March 2, 2010 3:35 PM

Postal Service Dropping Saturday Delivery? Not so Fast

By
Brian Montopoli
Topics
In The News
(AP Photo)
Postmaster General John E. Potter is again pushing this week to eliminate Saturday delivery as a cost-cutting measure at the beleaguered United States Postal Service, which is projected to lose $7 billion this year.

But his effort faces a big roadblock in the form of the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) and Congress.

The PRC is an independent organization that regulates the Postal Service and would have to approve dropping a day from the delivery schedule. From there, Congress would have to agree to the change, since federal law mandates six-day delivery.

As I noted in a November story on the state of the Postal Service, PRC chair Ruth Y. Goldway has signaled that she has little interest in dropping Saturday service. In Congressional testimony in November, she said cutting a day of service could undermine "the vitality of the mail system" and threaten the postal monopoly.

"From a market perspective, the Postal Service could lose its greatest strategic advantage - ubiquity," she said. "Reducing service is detrimental to mail growth and to public perception of the value of the mail system."

She echoed those concerns this week, telling USA Today in response to news of the push to cut Saturday service that "the Postal Service is an essential part of the country's infrastructure, so you don't want to change it willy-nilly."

And then there's the question of getting the change through Congress – particularly the House, where a significant number of members represent rural districts where the postbox, even in the Internet age, is one of the only reliable connections to the outside world. Even in urban areas, a vote to cut Saturday service is not one lawmakers would be eager to make.

Potter knows all this, of course. But floating a cut to Saturday service puts additional pressure on lawmakers to do something to aid the Postal Service, which Potter says could lose $238 billion over ten years.

Instead of agreeing to a cut in Saturday service, Congress and the PRC are more likely to free the agency from a government-mandated requirement that it pay more than $5 billion per year into a fund to cover its retired employees' future health benefits over a ten-year period.

While that doesn't completely address the problem, it's a significant cost-cutting measure -- and one that doesn't have the potential cultural resonance that comes with a cut in Saturday service.

A rate increase is also likely, thanks to a legal loophole that allows for greater-than-inflation increases in extraordinary situations. U.S. postal rates are significantly lower than in most of the rest of the world.

Add a Comment See all 57 Comments
by kassandrasdu March 6, 2010 8:21 PM EST
Always beating up the one government agency that Americans can still rely on for good service and dependability. They have been trying to break up and privatize the USPS for decades.
The USPS is required by law to pre-pay all its pension benefits obligations 100% unlike any other government agency. If this were changed they would be making money not losing money.
And don't believe reports the average employee makes $83 K a year. The USPS veteran carrier I know brings home $36K per year. Maybe they are adding retirement and mdical benefits to inflate the wage claim. Just as they did to GM and the UAW before breaking that good union job.
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by msrosn March 6, 2010 5:31 PM EST
I don't agree with it. If you do online business, customers don't like to wait until the next business day (Monday) for items they have paid for. Also, when some pay bills by mail, are the bill collectors going to take that into account; I don't think so. So, what happens is, more people will have late fees and companies make more off the consumer....a win for them, a loss for consumers. Also, the postal service says they are losing money but the price of shipping is still going up; the service at some of the local post offices is shabby, stuff is still getting lost and broken and items going from one town to another within a metro area is taking even longer to arrive. So, they need to hire more people....one thing I've noticed regarding all businesses over the past 10 years; customer service is lacking extremely and incompetence is an every day thing. Treat customers like they are of true value and business would not be lacking and maybe, just maybe they will see their business and bottom line improve.
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by LucysFurCoat March 5, 2010 2:57 PM EST
Stop starting them at $18.75 and guaranteeing $25 after six years...it's a BRAIN DEAD JOB...monkeys on bikes can do it!!!
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by kassandrasdu March 6, 2010 8:25 PM EST
They deliver some 26 cubic feet of mail daily including Saturdays to anywhere in the US for pennies and face crazy drivers, crazy people and wild animals EVERY DAY. Plus back breaking long walks loaded with mail.
I doubt you could do the job. Most new hires do not survive the USPS probation period.
by vbates22us March 8, 2010 11:08 PM EST
I was a paratrooper for 8 years and now a letter carrier for 12 years. When i first hired on i made 13.31 hourly i was so excited thinking that i just landed a real easy job making good money. ireally wish i would have stayed in the army because it was easier and more enjoyable. the postal service treats you horrible and the the work is nothing like you think. i delivered over 20ft of mail today under my projected time but still had to answer for my 1 hour of overtime. after 12 years i still dont make 25 but i would say 75% of the people that complain about mailcarriers could not do the job trust me its not what you think. there are some sorry lazy carriers but all jobs have some slackers but trust me postal service treats them horrible.
by LucysFurCoat March 5, 2010 2:56 PM EST
Stop starting them at $18.75 and guaranteeing $25 after six years...it's a BRAIN DEAD JOB...monkeys on bikes can do it!!!
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by alpha58 March 5, 2010 6:36 PM EST
Judging from this and your other comments, you're a moron.ur sorry ass can have a good job. Let's see how you like starting at an average hourly wage, work one day a week, and then wait 10 years to become a career employee with benefits.You know nothing of the wage structure at USPS. Your ignorance is obvious, and I doubt you could do handle a postal job. You'd better stick to the bike riding, *****.
by postmanretired March 3, 2010 10:10 PM EST
There are plenty of areas that the post office can cut prior to the elimination of service ( Saturday delivery). The first is the excessive management and staffing that only have titles and no real jobs. Most every city main post office is busting at the seams with management and staff. We commonly called them the ivory towers. Second would be the closing of hundreds of small post offices that only serve as a meeting place for the town folk. Some of these offices only take in a few thousand a year but cost 50-60 thousand to operate. Stamps can nowdays be purchase at almost every grocery store, or purchased from rural carriers or ordered by mail. Lastly is the customer themselves. My first street on my route of over then years contained 42 cape-cod homes with 12 steps to the front door and only three of these had boxes at the bottom of these steps. There is many streets in our city that the carrier walks forever up and down steps for very few deliverys. Postal supervisors should have the power to recommend to the customer a the practical location and type of mail box. My route had far to many of those skimpy boxes the would not hold the gas passed by a gnat. Then there is the snow. Our city residents(at least 50 percent) feel that what God put down he will take away. And whether rural carrier or city walking carrier, just slip and slide your way through it. And heck yes lets not forget those friendly dogs that bite over 5000 carriers every year. Sure the mail can be more efficient,but the customer needs to help. do all of these and the Post Office can move back into the black. Maybe even a couple more managers. Retiredpostman
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by POSTALCHIC March 3, 2010 8:00 PM EST
I have worked for the Postal Service as a carrier for 25 years. 24 1/2 years ago the Postal Service told all their full time employees to bid on routes that the postal service was going to eliminate Saturday delievery. Now 25 years later the Postal Service is in bad shape. More people are emailing, doing their bills on line and such. Yes I would like for the postal service to get rid of Saturday's, why think of how much more money they could be saving. Also management needs to be toned down also. At my station we started with 1 manager and 1 supervisor, now we have 6 supervisors and 1 manager, is that necessary since the mail volume is down so much. They (management) stress customer connect, why can't management go out and get us some customers???
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by alpha58 March 3, 2010 10:19 PM EST
I agree with that fact that there needs to be severe reductions in management, starting with postmaster position. They are WAY overpaid and postmasters haven't lost a dime in pay in the past 3 years while most all carriers have taken sharp pay cuts and clerks have hours cut. Definitely past time for some fat cutting at the top.
by aeromike222 March 3, 2010 9:11 AM EST
Let's put it to vote. Oh wait, that costs $1 a vote to tally. OK, I'll leave my vote here,

Yes, drop Saturday delivery.
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by moosegramma March 3, 2010 8:53 AM EST
For 44 cents I can't get into my car to go 5 miles to deliver a check, it would cost me more then that.
If the USPS wants to save money they should reduce the management staff that sit there and come up with ideas for the rural carriers when they don't have a clue what the carrier goes through or does every day.
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by rightbehind March 3, 2010 9:26 AM EST
Well said! The Post Office does a great job. They do need to clean out some of the neocon management.
by rdepontb March 3, 2010 8:31 AM EST
The Post Office, for whatever reason, had not foreseen the oncoming effects of email, smart phones, video conferencing, instant messaging...all recent socio-cultural changes that have rocked not only our teenagers' lives.

This is almost curious for an agency that, in other spheres, has actually introduced other new technologies to almost instantly process letters and packages by size, zip code, region, street, name...nearly all without the time-costing need for human intrusion into the smooth system except for the scant few percent of "gnarled" or incomplete addresses. These were pretty big changes; they helped guarantee delivery in untold effiency, which we have taken for granted far too long.

It would be fair to say that the technologies the USPS does use in fact _saves_ us several days of delay in getting our mail. To me, that's cause enough to eliminate Saturday, or even a two-day, delivery schedule. We can adapt to anything. How about carriers working four 10-hr days, and delivery trucks go out on four days instead of six or seven? What energy savings! We could adapt! Already, certain types of mail go out at regular intervals---your billing cycle, weekend sales circulars, other types of mail go out only at specific time, BUT WE ADAPTED, seamlessly.

We can adapt again. There is no need to throw the money away. I think we should take the USPS up on its bluff to drop Saturday mail, and instead ask it to drop Friday AND Saturday, or Wednesday AND Saturday, or Tuesday AND Thursday...we would actually adapt almost immediately. Life would go on. We wouldn't again burden our children's future with yet another needless expensive "gift" to our generation.
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by JWCampbe March 27, 2010 8:15 PM EDT
Postal Delivery Schedule Solution:
How about mail delivery to one-half the local area RESIDENTAL addresses on a M-W-F schedule; and the other half on a Tu-Th-Sa schedule? Local area BUSINESS addresses get M-T-W-T-F-S delivery service.
Two crews and one vehicle pool could work the residential routs.
Manning the business district routs would depend on their size and the volume of mail usually delivered.
J.W.C.
by rightbehind March 3, 2010 8:01 AM EST
The US Post Office has been in business for more than 213 years. Republicans have wanted to privatise it for years. In Dec 2006 before they lost they lost control of the Senate and the House they wrote a law called, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. This law required the Post office to pay for health care insurance almost 10 years in advance. It immediately sent the post office budget into the red by 3 billion dollars in 2007. The post office had originally projected profits of 1.6 billion in 2007. Proof of this can be found in USPS news release 07-012

For less than 50 cents the post office will come to your home, pick up a letter and deliver it coast to coast more than 3200 miles. I don't care if it cost a dollar it would be a bargain. The law the republican controlled house, senate, and oval office wrote in Dec of 2006 needs to be repealed.
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