Volume 103

Postmasters Online

Volume 103

March 14, 2001

Contents

Editorial: The Next Rate Hike: Diving into the Deep End of the Pool

1) Postmasters Fairness Marches On

2) Future Mail Delivery

3) Advertising to help the Bottom Line

4) FedEx and Aviation Security

5) Be Careful What You Wish For

6) The Sacrifice Has Already Been Made

7) Letter Carriers Not To Blame

8) Two Organizations, not needed.

9) If I have to choose, then I choose none

Welcome to the 30 new subscribers to this edition.

I appreciate the efforts that so many of you have made to spread the word of this newsletter, making it the largest postal employee newsletter is the galaxy. Tell a friend if you haven't already. If you are reading a rehashed copy of this, forwarded to you, how can you possibly read through all those hash marks and )) and { < marks. Get your own copy. Its easy. Its free. Send an email to Rupzip@cs.com

The Next rate hike: Diving Into the Deep End of the Pool

By David Rupert

Editor, PM Online

My, oh my.

Industry professionals are bracing for a rate hike in 2002 as much as 25 percent. That means the 40 cent stamp could be here in less than a year.

In response, a number of groups are banding together to call for Postal Reform.

Just two weeks after NAPUS was on the hill and one week after the League was in the same Congressional offices asking for postal reform, a number of other groups are getting on board. They are all afraid of the future and are calling on the President and Congress to do something.

The Washington Post recently wrote a story (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11742-2001Mar1.html) and called me for an interview. They asked about my confidence in the Postal Service. I told them that I believed in the postal worker: The dedicated people who make the mail flow are doing the job as never before. Our productivity has never been greater and frankly, there is very little blood left to squeeze from our operations. The answer and the key is elsewhere - in the plants, in the business model, in the rates, in the process. These are things that few of us in the field can understand, let alone fix. Thus the need for reform.

The call for a Presidential Commission on the Post Office is a grand gesture, but in my opinion, a tremendous time waster. Let's get a Senate or House Reform Committee together now and bring in all the groups and lock them in a room until they figure out how to fix things - then do it. A Commission is great for fact finding, but does little for change. I applaud the Congressmen Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) and Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) who are forming

a joint House and Senate caucus to focus on postal issues in Congress. They need to work fast and efficiently on the issues.

US News and World Reports is reporting whispers of a slimmer Postal Workforce by almost 150,000 employees over the next five years. Look forward to a long and sustained hiring freeze. My guess is that retiring employee simply won't be replaced - but who will do the work? Craft employees will be back to long days and lots of overtime. Management will be back to long days and no overtime.

Postal VP Deborah Wilhite publicly tossed out the idea of 5 day delivery and the closure of 3000 Post Offices if reform doesn't happen soon. I believe this is nothing more than posturing, but again it emphasizes to the American public that our troubles could soon become their problems.

And lastly, the Postal Governors have sent a letter to the President and every member of Congress, asking for their involvement. I must believe that this will have an even greater impact just after hundreds of Postmasters met with their Congressmen pleading for the same action. At the same time the Governors cut or curtailed every new building project on the table, resulting in 1 billion in savings. The American people will not be concerned until the Postal Crisis and Reform message hits their town : And 800 towns are now feeling the affect.

Send your comments on this an any other issue to rupzip@cs.com

1) Postmasters Fairness Marches On

With hundreds of Postmasters pounding on their desktops, Congressmen are sponsoring the Postmaster's Fairness Act in droves. To date 30 Senate members are cosponsors and 177 House members have joined. The wording of the House Bill (HR 250) and the Senate Bill (S177) are found here:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.R.250.ih:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:s.00177:

If your Congressmen has not yet signed on, write them, call them, fax them, email them.

Don't just nod your head in agreement.

Do it.

2) Future Mail Delivery

Postalvoice (www.postalvoice.com) states that "most postal executives and about half the postal workforce will become eligible for retirement over the next 10 years."

What kind of impact will this have on our Postal Service?

Will the PO survive this transition?

They give the facts as: "The USPS has projected that in calendar years 2001 and 2002, some 130,000 postal workers will be eligible for regular retirement, including 36 percent of its executives, 25 percent of managers and supervisors, and 16 percent of the career workforce.

By calendar year 2010, 85 percent of postal executives, 74 percent of postal managers and supervisors, and 50 percent of the career workforce will reach retirement, based on USPS projections"

Let me know. Send an email to rupzip@cs.com

3) Advertising to help the Bottom Line

While in Washington DC I saw a number of LLVs with the AOL "You've Got Mail" logo splashed on its side. This type of advertisement on our products is new, although the Warner Brothers "stamps" pushed the envelope. This opens up a whole can of worms. What is next? Billboards on our buildings? Designer stamps? Can you imagine a Coca Cola stamp --- they would pay us 100 million for us to sell 6 billion stamps. They would do handstands, while the collectors would commit hari-kari.

What do you think? Send an email to rupzip@cs.com

4) FedEx and Aviation Security

So if FedEx is going to carry our Priority Mail, what will that do to Aviation Security?

Send your comments to Rupzip@cs.com

5) Be Careful What You Wish For

Are you serious when you say don't deliver residential mail on saturday!!!! Does your office have so little mail that you don't need Saturdays to get the mail delivered?? I can tell you in my office taking off for a non widely observed Holiday totally screws up the operation for 3 to 4 days. Overtime Aux assist etc. are needed on my city routes for several days in a row to clean up after a Holiday. I can't imagine doing this week after week. If you really want to cut costs then it's the people who have nothing to do with moving the mail that need to be on the chopping block. The BOG has made this clear with its' mandate that "all non essential activities are to be eliminated" It will be very interesting to see just who is determined to be non essential!! In the meantime Postmasters would do well to keep a low profile, it wouldn't be all that difficult to contract out all 15 and below Post Offices. Stay tuned!!

Bill Haugen

Elsberry MO 63343

6) The Sacrifice Has Already Been Made

David:

Although I agree with most of what you say I just can't see us sacrificing anything more.

Our leaders have already made an impact on our pay, ie. no more colas, merits based on in some cases impossible goals etc.

Most exempt postmasters make an hourly rate of pay much lower then the craft workers they supervise when you figure the amount of time we put in our offices just to keep our noses above water. I don't know any Postmaster that doesn't put in at least 10 hours a day or more.

In my opinion, there is no respect for Postmasters from headquarters and the job itself has turned from the best to worst in the Post Office.

I have over 28 years of experience, from city carrier to city supervisor to associate office supervisor, to SPO to level 18 Postmaster and to be honest with you, i'm tired and beat up and can't wait until I retire in December of 2002.

Not a good attitude, well I agree, but this is how it is. I also feel that we need one strong "Union" to protect us. Whether this will happen I don't know. Whether there will even be a Post Office in the future I don't know either.

7) Letter Carriers Not To Blame

(This is in reply to Vol 102)

I disagree with the opinion that the 34 cent stamps are solely caused by the National Association of Letter Carriers.

I think that the blame lies on the Postal Service instead. The American public does react negatively to postage increases. The public does not realize what a bargain they still get. Who else is going to take a letter from grandma in Los Angeles, CA and mail it to her grandson in Boston for 34 cents? How about 50 cents? The increases of postage over the years has in no way kept up with inflation. The public needs to be educated on this fact. They see us as ripping their wallets from their hands when all we're trying to do is make ends meet. To blame the increase solely on Letter Carriers is absurd.

The current National Agreement (1998-2001) between the NALC and USPS does contain, in the third year of the contract, an across the board upgrade from Level 5 to Level 6, now known as NALC Grades 1 and 2. The USPS should have known this was coming years ahead of time. During negotiations for the last National Agreement (1994-1998), an agreement was not negotiated between the parties and the outcome came as the result of binding arbitration.

During the arbitration precedings, the NALC argued then for the upgrade to Level 6 for all Letter Carriers as the result of the increased workload due to automation. The arbitrator (don't remember the name) said that Letter Carriers will, in time, deserve the upgrade to Level 6 but at that time not enough Letter Carriers nationwide have felt the impact of automation to warrant the upgrade.

Going into negotiations for the 1998-2001 agreement, the NALC sought the same thing, upgrade to Level 6. The USPS offered no contractual wage increases, to eliminate COLA's, two $900 annual payments, and to decrease their payments towards our health benefits premiums. This was their "last, best, and final offer" and amazingly enough, it was exactly what their initial offer was. The NALC greatly decreased their initial offer to come up with their final offer. Arbitrator Fleischli said before the final offers were made that he would take one of the two. USPS officials stated that if he chose the offer of the NALC, that "nuclear winter" would come about. The USPS was naive to think that he would choose their offer.

The average city carrier route used to be about 4 hours of office time and 4 hours of street time. Automation (specifically, DPS) has changed this to an average of 2 hours in the office and 6 hours on the street. As a result, injuries have increased, accidents have increased, muscular skeletal disorders have increased, sick leave usage has increased, etc. Letter Carriers deserved this pay increase, no question. The Postal Service should have planned ahead for it instead of sitting idle and playing dumb.

This does not mean that all other crafts should see a wage increase also. Letter Carriers proved their case due to the impact of automation on their craft. Can a mailhandlers prove the same? How about a distribution clerk? I think not.

David Miller

(EDITOR: I heard from several letter carriers - none of whom agreed with me. I guess the days of carrying in an automation world have changed dramatically since I hung up the bag 12 years ago. These guys do have their jobs cut out for them - it is physically demanding and automation has ruined those carriers who truly service and manage their routes. So carriers, thank you! Individually, you are not to blame. But who can argue with the financial facts that moving to Level 6 has cost the PO billions…….no one.)

8) Two Organizations, not needed.

Lets start out by doing this. All due paying members, drop out of one organization and belong to just on. I suggest you take a look at the "strongest organization." By that I mean the one with the most funds and the one that offers the most to its members. Look at it the way you would look at two stocks, if you only have money to buy one. Call both offices NAPUS and the League. Tell them the truth and then do some research. I feel T\the way we can get one organization is to belong to one and not two. Lets not dismantle both, lets just join one.

The rest will fall into place!

POSTIER1@AOL.COM

Postmasters online is the smallbrainchild of David Rupert, POB 3 Wilson WY 83014 and a product of the Wordsmiths Group.

Postmasters Online neither represents nor incriminates the United States Postal Service, the US Government, NASA, or the Leave It To Beaver television series. All opinions are those of the contributors.