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By James Hamilton, EconbrowserFrom my ground-level perspective, postal mail is a dying industry, at least as far as it's used in academia. So I had some concerns when the Wall Street Journal ran this strongly worded editorial on Saturday: With their $15 billion line of credit from Treasury about to be exhausted, postal workers and management are now asking Congress to let them take a pass on $5.4 billion in legally required annual contributions to prepay for retirement health benefits. While there is honest disagreement about how much should be set aside, the Postal Service and unions essentially want to...

Head of U.S. Postal Service says delivery could be scaled back to 3 days a week By Maeve Coyle Topics Domestic Issues With Internet usage rising and mail volume steadily falling, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warned the U.S. Postal Service is going to have to make significant cutbacks that could mean no more Saturday service and eventually lead to mail delivery just three days a week. The Postal Service's "cashflow crisis is at a critical level," Donahoe told USA Today in an interview published Wednesday. Donahoe said eliminating Saturday mail would save around $3.1 billion a year for the cash-strapped...

OTTAWA — Back-to-work legislation parliamentarians have been debating for more than 48 hours passed in the House of Commons Saturday evening. Labour Minister Lisa Raitt, who introduced the bill Monday said postal workers will be back on the job 24 hours after the bill becomes law. The bill still has to pass in the Senate — a process the federal government has said can be accomplished within one day — and senators will be in the red chamber Sunday to debate the proposed legislation. Bill-C6 passed third reading shortly after 8:00 — following debate and filibusters that kept the Commons...

When Canadian letter carriers went on strike three weeks ago they hoped to force the national postal service, Canada Post, to back down from a cost-cutting proposal to dramatically reduce wages. Three weeks later, lawmakers are preparing to legislate them back to work, but Canadians are asking just how much a modern cyber-connected society needs the post office anyway. “If I get my mail, I get my mail, but if I really have to do something I go on the Internet,” says Janina, a bank teller. True, some businesses say they have had to scramble to try to fill orders...

SNIPPET: "KEY PENINSULA, Wash. -- A man who was fatally shot by Tacoma police during a traffic stop early Wednesday morning pointed a gun loaded with armor-piercing bullets at the officer who stopped him and was carrying a large amount of ammunition in his truck, the Tacoma Police Department said. Wednesday afternoon, the Medical Examiner's Office identified the man as Brooks Papineau of Gig Harbor." SNIPPET: "When police searched Papineau's truck, they found a large amount of ammunition and additional ammunition magazines.They also said they found a Koran and several books on converting to Islam. Police said Papineau went home...

The financially troubled Postal Service is suspending its employer contribution to the Federal Employee Retirement System. The agency said Wednesday it is acting to conserve cash as it continues to lose money. It was $8 billion in the red last year because of the combined effects of the recession and the switch of much mail business to the Internet. It faces the possibility of running short of money by the end of this fiscal year in September. "This move underscores the need for Congress to make bold, quick and substantive reforms to the Postal Service. The USPS is hanging by...

The Absurdity of UnionsRaki Shah, Atma Business Jun. 17, 2011, 7:25 PM I generally avoid politically-charged topics that don’t directly relate to business, but a recent Business Week article about the US Postal Service reminded me of a controversial topic that impacts all of us: organized unions. Although once essential to protect worker rights, modern day unions have become irrelevant, destructive, and a microcosm of all that’s wrong in the current debt laden climate. The article talked about the imminent demise of the postal service system and how little can be done to stop the train wreck in large part...

The Bloomberg Businessweek cover story on the U.S. Postal Service a couple weeks ago was a real stunner - filled with so many juicy tidbits that it took a while to digest.  It is just phenomenal that a handful of ingnoramuses (ignorami?) are doing this to a once proud example of American ingenuity. We've heard the story over the past several years - the rise of email has demolished traditional first class mail.  Free markets created the likes of UPS and FedEx, and thanks to better and more reliable service customers willingly paid substantially more for those products.  So what...

Calgary and Edmonton are the latest targets in the revolving postal strike as union representatives consider their next moves, including a full-blown national walkout. The Alberta walkouts began at 10 p.m MT in Edmonton and 9 p.m MT in Calgary Tuesday night. "The reason why Alberta was chosen is because in the past years we've had serious issues dealing with the employer with respect to staffing here and the level of forced overtime that letter carriers have been having to work," said Bev Ray, Edmonton Canadian Union of Postal Workers local president. "Alberta has been one of the hardest hit...

He is struck by how many USPS executives started out as letter carriers or clerks. He finds them so consumed with delivering mail that they have been slow to grasp how swiftly the service's financial condition is deteriorating. "We said, 'What's your 10-year plan?' " Herr recalls. "They didn't have one."

PORTLAND, Ore. - A mail carrier who was caught using a yard as his personal toilet will not be fired. The incident happened last month at a home in southeast Portland and a neighbor, Don Derfler, captured the man in the act with his camera. Derfler had been waiting for his babysitter when he saw his mailman acting odd at his neighbor's house across the street. The postal worker then pulled down his pants and that's when Derfler began snapping pictures. "We trust people like the postal service and meter readers and people of that nature," Derfler told us when...

One thing we'll say about federal bailouts—if you pay attention, you can usually see them coming a mile away. It was true of Fannie Mae and General Motors, and it's increasingly clear that the next candidate will be the U.S. Postal Service. The odds of a multibillion-dollar rescue package went way up this week when Postal Service management reported a $2.2 billion loss for the first quarter, more than 25% higher than last year despite the economic recovery. It now appears that the $15 billion line of credit the feds have offered USPS will be used up by the end...

The delivery of mail on Sundays in the United States has a fascinating history, and most people do not know that until 1912, the Postal Service routinely delivered mail on Sundays. It was only under pressure from religious and labor organizations that the USPS gradually transitioned to the now-familiar Monday through Saturday schedule. ... Between its inception in 1775 and 1912, postal employees delivered mail seven (7) days a week. In the early 1800s, religious leaders became concerned that employees were forced to work on the “Christian Sabbath,” or Sunday, and began to petition Congress to use its Article I...

The U.S. Postal Service posted a $2.2 billion net loss in its second quarter and said it might be unable to pay its debts by September. The agency, which has been battling falling mail volumes and competition from FedEx (FDX.N) and United Parcel Service (UPS.N), said it expects to hit its borrowing limit by the September 30 end of the fiscal year, and will have to default on payments to the federal government unless Congress intervenes. "The Postal Service continues to seek changes in the law to enable a more flexible and sustainable business model," said Chief Executive Patrick Donahoe...

Savings from 5-day mail delivery overstatedPosted: Mar 25, 2011 4:09 PM by CBS News WASHINGTON - The Postal Service overstated its potential savings from eliminating Saturday delivery, a proposal that would slow delivery of about 1 in 4 letters, the independent Postal Regulatory Commission said Thursday. The post office lost $8.5 billion last year and is seeking ways to cut costs, including its proposal to end Saturday mail. Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said that despite the report he would continue supporting the idea, which must be approved by Congress. Donahoe also announced a series of other savings Thursday that...

The American Postal Workers Union and the U.S. Postal Service have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, union President Cliff Guffey announced today. “Despite the fact that the Postal Service is on the edge of insolvency, the union and management have reached an agreement that is a ‘win-win,’ proposition,” he said.“Throughout the bargaining process, the union has sought to negotiate a contract that would be fair to our members and that would enable the USPS to succeed in the future,” he said.  “The tentative agreement accomplishes those goals. “The new contract will safeguard jobs, protect retirement and healthcare...

Can a U.S. Post Office refuse mail that has been metered in a neighboring town? Tonight my husband needed to get something postmarked by today, the end of the month, and the only post office with later closing hours was one in Glendale (Arizona). Now, we live in the metro Phoenix area where one city melts into another and use this Post Office whenever it's the most convenient. Well, the Post Office employee gave him a hard time because his envelopes (6 of them) had a Peoria, AZ meter mark. She said, "This is a GLENDALE Post Office," and continued...

A Long Island mail carrier is accused of pinching thousands of discount coupons intended for residents' mailboxes. Police accuse 38-year-old Thomas Tang of Baldwin of stealing more than 7,000 J.C. Penny discount coupons he was supposed to deliver to the department store's customers. Police say Tang then sold the coupons on eBay.

The U.S. Postal Service plays two roles in America: an agency that keeps rural areas linked to the rest of the nation, and one that loses a lot of money. Now, with the red ink showing no sign of stopping, the postal service is hoping to ramp up a cost-cutting program that is already eliciting yelps of pain around the country. Beginning in March, the agency will start the process of closing as many as 2,000 post offices, on top of the 491 it said it would close starting at the end of last year. In addition, it is reviewing...

U.S. Postal Service to close 2,000 post officesBy Dow Jones Newswires-Wall Street Journal Posted today at 7:13 a.m. With red ink showing no sign of stopping, the U.S. Postal Service is hoping to ramp up a cost-cutting program that is already eliciting yelps of pain around the country. Beginning in March, the agency will start the process of closing as many as 2,000 post offices, on top of the 491 it said it would close starting at the end of last year. In addition, it is reviewing another 16,000 — half of the nation’s existing post offices — that are...