Post Office Cuts Staff, District Offices

Will Offer Early Retirement To 150,000 Workers After Losing $2.8B Last Year

(AP)  Battered by the economy, the post office is offering early retirement to 150,000 workers, cutting management and closing offices, the agency said Friday.

The Postal Service lost $2.8 billion last year and is facing even larger losses this year, despite a rate increase - to 44 cents for first-class mail - scheduled to take effect May 11.

The agency said it will reduce management staff nationwide by 15 percent, with more than 1,400 processing, supervisor and management posts at 400 facilities being eliminated.

And another 150,000 postal workers will be offered early retirement.

The agency also made early retirement offers last year but unions discouraged their members from accepting the offers and they were not widely used. The post office did not say if the new proposal would include financial incentives.

The American Postal Workers Union issued a statement Friday saying: "Retirement is a personal matter, and the union defers to the decisions of employees who meet the qualifications."

However, the union said it continues to challenge the Postal Service's authority to offer voluntary early retirement without including severance pay.

The 80 district across the country will be reduced by six with the closings in Lake Mary, Fl.; North Reading, Mass.; Manchester, N.H.; Edison, N.J.; Erie, Pa.; and Spokane, Wash.

District offices handle administrative functions and officials said the closing should not affect local mail delivery. The closings were expected to take about five months.

The first quarter of the fiscal year - October through December - is usually the post office's busiest, but it still posted a loss of $384 million for the period.

Officials said the economic recession contributed to a 5.2 billion piece mail volume decline compared to the same period last year. If there is no economic recovery, the Postal Service projects volume for the year will be down by 12 billion to 15 billion pieces of mail.

The post office said that over the past year it has cut 50 million work hours; stopped construction of new postal facilities; frozen salaries for postal executives; began selling unused facilities; and cut post office hours.

In addition, it is negotiating an agreement with the National Association of Letter Carriers to adjust carrier routes to reflect diminished volume.

Postmaster General John Potter has even asked Congress to consider allowing the agency to cut mail delivery back to five days-a-week to save money.

The post office does not receive a taxpayer subsidy for its operations.

[marinewidow]

post office mangement is extreme, and has decided that at all cost
must be productive, with the postal reform bill in 2006 they
stopped treating employees in the craft line as people
and made them into machines, I know that first hand,
that was a start, from one extreme to another, not only did
my former spouse have to fight to win full time rights in 2006,
he eventually through 2 retirements and one injured became
the only postal carrier of our small town , going from one
8 hour route a day to 3 routes in one day, a total of over
32 hours a day he was expected by postal management to single
handed sort, and deliver, a postal financial cut back
to which labor gave the orders to his post manager , after
being notified of first one retirement ( with 3 mths notice)
and injured and one retirement more , they could not hire
because of district numbers, my spouse was not a number
he was a human being, he trained as a marine to take orders
to take the last hill, but where in the job description in labor
does it state he was suppose to be the only carrier for
3 routes instead of one? saving the post office money
retirement benifits was all that was needed, as a goverment entitiy
they fall under the rules of labor and health and safety,
they also have union rules that were ignored due to the state
of a fight between union and mangement that wanted to do
without official carriers, and everyones job was at stake,
I hear the cries of retirement being prefunded, it came too
little and too late for my spouse caught in the crossfires of
political, and economically run mangement, that made the
almighty dollar more important than human life, I know each
business must be productive, but to make a human substain
what he should of had in the military, instead of handling
letters not bullets, was inconceivable insanity. To live
through that, and have him die, and then the amount of a dollar
meaning more than his life, is ironical, if not typical
was he harrassed, yes, told he was slowing down for being on
without a day off from heavy loads of mail for over 10 months
then finally told he could not attend his own daughters wedding,
by mangement, at what cost does a decent family man who wants
a retirment owned him deserve it when others have gone on
and retired before him, only to be told they will not
supply him help for routes, and treat him as a machine,
the talk about the post office is one thing, to live
through it is another...I dont know reasonable,
the loss for my family and myself can never be replaced
to top it off , retirement benifits are denied me because
he was not retired when he died, and he had worked for 17 years
only to be given a heart condition for overwork by his
own mangement who has gone through the union, and labor
and even state he was adeqautely staffed...how?
If he had lived in the days of the pony express it would
of been expected for him to be in bodily danger ,
sometimes that is true in certain populated cities
but not here, in this case it was the dollar that made
the difference, when I hear of the savings, I cringe
in grief, over a man who never took a sick day,
and always delivered , only to be treated by his own
union as he didnt exist, and that it did not matter he
died by either labor or them. Cut the servie but do
not allow death to occur at this cost again.

[lo_ferguson]

The employees that is actually doing the work are being harassed
in some form or fashion and the employees that are not doing the
actual work are being promoted and paid excessively for doing
pratical nothing with huge proformace pay including coming up
with ways to keep their jobs. Why is everything a repeat and
you just don't report it once, what is with that?

[sharednotion]

I hope there will not be a reduction of home delivery by the Postal Service to only five days a week. Although the Postal Service has competition in package delivery, it still has a monopoly, protected by federal law, in the business of paid delivery of ordinary letters, cards, bills etc. I don't believe that it's unreasonable for Americans to insist that home delivery of our mail NOT be downgraded to anything less than the six days per week that we have come to expect.

[luke_4u]

No, don't eliminate Sat. delivery. Make it maybe wed., instead. Wed. is no big deal, but most (not all) people are home on Sat, and could probably make better use of mail delivery then.

[aziridine]

Federal management at its best! Funny thing Fed Ex made money! Another example of Unions taking down a business. non-Union Fed Ex workers still have jobs, pensions, benefits.....United Postal Workers Union folks are takin it in the BUTT!

Obama LOVES UNIONS!!! They are among his biggest contributors! \

Bye Bye USPS.......

[jd2408]

I have an idea. Congress should be asking the people that do the job what they feel is wrong with the USPS. When you read comments left by people who do the work they seem very unhappy and stressed out. Going Postal is no joke ! They should look into the whole system but not thru the eyes of the management.

[barbaram99]

i ' member when stamps were 5 cent s. . Now 44 cents. In the early 60s 5 digit zip code. Ben Franklin strated the press and other things. The post office. The saying we don't need it. WE DO, I don't use alot of tech and i don't care to .
What did we do before computer and we still do it.
We sit down a pen a letter and mail it.
We sit down at table
Put a piece of paper in front of us , take pen in hand.
wwrite a letter tot he person
Write it out
And mail it.
We write it.
We don't e-mail every thing.
We were taught how to write letters in school years ago.
We have become a lazy in email when a hand written letter is needed and must be written

[barbaram99]

It is true that there are us that have computer. I do not use computer for every thing. I get my bills in the mail and pay by check. I have family that don/t have computer and would not use it if if was given them. . i asked Dad if he would use a computer ..He won't. Any way I would rather get mail at the post office. I would rather type a letter and run it off the printer and send it. I am legally blind. E-mail is nice for some things/ It must not replace the mail. I use the post office over them other places as I rather get it in the mail. Not everyone has or wants a computer.,, i am sorry but there are times e-mail is not proper to send. There are times a letter must be written. By hand by the sighted and typed if one can't write due to handicapped or poor penmanship. we learbt to write letters by hand. I am from the pre computer days. E-mail isnot privert. I wrire a letter to my parents it is for their eyes only. Computers should help us not make others too lazy to do something right. . i can write by hand but they can't read my poor handwritting. .mY friend can write a letter by hand faster than he can on the computer. I blog. I read they don't teach penmanship in school today. That is laziness, No one is too busy to write a note by hand nlick a stamp and yep the stamps wree not always self sticking.

[MarkJActon]

The Postal worker union is creating an uncompetitive environment just like the UAW did with their union workers. Letter carriers make much more per hour than Fed Ex, for example. No wonder they are losing money. Salay cuts or layoffs, that simple.
Cut mail delivery to 5 days a week, eliminate Sat. delivery. Will save money and cut man hours.

[debinok1]

As soon as most people revert to "paperless" or email bills they will lose even more business. Even most Companies now send reports and charts etc... via email. The United States Postal Service is on its way out and has been for several years.

[Newster1]

Who are you going to get to deliver that letter, "from coast to coast 3400 miles" for less than 50 cents when the post office fails??"

I get thousands of letters delivered every year for FREE, it's called *EMAIL* and it works 24/7 instantly. I can also attach files, photos, sound clips and video clips or direct the recipient to them.
Try typing a letter out and mailing to someone and telling them to check out your new photos at http://www.blahblahbla.co.uk/~moreaccountsblahbla/yournewdirectory/newphotos/morepotosfrom2009/andheresthephotoyouwant.jpg and see how many people will sit there and type all that out from a paper letter to do it!

"The postal service we have was established by Benjamin Franklin. It has been in business for 233 years. republican economics have sent this into the the drink to. The post office went into the red for the first time after this law was passed by the republican controlled house, senate, and oval office in Dec. 2006. Any doubts check this out: the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act
Posted by rightaboutit

The post office *WAS* and still is on FIRST CLASS MAIL- a total monopoly, and was a branch of the US Govt and had ZERO competition.

It was set up to make it so only the Postal service had the legal authority to handle FIRST CLASS mail, but then comes Western Union telegraph, FAXes sent via telephone, UPS, FedEx, DHL, along with urgent/critical deliveries overnight, eves and on sundays for an extra charge.
Thye post office any more is little more than a JUNK MAIL distribution point, the bulk of the mail they handle now is junk mail, and huge catalogues which come every month that go in the trash because you never requested them.
I get a catalogue from a tool outfit that must be one and a half inches thick several times a year, it goes right in the trash because I dont buy from them, but it probably costs them FAR LESS than a first class stamp to spam me with that junk.

Cutting back does not really save money. Instead of confronting the competition USPS isrunning from it. Stay open 1 hr later during the week , Drop the cost of a stamp and other postage and start to compete. Driving people away is not competing. USPS also needs to rework their Union contracts and dismiss incompetent workers. Little stricter work rules and discipline could go along way in solving their problems.
by j40405 at 6:41 PM : Mar 20, 2009


This is the most reasonable comment made out of all I've read. Although the union is supposed to be for job security...they really do need to rework the contracts because there are parts that are hurting the employees. Definitely need to be able to get rid of the dead weight and the whole service will be better off. Personally, I don't think UPS, FEDEX or any other carrier can offer what the USPS does...definitely need to trim off the top...and reduce Potter's pay...better yet..tax it 95%

[ousted1]

The U.S. Postal Service is a non-profit oganization, supported only by the sale of postage and Postal products. Tax dollars do not support the Postal Service. It's rate increases and services are regulated by our representatives in Congress. It's purpose is not to make money but to provide a service to the American people. It is an organization accountable to the people and not some Corporate bottom line. No other oranization foreign or domestic deliveres to every household and business everywhere in the U.S. six days a week for as low a price as the U.S. Postal Service does. As vital as it is to our economy it's no wonder it too is being impacted by these hard economic times.

[starleo146]

Who are you going to get to deliver that letter, "from coast to coast 3400 miles" for less than 50 cents when the post office fails?? The postal service we have was established by Benjamin Franklin. It has been in business for 233 years. republican economics have sent this into the the drink to. The post office went into the red for the first time after this law was passed by the republican controlled house, senate, and oval office in Dec. 2006. Any doubts check this out: the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act
Posted by rightaboutit at 8:44 AM : Mar 21, 2009
+ report abuse + per

You know the postal carriers and sorters didn't cause this. It is management and that Potter in Wash D.C. fire these guys that do not know what the he11 they are doing, cause the ordinary workers so much grief, Potter wasting money right and left, buying machines to take place of the worker, machines tearing up the mail. It is time management should pay not the walking and riding carriers, and sorters

[Newster1]

Post offices are almost useless today, with FREE email text messaging, FAX, electronic billing, electronic payments. UPS, DHL, FedEx and many others handle packages and envelopes, overnight, 2nd day etc.
The post office is a relic of the 19th century like the steam engine, and with rates costing 44 cents to mail a letter than can go for FREE instantly via email alogn with attached files or photos, sounds and video, why would ANYONE bother wasting money on postage stamps???

[delfmast]

WastingtonDC: In one of my favorite Op/Ed articles, (and I date my op/ed herewith), I urged Newt, then serving in congress to eliminate the US Postal Service. I was right then, and FedEx is right now. Raise the cost of 1st class mail to $1.00 or $2.00, and Fed Ex or UPS will instantly supplant the USPS, nationwide. Outlaw the requirements that force people to send original documents, save for official purposes, and eliminate the lobbyist driven slaughter of our trees to print junk mail, and the destruction of our lands by filling land fills with the average ton of junk mail I have to sort through, to find a few dozen yearly items relevant to my life, in the trash that the Postal Service and it's union and lobbyists force me to accept, sort through, and discard every week day, forever. I mailed a check for a Magazine subscription today, with a Forever Stamp, because I was hurting too bad from my strained back to walk to my computer, and pay it on line, with a credit card that sends me 5% of every charge I make to the card. It cost me more than a dollar. Were that Forever Stamp worth $2.00 as it inevitably will be, I would have waited until my heating pad eased my pain, and paid online, just as all of us will abandon the USPS the instant we are no longer required to send actual original documents instead of Scanned and certified, by the sender, emails of the documents. The main reason to eliminate the Postal Service is the percentages that operate against the customer. I mailed one document that was irreplaceable, via USPS decades ago, and it was eaten by the failed USPS, never arrived at all. It was the signed sales contract for the first farm I ever bought, and closing that sale was absolutely crucial to the financial survival of my young family, as we had come to WastingtonDC Metro Area, for my new duty station, and bought a house in Alexandria. We went to the closing, acted as if the contract had been delivered, and closed the adversarial sale as neatly as one could hope for, a miracle, as a single request to view the contract would have sunk the sale, and our new home purchased while we were paying two mortgages at our old duty station. Shades of today's catastrophe. Yesterday, we stood in line interminably to get our IDs checked and mail our US Passports in for renewal. After a lengthy delay, standing in a clearly marked Passport Line, we were astounded to learn that renewals could stand in the usual mail line, since only those applying for new passports were required to wait in the Passport line. The over staffed, under worked, and union spoiled postal service employees that let us stand there unattended, along with tens of thousands of similar customers, daily, nationwide, are a travesty, and should have been replaced, by giving Bill Gate's Microsoft, or one of the Fed Ex or UPS services, the entire USPS plant and equipment, clearing out the union employees, and charging Microsoft with delivering to Fed Ex, any occasional physical mailings that come into the system, while sending legal copies, for those Americans not possessed of a computer, of all other missives by email from kiosks served by the MicroSoft employees, or Fed EX local offices tucked into shopping centers, who took over, and downsized the infrastructure. If my two to five ounces of actual mail per month cost a total of $10.00 to deliver, and I had no future junk mail to sort, carry up and down stairs and haul out to the garbage collectors, I would not concern myself, when my correspondents passed the market price of sending a two ounce packet 3400 miles, by Fed Ex, on to me. The problem is not too much mail, it is too much junk mail, all of which is largess engineered by lobbyists from our clueless congress, at the expense of every taxpayer, the world's trees, and our planet's lungs. Not to mention the limitless burning of petroleum based fuels, and clogging of our streets and highways with postal trucks, delivery vans, etc. Close out the US Postal Service, since it has not served our interests for decades, and will never do so, ever again.

[cmc1227]

Can't we just throw a lot of money at the Post Office and hopefully they fix their own problem? Oh yes, and don't give them any guidance on how to use the money until they blow it on BS. Seems to be the current administrations plan for everything. Yep pretty much sums up the way to fix things today.

[goosfraba2]

There will continue to be a need to send mail in hard copy form for the foreseeable future. Should the USPS go under, I would like to see the faces of the following when they have to send a form or hand-written device sans scanning overland via FedEx, UPS, or other. It's going to cost you bunche$.

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Try cutting the cost of postage. We've gone from using the post office about 20 times a month to around two.

Posted by trillion1 at 4:03 PM : Mar 20, 2009

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I see the end of the USPS in our lifetimes. With UPS, FedEx and others, who make enough money to sponser NASCAR, the USPS can't keep up.

Posted by gravyboat63 at 6:00 PM : Mar 20, 2009

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One more instance were government mangement lags private management. Fed Ex made money while the Postal Service LOST money!!!

aziridine at 7:42 PM : Mar 20, 2009

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Fedex will soon be handling our day to day mail.
Posted by skeetchamp at 7:53 PM : Mar 20, 2009

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I feel the postal rates are too high and the U.S. Postal Service is losing money to other postal services that are lower in cost and more efficient.

budmag06 at 9:38 AM : Mar 21, 2009

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To continue, I have no relationships with the postal service. To the following, I concur and thank you for your input:

rightaboutit at 8:30 PM : Mar 20, 2009

rightaboutit at 8:38 PM : Mar 20, 2009

rightaboutit at 8:49 PM : Mar 20, 2009

pythoncharly at 5:42 AM : Mar 21, 2009

noaanhc at 7:18 AM : Mar 21, 2009

rightaboutit at 8:37 AM : Mar 21, 2009

rightaboutit at 8:44 AM : Mar 21, 2009

rightaboutit at 8:52 AM : Mar 21, 2009

[budmag06]

I differ with other comments posted here. I feel the postal rates are too high and the U.S. Postal Service is losing money to other postal services that are lower in cost and more efficient. See what it costs to send a package first class at your local P.O. and you will see what I mean.

[jxknowles]

We cannot continue to be a country of pensions and unemployed. I really hate to see another 150,000 workers doing nothing.