"The Postal Service is an American institution and must be preserved. Comprehensive postal reform legislation must address the issue of delivery frequency, and Congress should make such reform a priority. Today’s announcement by Postmaster Patrick Donahoe, regarding the loss of Saturday delivery, will have a negative effect on both the Postal Service and its millions of customers. The loss of Saturday delivery will be particularly harmful to small businesses, rural communities, the elderly, the disabled and others who depend on Saturday delivery for commerce and communication.
"The agency’s crisis is a direct result of an unsustainable congressional mandate imposed on the Postal Service by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA). The federal law forces the Postal Service to pre-fund healthcare benefits for future retirees and to do so in a 10-year period. No other entity — public or private — bears this burden. Since the PAEA took effect in 2007, the Postal Service has been required to pre-pay approximately $5.5 billion per year. Yet the same law prohibits the Postal Service from raising postage rates to cover the cost.
"The Postal Service has already slashed mail service by closing 13,000 post offices and drastically reducing hours of operation, shutting hundreds of mail processing facilities, and downgrading standards for mail delivery to America’s homes and businesses. The effects have already been felt locally in Scranton and today’s announcement will only place a greater burden on the 17th Congressional district.
"Congress must take a holistic approach in passing comprehensive Postal Reform legislation addressing both the recent decline in mail volume as well as the strain placed on the Postal Service by the mandated PAEA."
I like this guy. I was concerned when we lost Holden, and I don't much care whether they deliver the mail on Saturdays or not, but I like this guy in general and appreciate that he has thrown himself into the gun debate in the way that he has.
ReplyDeleteHolden would not have done that.
Five day a week delivery of mostly junk mail is already more than enough. The Postal Service as it exists today is mainly a jobs program providing the same service that it did when we didn't have fax machines, scanners, and the internet. As more and more people switch to online bill payment, the volume of first class mail has been dropping dramatically, and it will continue to drop. Three day a week delivery would be just fine, and part of the savings could go to keeping Post Offices open past 5pm to accommodate those who work for a living.
ReplyDeleteThere are many issue with this 5 day work delivery, One would be the amount of mail delivered will increase for the Letter Carriers, example would be this coming holiday on the Washington's birthday, so no mail saturday, sunday and monday, so tuesday the letter carrier goes out to the street with 4 days of mail, There isnt enough time in a day to deliver that amount of mail, especially when management wants carrier done in 8 hours ( to save money ). #2 , alot of customer's get there medicine daily, so if you have a few amount of carrier to deliver packages on saturday, it unrealistic that they can deliver 100's of packages in one day. the USPS is scaring the public into thinking this will work, first off Congress needs to vote on this, a majority of them disagree with this announcement, What needs to happen is to look at the Salaries of management and cut from there first, there is at least 6 supervisors watching 35 carriers on any giving day. I agree that something has to give, The USPS says that 7 out of 10 customers wouldn't miss Saturday deliveries, In the long term , the USPS is looking into putting cluster boxes at corner's of neighborhood, so in the future you will need to walk to the corner to get your mail, picture a elderly lady having to walk thru the rain, sleet and snow to get her mail daily, This is not customer service, also the USPS wants to help out with outsourcing postal jobs, so now you have a person not in uniform, no benefits, low pay, how accountable do you think they would be ? Postal Worker's are the public's eyes and ears, they watch your home everyday, they report misconducts, accidents, you know you mail carrier by name, you feel comfortable with your mailman, Picture some person that one day does your route and the next day does another route, so you are missing a parcel or checks, well management wont know who did your route that particular day, they are not accountable for nothing and i feel it's the important to not interrupt delivering of your mail because management is mismanaging daily.
ReplyDeleteWho is this guy? or absent Congressman from the other side of the tunnel? He will be as effective for us as Dent is
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ReplyDeletePRIVATIZE or $ELL the MAIL SYSTEM!!!