Posted on 01/24/2011 12:28:06 PM PST by Justaham
Unless you’re in Mayberry or Petticoat Junction, the post office is for people that haven’t figured out that Fedex and UPS can do it better and cheaper.
UPS and FedEx don't deliver to many rural areas. They have the Postal Service handle the final leg. I myself have found parcel post to beat UPS and FedEx about 75% of the time on price.
It's not a market price.
Reading this thread, I'm surprised to see just how many Freepers are unaware of how desolate the Plains and Mountain West are. Apparently many think FedEx sends trucks regularly out to Nowhere, Montana.
Of course it's not. But FedEx and UPS don't deliver to every mailbox in Wyoming like the Post Office does. Does the Constitution say it was supposed to be a market rate?
I get a call from the post master’s boss who informed me that if the post master came back we are to evacuate the building and call 911.
He thought she might “Go postal”.
Apparently. And there I was - without a gun to protect myself because you can’t carry in a post office - unless you’re postal.
>> the post office is for people that haven’t figured out that Fedex and UPS can do it better and cheaper.
I’ve done plenty of work with the USPS. Generally, the folks are pleasant, the process is straight forward, and costs are competitive. It doesn’t deserve, however, to be shielded from economic difficulty.
If I’m not mistaken, USPS is self-funding and is required to fund pensions 15 years in advance.
Concerning services, UPS, FedEx, and USPS excel in different ways.
The “red” communities will be hurt the most. Conservatives will lose their jobs much moreso than liberals. I agree with you about the big union city post offices but that is not what will happen. It will be the “red” areas for sure. Of course folks on this thread are ignoring this fact.
It’s not a market price. It’s subsidized by the IRS.
I'm not lying - you ARE lying!! I happen to work at the USPS. I am 3-4 pay grades above a window clerk, and I don't make that much. In fact, I don't get within $5 an hour of what you claim we make. I do agree that the unions are a large part of the problem, and the new contract being negotiated now will address some of those problems.
Here are a few things that could be addressed regarding employee compensation:
1) cut starting vacation for full time employees from 13 days to 8 or so.
2) Right now, vacation time increases to 19 days after only 3 years of employment. That should be reduced to 12-13 days and become effective after 8-10 years, not 3.
3)Employees, after completing 15 years service, receive 26 days per year. That number could be trimmed down to a lower number.
4) At the USPS, employees receive 13 sick days and 11 paid holidays per year. I think it's obvious that those numbers can be lowered to 7 and 6 - or another similar number.
5)Continue to cut jobs through attrition. Most union workers are covered by a no layoff clause. Yeah, everyone bitches about it, but most don't know that it is tied to the no-strike clause. Since I have been there less than 6 years, I am not covered by the no-layoff clause in the contract. Fully five percent of Postal employees are expected to retire this year, and every year for the next ten. In my facility, over 30 retired last year, and this year there will be even more. I work with some really, really old people!
6) Continue to automate. The USPS needs to spend billions to modernize facilities and equipment. Too many processes are done manually or by 1970's equipment that today could be done on fully automated systems.
Hey, there is a lot of room for improvement at the USPS in virtually every area. Management is a joke. Training is a joke. The place has no sense or expectation of urgency. It's the DMV on thorzine.
Any service provided by the government can't be a market price. What is your point? The Post Office is one of the few Constitutional powers given to the federal government and was put there for the purpose of authorizing Congress to subsidize postal delivery.
OK, put it this way. You found parcel post to beat UPS and FedEx about 75% of the time on price. But that isn’t about beating price. That’s USPS fixing the price by legislative fiat.
To clarify by example, using food stamps beats cost 100% of the time. But somebody pays the difference. The fact that USPS beats UPS and FedEx on price is meaningless if it isn’t a market.
I get any stamps I need from the supermarket service kiosk, which also handles Western Union money transfers. Have them, or a local bank branch, also be able to issue money orders and be registered-mail pickup points, and you eliminate most of the reason to have a dedicated post office.
“Unions run amok! No wonder the USPS is going broke. Post office employees make $32.50 an hour to stand behind a counter and sell stamps and ask you 14 questions. It doesn’t take a Masters’ Degree to put something on a scale and weigh it or place the letter in the correct PO Box. Pay the going rate for a cashier at a convenience store ($10.50) who does the same thing and add up the savings. A maintenance man who sweeps the floors and mows the grass for the Post Office once told me he made $18.50 an hour.”
Pardon me, please change that to $27.00 an hour. My ex-wife was a high school drop out and made $26 dollars an hour 8 years ago, I figured you had gotten a raise since then. Everything else in post still applies.
Not to my bank account. And for over 40 years the USPS was a revenue neutral government agency getting no tax dollars, and competed head to head with UPS and FedEx while delivering to every address to the US which FedEx and UPS don't do. So, the whole bashing of the USPS as some bottomless pit of waste is pretty lame.
Where have you been the last 23 years?
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