For Whom Does the Post Exist?

Postmaster Mark Jamison writes an excellent article in Steve Hutkins' wonderful blog, savethepostoffice.com, about the big issues: does USPS exist merely to serve advertising mass mailers, or does it have an obligation to serve the nation? USPS management and frequently its Office of the Inspector General, and many of the people on the Postal Regulatory Commission, on the Board of Governors, in Congress, and the president, have the wrong answer.

Urgent Call to Action: Save First-Class Mail

The management of the US Postal Service has proposed a drastic and irreversible reduction in first-class mail delivery standards. Currently 41.5 percent of first-class mail is delivered in one day, 26.6 percent in two days, and 31.6 percent in three days. The proposal would eliminate one-day delivery altogether. Two-day deliveries would increase to 50.6 percent and three-day to 49.1 percent. The proposed increase in delivery time would be devastating to the many individuals, small businesses, and entrepreneurs who rely on first-class mail.

The proposal, the stated goal of which is to “bring operating costs in line with revenues,” would enable the USPS to eliminate 60 percent of the USPS’s processing-and-distribution plants, purportedly to cut costs. But the presumed savings are actually quite small (only $3 billion, or 4 percent of the USPS’s annual budget). All the mail would still have to be delivered. It would just have to be hauled farther to be processed, thus increasing fuel costs and the commensurate harm to the environment.

The possibility of raising revenues by increasing prices and expanding services is never mentioned. Bowing to pressure from the Direct Marketing Association, the postal service recently withdrew a request for an “exigent rate increase.” The USPS charges direct mailers less than what it costs to deliver their advertising mail, so in essence the direct mailers are stealing from the USPS with each piece of mail they send. Regarding the withdrawal of the proposed rate increase, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe exclaimed that the direct mailing industry is “way too fragile” to survive a price increase. Clearly, the health of that industry is more important to him than the health of the USPS.

In its projection of the effects of the proposed change in service standards, the USPS does not even mention the American people. It lists only the possible effects on “commercial mailers.” Noncommercial mailers—citizens, entrepreneurs, small businesses, and rural communities—are not given even the slightest consideration.

Because the reduction in service standards would enable the USPS to dismantle its extraordinary processing-and-distribution network, a return to the current service standards would be impossible, thus permanently undermining the USPS’s ability to serve the American people, further reducing mail volume and postal revenues, and further imperiling the US Postal Service itself. The vast majority of the American people won’t fully realize the effects of the proposed reduction in service until it’s too late.

The notice in the Federal Register invites comments from the public between now and October 21, 2011. Letters may be sent to Manager, Industry Engagement and Outreach, United States Postal Service, 475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW – Room 4617, Washington, DC 20260, or e-mailed to industryfeedback@usps.com.

In hopes of gathering more signatures, we have created a petition at Change.org calling for retention of the current first-class service standards. We have less than two weeks to gather as many signatures as possible. Please sign the petition and write your own letter, and ask others to do the same. Once USPS management’s proposal is accepted, there will be no turning back.

USPS: Vultures Roosting in the Eagle's Nest

The vultures on the verge of destroying the US Postal Service are not merely circling. They've landed in the nest, ready to plunder and privatize, having fully captured USPS management and oversight. It's clear to many that the the Post Office has enemies in Congress, to wit Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), among others. But it's also apparent that there are those in management and oversight who are just as determined to destroy the Post Office, who are in the service not of the American people but of those who consider the USPS their competition and who are eager to devour the advantages it currently maintains.

The postmaster general plans to make drastic cuts that will do away with first-class service, give the pickings to FedEx and the like, and continue propping up bulk mailers (who currently pay less than what it costs the USPS to process and deliver their junk mail). Those cuts will devastate small towns and inner cities, reduce the USPS to a third-class bulk mailer, and replace its middle-class workforce with a workforce of the working poor. All this for what?

Abdicating 6-day delivery to private postal services would, by Government Accountability Office estimates, save costs of only 4 percent of the USPS budget. USPS management has admitted that it wiped one small-town post office off the map because it "'cost' the USPS $1,500 a year more than it made in sales of stamps and money orders." Never mind the mandate that the USPS serve all Americans. Never mind that the USPS is not meant to make a profit but rather to be a self-sustaining service to the American people. Never mind that closing a post office because it is not "profitable" is against the law.

The devastating cuts proposed by the postmaster general—the projected savings of which are absurdly small—will serve only to weaken the USPS, not strengthen it, not put it on firm financial footing. All of the aspects of USPS service that are on the chopping block—6-day delivery, half the distribution network, half the retail network, half the workforce—represent USPS's greatest assets. So why proceed when the financial savings are so small and the resulting loss so devastating? The only conceivable answer is that the intent is not to save money or alleviate the USPS's financial difficulties, but to serve the interests of the vultures ready to devour this national treasure.

The planned devastation of the USPS is based not on need but on greed. The claim of financial emergency is a pretext to break the USPS up and feed the choice bits to the private mailing industry.

The postmaster general says he expects to close 16,000 post offices in six years—that's half of the nation's post offices! And he plans to close or consolidate as many as 313 of the 487 processing plants by 2013—destroying first-class service while estimating the destruction would "save" costs equal to only 4 percent of USPS's budget. When this happens—and USPS management is proceeding fast, in violation of federal law—there will be no more 44-cent postage. Only FedEx rates. There will be no more service to rural, remote, and distressed areas. Newspaper and magazine delivery will be eliminated.

The Internet could be the biggest source of new business imaginable. Customers could e-mail documents to the USPS, which would then print and deliver them from the destination post office. This would be a hugely popular service: next-day delivery anywhere in the country, of anything you can send to a printer. Fast, cheap, and hard copy. All it would require is leadership interested in providing a service to the public.

But what we have now is leadership more interested in providing profit to private moneyed interests than in serving the American people. That is the end result of setting up a public service to function "more like a business," as was done in changing the U.S. Post Office Department to the US Postal Service in 1970-71.

The United States Postal Service is a national treasure that needs to be saved from the formidable forces arrayed against it. And those forces are not only in Congress, but in the USPS itself. Those who seek to save the USPS will not succeed unless they recognize the threat within, and they must do so very quickly or it will be too late.

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John Nichols writes good Save the Post Office columns in The Nation and The Capital Times. And there's always a lot of good information at Save the Post Office, which Steve Hutkins puts together.

USPS: Breaking the Law and the Tie That Binds

Last Thursday, Representative Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA) and 74 other US representatives (including Wisconsin's own Tammy Baldwin and Gwen Moore) sent a letter to the chair of the Postal Regulatory Commission warning of the harm that will be done to the US Postal Service by widespread closure of post offices. Of the 75 signatories, 7 were Republicans and 68 were Democrats. (Apparently that's what "bipartisan" looks like these days.) It's unclear how helpful this warning will be, but it certainly won't hurt, and it's encouraging to know that at least some of our lawmakers are paying attention and understand what's happening in spite of all the misinformation peddled by the mainstream media.

According to the representatives, "the law requires that 'the Postal Service shall provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas.' (39 U.S.C. 101(b)))." But oddly enough, "the USPS is centering its downsizing efforts on small post offices ... which tend to be located in rural areas." This piqued my curiosity, so I looked the law up. Here is section 101(b) in its brief and comprehensible entirety:

The Postal Service shall provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offices are not self-sustaining.

No small post office shall be closed solely for operating at a deficit, it being the specific intent of the Congress that effective postal services be insured to residents of both urban and rural communities. (emphasis added)

The law assumes that rural post offices will not be self-sustaining. In fact, it's very likely that they've never been "self-sustaining." Nevertheless, the USPS has proposed closing some 15,000 "unprofitable" post offices and has already begun the process of dismantling its "unparalleled retail network." Apparently they won't let a little thing like the law get in their way.

Moreover, as horrifying as it will be to the uber-capitalists among us, the purpose of the postal service is not to make a profit.

The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities. (Section 101(a), emphasis added)

The postmaster general actually wants to close half of the nation's 32,000 post offices. "A reduction of this size would have a severe negative impact on rural America, threatening the viability of thousands of small towns across America." In many small towns, the post office is the center of community life, the constant that draws and holds people together. Closing those post offices would do irreparable harm to American rural life. And once the extraordinary fabric that binds the nation together is gone, there will be no getting it back.

So what's the deal with the law? It appears that the postmaster general can ignore the illegality of what he's doing with impunity. So, whose responsibility is it to see to it that they do in fact follow the law and the congressional mandate to "provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns" in order to "bind the Nation together"? How are the decision makers held accountable? And if they're not, then please explain to us which laws are meant to be followed and which are meant to be ignored?

The Postal Service "is no less valuable today than when Pony Express riders raced across the American frontier." In fact, it is considerably more valuable today. Modern technology has increased its value, rather than decreasing it. Think of all the online shopping we do—not all the packages we receive are delivered by FedEx and UPS. In fact, sending packages via the USPS is usually cheaper, providing substantial savings to consumers, corporations, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. As the representatives correctly assert, "this Constitutional institution must be strengthened, not eviscerated, because it continues to improve quality of life for our constituents."