Postal Service’s current retail network of approximately 32,000 facilities reflects a time when practically all retail revenue was generated through window transactions at
“brick and mortar” Postal Service facilities, mail volume was robust, and there was less alternate access to postal services. Congress recognized in the Postal Accountability
and Enhancement Act of 20062 that the Postal Service has more facilities than it needs and strongly encouraged streamlining the network. These factors, combined with its
current financial challenges, have made it incumbent upon the Postal Service to review the number and location of stations and branches to determine whether or not there is
excess capacity in the network.

While a station or branch is similar in many ways to a PO, there are some meaningful differences, particularly from the Postal Service’s perspective and administrative
standpoint. POs are established and maintained at locations to ensure that complete postal services are available to all customers within specified boundaries of named
geographic places. Stations and branches are subordinate units within the service area of POs. Operations at stations and branches are directed by each facility’s supervising
PO.

The SBOC Initiative is a viable option for the Postal Service to reduce costs in the retail network, but opportunities exist to improve the process. The Postal Service could have
enhanced the planning and management of the initiative by improving communication and coordination with stakeholders3 and developing accurate and reliable data on its
facilities. In addition, the Postal Service needs to raise stakeholders’ confidence that it will make decisions in a transparent, equitable, and fact-based manner by integrating a
strategic approach (top-down) and establishing clear criteria for evaluating discontinuance decisions.

The Postal Service has not posted a status update on the SBOC Initiative on its external website (usps.com) since February 2010. Postal Service Headquarters (HQ) did provide
an updated list (dated March 2010) showing that 156 facilities remained under consideration for discontinuance. Based on our fieldwork, we determined that district
offices forwarded 144 proposals6 recommending discontinuance of operations to HQ. However, management has made no decisions regarding which, if any, of these
facilities it will close through the time of our report. Management stated other initiatives, including 5-day delivery,7 have taken priority over the SBOC Initiative. As a result, the Postal Service spends about $425,000 per month to maintain operations at 28 of the 144 facilities we randomly selected for review. The Postal Service could realize cost
savings of over $1.7 million in fiscal year (FY) 2010 if they approve discontinuance of operations for the 28 facilities after HQ Retail Operations has completed its predecisional
review of the proposals.

Postal Service Actions – Management stated they are developing a decision tree-based retail discontinuance model to mitigate the inconsistency and subjectivity identified in
our review. The project is currently in the design phase. Management plans to complete and deploy this model in FY 2011.

Management added that they have initiated, in coordination with the Continuous Improvement Office, a Lean Six Sigma8 (LSS) study of the discontinuance process for
POs and other retail facilities. The project scope, milestones, and completion date had not been established at the time of our report.

Station and Branch Discontinuance Process Issues

While the station and branch discontinuance process was developed to provide the Postal Service with greater flexibility to aid in decision-making, postal policies do not
contain detailed procedures to ensure the process is fairly and consistently applied. This is partially because the SBOC Initiative was a unique project the Postal Service
implemented quickly. Management used PowerPoint presentations to document, communicate, and train its employees on the SBOC Initiative discontinuance process. Appendix F provides a timeline showing the SBOC Initiative from concept development to current status. Appendix G provides a flowchart of the SBOC Initiative discontinuance
process.

While presentations provide a swift means to communicate changes and updates to the existing process, we believe they should not be a substitute for formal policies and
procedures. On April 6, 2010, during an interview with the OIG, the former program manager for the Post Office Discontinuance Program acknowledged that Handbook PO-
101 should have step-by-step instructions. During other interviews, field managers expressed a need for detailed discontinuance instructions.

Resistance to Retail Network Changes
The Postal Service faces strong resistance to closing and consolidating retail facilities from local communities, employees, and lawmakers. While alternate access channels
are more widely available, some customers resist changing long-standing habits. Management needs to improve communication strategies and work with stakeholders to
overcome resistance. These strategies should include adding an alternate retail access channel expansion plan and educating stakeholders on the availability of these
convenient services. The Postal Service must explain its plans and decisions to stakeholders in an open, transparent, and timely manner

The Post Office Discontinuance Tracking System (PODTS) tracked PO and other retail unit discontinuance. However, management stated in the September 30, 2009 Official Transcript of Proceeding Before the PRC that the data in the system was inaccurate. Based on PODTS data, management reported to the PRC that they closed a total of 96 stations and branches between FYs 2005 and 2008. Management later found a number of data entry errors in PODTS, including misidentification of facilities. Subsequently, management filed a
correction and revised the number of closures from 96 to 21 for the same period.

APPENDIX C: MONETARY IMPACT
The OIG identified $2,773,043 in funds put to better use17 related to untimely discontinuance decisions and missed opportunity to reduce lease costs. The Postal
Service spends about $425,000 per month to maintain operations at 28 facilities we randomly selected for review. District management forwarded proposals recommending
discontinuance of operations for these 28 facilities to HQ. Although HQ Retail Operations completed pre-decisional reviews of the 28 proposals in February 2010, no
final agency decisions have been made through the time of our report due to other priorities. We estimated the Postal Service could realize cost savings of over $1.7
million from March 1 to September 30, 2010, if they approved discontinuance of operations for the 28 facilities after completing pre-decisional reviews18 (see Table 5).

In addition, the amount the Postal Service could save should it terminate leases at the Atlanta Civic Center, Tower Grove, and Southwest Stations is $1,055,320.19 District
management removed these stations from discontinuance consideration and cited “no termination clause” as the only non-feasible justification. However, the OIG review
found that lease agreements for these stations contain termination clauses that provide the Postal Service the option to terminate the leases with proper written notice. We
estimated the present value using October 1, 2010, as the start date to begin the termination notice period for each facility (see Table 6).

Read full report from the Office Of USPS Inspector General

The U.S. Postal Service faces roughly $8,000 in proposed fines after an Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation in June found several “serious” safety violations at the Henry Street postal facility, according to the OSHA report.

The report states:
* Exit routes were not free and unobstructed but blocked by wire cages, a pallet tilt machine and other materials and/or equipment.

* Sufficient access and working space in front of some circuit breaker panels were not provided to permit ready and safe operation and maintenance of the equipment.

* Employees performing troubleshooting on or near live energized circuits were not provided with proper protective equipment.

full story: PressConnects.com

REPLY OF INTERVENOR NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF LETTER CARRIERS, AFL-CIO
TO COMMENTS OF AFFORDABLE MAIL ALLIANCE AND SENATOR COLLINS

The AMA argues that the price-cap regulatory system established by the Postal
Accountability and Enhancement Act (“PAEA”) will be “dead” if the Commission interprets the
exigency clause in 39 U.S.C. §3622(d)(1)(E) to apply to the circumstances currently facing the
United States Postal Service (“USPS”). See AMA Comment at 5. Senator Collins echoes that
position, asserting “unequivocally” that the PAEA “does not provide for an exigent rate case”
under the circumstances set forth in USPS’s request.

These comments misconstrue Congress’ intent when it allowed USPS to seek an
exigent rate increase under “extraordinary or exceptional circumstances.” 39 U.S.C.
§3622(d)(1)(E).

Although she now opposes USPS’s exigent rate request, Senator Collins, in an April 6, 2007 letter to the Commission that she co-authored with Senator Carper (see Collins Comment, at Attachment 1), explained that Congress meant the PAEA’s exigency exception to apply to “significant and substantial” declines in mail volume caused by events beyond USPS’s control:

the “extraordinary and exceptional circumstances” referenced in
the language may include terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and
other events that may cause significant and substantial declines in
mail volume or increases in operating costs that the Postal Service
cannot reasonably be expected to adjust to in the normal course of
business.

The letter cited “terrorist attacks” as an example of an event whose impact on
mail volume could qualify under the statute as an exigent circumstance. See id. In her comment,
Senator Collins now explicitly embraces the idea that “the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, or the anthrax attacks later that year could serve as the basis for an exigent rate case.”
Collins Comment at 3; see also id. at Attachment 4, at 11 (S. Rep. 108-318 (2004)) (citing
September 11, 2001 and anthrax attacks as examples of exigencies).

The AMA and Senator Collins argue that the PAEA’s exigency clause must be
read narrowly and only to apply to unforeseen events. See AMA Comment at 12-16; Collins
Comment at 3. Even if that were correct, the current circumstances would still apply. That the
business cycle will ordinarily produce crests and troughs may be foreseeable, but no one could
have foreseen the economic tsunami now known as the “Great Recession” and the carnage it
would leave in its wake: a contraction of the GDP in 2008-2009 of nearly 4%, a drop in private
employment of 7.3%, and a fall in real investment spending of 35.7%; the closure of 228 banks
since January 2008; and the majority of the American workforce in the 30 months preceding July
2010 having faced unemployment, experienced a cut in pay or a reduction in hours, or been
forced into part-time status. See July 6, 2010 Statement of Joseph Corbett in Docket No. R2010-
4, at 14.3 That this was no ordinary recession is evidence by Congress having appointed a
special commission to investigate its causes. And while some argue that the mail-volume loss
was aggravated by a long-term migration of communications to the internet, there is no dispute
that the bulk of the loss was due to the macroeconomic nightmare.

In any event, the claim that the PAEA’s exigency clause only applies in the
narrowest of circumstances and only to unexpected events is wrong, and based on a misreading
of the statute’s text and legislative history. In the original Senate bill, introduced in March 2005,
the exigency exception would only have applied to “unexpected and extraordinary
circumstances.” S. 662, 109th Cong. §3622(d)(1)(D) (2005) (emphasis added). But the statute as
enacted in December 2006 lacks the requirement that the exigent circumstances be
“unexpected.” See 39 U.S.C. §3622(d)(1)(E). Congress not only dropped the unforeseeability
requirement, but also broadened the exigency clause by replacing the restrictive conjunctive
language, marked by the word “and,” with the disjunctive phrase “either … or.” Id. (PAEA
referring to “either extraordinary or exceptional circumstances”) (emphasis added).
3 In fact, recent revisions to Commerce Department data show that the recession, with a 4.1%
drop in GDP, was worse than originally thought. See “A Deeper Hole,” The Economist (Aug. 7,
2010), at 28 (confirming that recession was “the worst of the post-war years”).

The April 2005 congressional testimony quoted by Senator Collins that the
exigency clause establishes a “‘very high bar,’” Collins Comment at 2-3 (quoting testimony in
Attachment 5, at 2) is thus inapt, as it expressly refers to the Senate bill that never became law.
See Collins Comment, Attachment 5, at 2. The April 2004 testimony she quotes that exigent
circumstances must be “‘unexpected’” came even earlier in the legislative process and was thus
even further removed from the actual statutory language. See id. at 3 (quoting testimony in
Attachment 6, at 20).

The Commission itself has made clear that exigencies under the PAEA can be
either foreseen or unforeseen. In its original proposed rules on exigent rate cases, the
Commission would have required USPS, when filing for an exigent rate increase, to justify why
“the circumstance giving rise to the request was neither foreseeable nor avoidable by reasonable
prior action.” Order Proposing Regulations to Establish a System of Ratemaking, Docket No.
RM2007-1 (Aug. 15, 2007), at Proposed Rule 3100.61(a)(7) (emphasis added). But the
Commission changed this language after receiving comments that the assumption behind the
proposed rule — that exigent circumstances must be unforeseen — was inconsistent with the
statutory language. The rule as promulgated by the Commission now only requires USPS to
provide an “analysis of the circumstances giving rise to the request, which should, if applicable,
include a discussion of whether the circumstances were foreseeable or could have been avoided
by reasonable prior action.” Commission Rule 3010.61(a)(7) (emphasis added).

Finally, the AMA devotes much of its comment to arguing that current
circumstances cannot qualify as an exigency because, it claims, USPS’s private-sector
competitors weathered the economic storm while USPS, burdened by purportedly above-market
labor costs and other inefficiencies, has floundered.

This argument ignores the fact that, unlike USPS, its private-sector competitors have no
universal service obligation nor do they bear the unique burden of having to pre-fund retiree
health benefits.4 Moreover, AMA’s argument is based on highly contested assertions that raise
issues that are beyond the scope of the instant rate proceeding and unsupported by anything in
the evidentiary record in this case. For example, AMA’s assertion that USPS pays wages above
wages paid for comparable work in the private-sector, see AMA Comment at 30-31, raises
complex legal and economic issues regarding the meaning and application of the comparability
standard in the Postal Reorganization Act (“PRA”). See 39 U.S.C. §1003 (a) (providing for
postal compensation and benefits “on a standard of comparability to the compensation and
benefits paid for comparable levels of work in the private sector of the economy”). NALC and
its economic experts have argued elsewhere that proper application of the comparability standard
requires comparing letter carrier pay to the pay of employees in large, comparable firms such as
employees of other parcel delivery enterprises — not, as others have argued, to the pay of all
employees throughout the private-sector. In any event, the legislative history makes clear that
the comparability standard leaves ample room for differences over how it is to be interpreted and
applied and that such differences are to be worked out in collective bargaining between USPS
and the postal unions or, failing that, in interest arbitration.5 That comparability is beyond the
For a discussion regarding the impact on USPS of the obligation to pre-fund retiree health
benefits, see Frank Clemente and Tom Kiley, “Congressional Mandates Account For Most Of
Postal Service’s Recent Losses,” Economic Policy Institute, Briefing Paper #268 (June 2010).
5 See, e.g., Post Office Reorganization: Hearings on Various Proposals to Reform the Postal
Establishment Before the House Comm. On Post Office and Civil Service, 91st Cong., 1st Sess.
221 (Postmaster General testifying that “there is a wide variety of difference as to what
comparability might mean” and “that has to be bargained between the parties”); 39 U.S.C.
§1207(c) (providing for interest arbitration in the event that collective bargaining fails to produce
an agreement). Under the PRA, the compensation of bargaining unit postal employees is to be
determined through collective bargaining between USPS and the postal unions in accordance
with the applicable principles of the National Labor Relations Act.

see full NALC reply via PRC