• Citizens Support to Save Local Post Office A petition drive to keep a downtown post office in Plant City, Florida is seeing some success. The backers of the petition had hoped to get 1,000 signatures and ended up with over 3,500.

    The Plant City Chamber of Commerce was taken aback when the U.S. Postal Service offered to sell the city the post office or the a joining lot. As the Postal Service continues to try to cut costs, the citizens of Plant city took up a petition to keep the station open.

    A spokeswoman for the Postal Service stated that no immediate plans where in place to close the station as they continued to study the issue.

    Read Full Story.

    more Bookmark and Share
  • USPS "Aggressively reducing work hours" The Postal News reports that despite aggressive tactics to grow revenue and cut costs will end the fiscal year in a $1.5 billion shortfall. The net loss for the last 10 of 11 fiscal quarters is estimated at $2.3 billion dollars.

    All of which leads to aggressive cost cutting tactics. The following is taken from a Postal News article:We are aggressively reducing work hours and other costs to limit losses, preserve cash and improve productivity,” said Joseph Corbett, chief financial officer and executive vice president. Initiatives designed to match work hours to reduced volume have resulted in a work-hour decline of 58 million hours – the equivalent of a reduction of 33,000 full-time employees – in the first half of FY 2009, despite an increase in the number of delivery points by 1.1 million from the same period last year. The work-hour reduction is on pace to meet the goal of reducing work hours by more than 100 million for the entire year, the equivalent of 57,000 full-time employees"

    Corbett said other savings are coming from consolidating excess capacity in mail processing and transportation networks, realigning carrier routes, halting construction of new postal facilities, freezing Postal Service officer and executive salaries at 2008 pay levels, reducing travel budgets and similar measures."

    Get additional information concerning the United States Postal Regulatory Commission. (note link is a .pdf file)

    more Bookmark and Share
  • USPS Not Looking for Bail Out President Young testified $2.8 billion is the amount of money lost last year due to falling mail volumes to the House Postal subcommittee. In an attempt not to cut jobs and drop a delivery day the two biggest postal unions asked law makers to let them use a 'technical legal fix involving present funding for future retirees’ health care'.

    The following is from an Associated Press article:“NALC strongly supports the policy of pre-funding future retiree health benefits. Those benefits are our benefits. They are benefits Letter Carriers and other postal employees are relying on to be there in the future – they are benefits that we have all worked very hard to earn. But we are seeking to adopt a more reasonable and affordable schedule of pre-funding,” Young added.

    Young emphasized that unlike the banks, USPS and its workers are “not looking for a bailout. No taxpayer funds will be required by the bill. The USPS is seeking to use its own money to survive a cash crunch resulting from the economic crisis” that the bank collapse caused for the entire country."


    Read Full Article.

    more Bookmark and Share
  • Postal Service Slash Routes According to the website FederalTimes.com the Postal service has agreed to adjust city letter carrier routes if the mail volume continues to drop. Which will lead to route eliminations in the thousands. Many rural routes have already gone through this process.

    The Postal Service reached an agreement today with its city letter carriers that will make it easier to adjust delivery routes if mail volumes continue to fall — a process that could eliminate thousands of routes.

    The deal came after negotiations with the National Association of Letter Carriers, the union that represents more than 214,000 active city letter carriers. It allows the Postal Service to use a formula to analyze delivery routes, based on mail volume, and change the routes accordingly.


    Read Full Article

    Post Master General John Potter, also reported that there is no plan to offer incentives for early retirement. “Our employees would love some kind of a windfall, but the fact is, we can’t afford to,” Potter said.

    more Bookmark and Share
  • 2009 NALC Food Drive
    It's time once again for the NALC Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive. This year will be the 17th year that letter carriers will be out on the street picking of canned and dried foods.With the current US economy the annual food drive is more... important than ever.

    This year more than 1400 local branches will be participating in the food drive. That's not including the food drop stations that will be contributing as well. “Millions and millions of families are suffering – struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table,” Young said. “More than ever food banks, pantries and shelters need our help this year. As families count on them for support, they’re counting on us and we must not back off on our commitment.”

    more Bookmark and Share