Posted on 03/27/2010 10:00:35 AM PDT by Graybeard58
America's ailing newspapers and the U.S. Postal Service have much in common. Both face stiff competition from Internet services, both have aging customer bases, and both are inherently labor-intensive operations that cannot attain the full benefits of automation.
But there is a difference. As private enterprises, newspapers are able to cast about for solutions to their problems. Some have reinvented themselves by cutting or redeploying staff, radically changing their focus or abandoning the print medium for an Internet-only presence. Others, most famously the once-proud Rocky Mountain News in Denver, simply closed.
As a federal agency, the postal service is stuck with work rules, union contracts and public expectations that make even the most modest reforms seem dangerously radical. Postmaster General John Potter has floated (again) a plan to halt Saturday mail delivery, and the reaction was predictable. "The union does not support five-day delivery," Michael Willadsen, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 86 in East Hartford, said. "We believe we should be expanding our availability or maintaining the six-day service we provide to the public. We're not a business, we're a service."
Small wonder he feels that way. Eliminating Saturday delivery would enable the USPS to reduce its letter carriers, now numbering more than 214,000, by one-sixth. Other possible solutions include closing some offices and allowing longer delivery times for first-class mail, a step that would enable the agency to reduce its use of costly air transport. Increasing the price of first-class stamps also is being considered.
The union's motivation is to preserve the jobs of dues-paying members, but its arguments at least are coherent. By contrast, Mr. Potter seems focused on charging more for less service, a formula for catastrophic failure. The Internet, FedEx, UPS, phone companies that do not charge extra for long-distance calls, even those dinosaurs known as fax machines, stand ready to deliver every service the USPS provides.
It's easy to go all sentimental on anachronisms such as the post office and Western Union. Who can forget the original "Miracle on 34th Street," where postal workers "prove" there really is a Santa Claus by delivering children's letters to him at the courthouse; or Jimmy Stewart digging through piles of telegrams in the Senate in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"?
Still, telegram delivery ended without much lamentation in 2006. As for the postal service, a better measure of the esteem in which it is held is Kevin Costner's post-apocalyptic film "The Postman," in which letter carriers are depicted as agents of the rebirth of civil society. The movie bombed despite Mr. Costner's star power, at least in part because movie-goers weren't buying the depiction of the postal service as civilization's savior.
And there's little sentiment to be found in the prevalence of postal "rubber rooms," where surplus workers languish because the agency can't fire them or assign them to other jobs; or the forecast the service will plunge $238 billion into the red over the next 10 years.
America's elderly, the wealthiest generation that ever lived, still value the postal service and will continue to support it for a few more decades.
The task of Mr. Potter and his successors is not to reinvent the service or make it appealing to the young and middle-aged, but to make it as cost-effective as possible in its current incarnation while recognizing its days are numbered.
Flame away.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Extra ping for you.
I don't use it, want it, or want to subidise them.
What I see, and the feeling I get when dealing with government 'service' providers.
I have no complaints about the Post Office. I’ve used USPS priority mail and express mail for my business shipments for over 3 years, and have never had a problem. Cost and delivery time are usually less than private delivery companies, and I can get free shipping supplies like envelopes and boxes delivered to my office.
Unions will either ruin or rule this country.
Two weeks ago I had my mail held why I was out of town. They pressed the wrong button, so instead of being held, it was sent back to the originators marked as Addressee moved, no forwarding address. Good job.
Post Office is very efficient. Never understood all the complaints. I do a lot of business by mail.
You’re right, of course, 44 cents is a bargin.
What irritates me is the service at the Post Office itself.
When all I need is a roll of stamps, why can’t I just go to the machine, put in a credit card and presto! stamps?
Union rules force me to stand in line for 10 or 15 minutes to have some cleck punch the buttons instead of me.
I am pissed off by the removal (and I don’t know if it’s universal, but I suspect it is) of stamp vending machines from Post Office lobbies. That was a great way to get rid of accumulated piles of change.
I love the post office - and no I’m not a postal worker, nor is any member of my family. The unions are killing a wonderful organization.
I do some on-line selling, which would not be possible without them. Most of my items are first class mail parcel, shipping between $2-$3.
I got an email from a buyer in UK - she received her first class intl parcel in four days.
I’d be perfectly happy if they left the post offices open on Sat to service people who work during the week and cut Sat delivery.
Our postal system is a thing of beauty to me and in spite of all the ways the union and incompetent management and govenment ownership and politics bring it down, it has been amazingly reliable all my life. If we wanted to make it better, we could.
Me too. When all I want to do is buy a book of stamps, I do NOT want to stand in line for it. But I don’t have to do that at the post office anyway, since I can pick up stamps at the grocery store now.
True, but I’m talking about the convenience of disposing of that jar full of loose change we all have. With the stamp vending machines formerly in the PO, you didn’t have to count it, and, if it didn’t add up to a full $44 roll, you could get the little $4.40 and $8.80 booklets of stamps. Or, get a booklet of 1-cent or 2-cent stamps to bring up to date any older stamps you may have been left with.
Yes, it would be sheer utopia if this was the biggest problem we faced!
You can also order stamps from USPS.gov. Delivery is very quick and the shipping fee is $1, no matter how many you get.
I have a Stamps.com subscription, so I print my own postage. I didn’t really need it for the first-class letters, but I love not having to go to the PO to mail packages.
Thanks for the ping Graybeard.
My local post office has a machine in the lobby, unless they took it out recently, I don't know whether it takes credit cards or not. There's also a package mailing machine in the lobby.
On Monday at 1:50 PM, I sent an important letter to a friend in Dallas, 200 miles away. Because it was important I sent it priority mail for $4.90 instead of the regular postage of 40 something cents. Regular mail usually gets there either the next day or two days max. The friend received the priority mail at 3:30 PM Friday, 5 days. Never again.
Did you know Fed Ex has the USPS contract for flying the mail?
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