Unions Continue To Make Postal Service Unsustainable :: Political News and commentaries

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September 5, 2011

Unions Continue To Make Postal Service Unsustainable

Topics: Political News and commentaries

The situation didn't just happen over night, it's been in the works for years. Then, last year, the GAO reported that the USPS business model was broken and totally unsustainable. As for the reason, they placed the blame squarely on the unions.

So today's report from the NYT that United States Postal Service is nearing default as losses mount surely comes to no one's surprise. Although it's getting squeezed on both side of the profit equation (the post office's problems stem from being squeezed on both revenue and costs), the biggest factor is ... you guessed it ... labor unions and labor:

Labor represents 80 percent of the agency's expenses, compared with 53 percent at United Parcel Service and 32 percent at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. Postal workers also receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees.

In other words, as is pointed out at the above link, either the postal workers' union agrees to major restructuring or the entire USPS enterprise collapses.

As we've previously noted, unions in the public sector where no profit on a product or service is generated, have never made sense. In his concise history of public sector unions, Doug Ross demonstrates with undeniable clarity why public sector unions should never have been allowed to organize in the first place.

Meanwhile, from a somewhat related story, our president is spending Labor Day at an AFL-CIO Labor Day Rally.