Kevy Baby
11-10-2008, 09:44 PM
I know most people here won't care all that much, but I had to share.
(I have copied the text from the latest Printing Industries newsletter, but I verified that the information is correct. You can find the letter on the APWU web site (http://www.apwu.org/dept/presvp/index.htm). Emphasis below is mine.)
The President of the American Postal Workers Union has written an “open letter” to the Postmaster General telling him how to solve the Postal Service’s problems. It should come as no surprise that he is against solutions involving reducing the hours or numbers of the workforce and against “work-sharing” arrangements where mailers get a discount for presorts since his members should be doing that work (at government rates and benefits).
Their solution is for the Postmaster General to realize that the USPS has a monopoly and should take advantage of it. "So what if first class mail is a dollar, the customers will have to pay it because we’re the only postal service that they have." Wrong—the reality is that first class volume is being eaten by orders placed online and bills submitted and paid the same way. Standard class is very cost sensitive, with clients always on the watch for ways to narrow the mail list. A few dollars more and promotional printing will be drastically cut back or eliminated.
Wow
Just, wow.
Never mind the fact that USPS employees have the highest worker's comp claim rate in the country: four-to-five time the national average!
(I have copied the text from the latest Printing Industries newsletter, but I verified that the information is correct. You can find the letter on the APWU web site (http://www.apwu.org/dept/presvp/index.htm). Emphasis below is mine.)
The President of the American Postal Workers Union has written an “open letter” to the Postmaster General telling him how to solve the Postal Service’s problems. It should come as no surprise that he is against solutions involving reducing the hours or numbers of the workforce and against “work-sharing” arrangements where mailers get a discount for presorts since his members should be doing that work (at government rates and benefits).
Their solution is for the Postmaster General to realize that the USPS has a monopoly and should take advantage of it. "So what if first class mail is a dollar, the customers will have to pay it because we’re the only postal service that they have." Wrong—the reality is that first class volume is being eaten by orders placed online and bills submitted and paid the same way. Standard class is very cost sensitive, with clients always on the watch for ways to narrow the mail list. A few dollars more and promotional printing will be drastically cut back or eliminated.
Wow
Just, wow.
Never mind the fact that USPS employees have the highest worker's comp claim rate in the country: four-to-five time the national average!