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. But the unions will continue to fill their pockets until the Post Office goes tits up and then whine because the Government won’t give them more money to operate in the red.
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.