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August 24, 2011
Post Office Study Suggests USPS Can Save Money By Making Customer Service Even Worse
Topics: Political News and commentaries
Right off the bat, let's keep in mind that USPS may run out of money in just over a month.
Now with that in mind, according to a new study, the Post Office could save as much as $1.5 billion a year by cutting back on the quality of its service:
Think snail mail is too slow? Imagine if it got slower.Yeah, like that'll work, right? Not!The U.S. Postal Service could save about $1.5 billion a year if it relaxed its two-to-three-day delivery schedules for first-class and Priority Mail deliveries by a day, according to a new study.
Postal executives are seriously considering the idea and are expected to announce plans regarding delivery schedules after Labor Day, according to USPS officials.
Currently the Postal Service advises customers that first-class and Priority Mail deliveries will arrive, on average, in two or three days.
But relaxing the schedule by a day would cut about $336 million in premium pay for employees working overnight and Sundays to meet current delivery schedules, according to the study. Adding one day to the schedule would put less emphasis on speed and allow the USPS to save at least an additional $1.1 billion by delivering some long-haul Priority Mail shipments by ground instead of air, consolidating mail-processing facilities and employing fewer workers, the study said.
Instead, why doesn't the USPS convince Congress to allow it to be set free of its ties to the Federal Government and compete with other companies ... a private company doesn't need to get permission to engage in efficient cost-cutting moves that at the same time allow it to be more competitive and in the long run, make it a much healthier business.
As for why USPS is going broke, back in April of last year the Government Accountability Office said that USPS business model is broken and unsustainable - and to now one's surprise - the blame lies squarely on the unions:
[...] The U.S. Postal Service's business model is not sustainable, and union-backed generous employee benefits along with collective bargaining contracts are a big part of the problem, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.And as was pointed out by CNSNews back in March of last year, the average postal worker makes $83,000 a year, which is reflected in the fact that compensation and benefits constitute close to 80 percent of USPS's costs - despite major advances in technology and the automation of postal operations. Furthermore, the USPS can't fire anyone and can't make employees work faster or smarter because of the death grip the postal union has on the postal service. Postal workers are immune to reprimand and to any incentive to improve service.As mail volume has plummeted by 17 percent - or by 36 billion pieces - in the past three years, collective bargaining contracts have forced the Postal Service to keep full-time employees with full health and retirement benefits and preclude outsourcing of services.
"Limitations on the workforce mix of full-time and part-time postal employees and workforce flexibility rules contained in contracts with USPS's unions are key detriments of how postal work is organized and, thus, of its cost," the GAO report said.
"USPS officials told us that as mail volume declines, it would be more efficient to have a much higher proportion of part-time workers than is currently available under existing agreements," the report continued.
About 85 percent of USPS employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements, and "78 percent USPS employees are full-time and receive salary increases and cost of living adjustments based on predetermined levels," the report said.
Long story short, forget about becoming less competitive, go private and find a way to dump the Congressional and union strangleholds that prevent the USPS from ever being competitive and that are forcing to go broke.
Posted by Richard at August 24, 2011 11:16 AM
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