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BREAKING POSTAL
NEWS Making sure that USPS has employees where they’re needed is the subject of DPMG and Chief Operating Officer Pat Donahoe’s latest edition of Field Updates. Donahoe says that USPS has already begun moving people to new positions. He adds that employees who move to new positions will receive appropriate notifications and training. The Postal Service is beginning the movement process now to take care of the current situation, Donahoe says, adding that moving people into new positions “sets us up going ahead so we can get the right balance in the workforce.”
March 30, 2009 On Monday 3/30/09 at 8:40AM, Postmaster General John E. Potter took the stage at the NAPS 2009 Legislative Training Seminar (LTS) to speak directly to the delegates. Mr. Potter spoke about the state of the Postal Service. He stressed that Postal Service is not going to "go away" and will remain a viable entity. The PMG went on to talk about the Organizational Changes currently taking place. There has been a hiring freeze since well in advance of the slump in the economy and the mail industry, so there are available jobs for those employees being displaced, and there will be very few, if any, employees that will be separated in this RIF. Mr. Potter also spoke about being optomistic of the future of the economy and the mail industry. The Postal Service has already made grounds on gaining inroads in the advertising and package services business. The US Postal Service is ready, at the first inkling at signs of recovery, to launch a huge advertising blitz to gain even more market-share in these important areas. No Question and Answer session was given for delegates to interact with the PMG. The annual Legislative Training Seminar (LTS) provides our association the focus to our advocay efforts in Congress. Delegates from across the country come together to convene in Washington DC. The first two days are given for training to the delegates to prepare them for their efforts. The third day is when the delegates come together on Capitol Hill to have meetings with their local Senators and Congresspersons. Click here to view the 2009 LTS Legislative Issues Brief
March 25, 2009 As the nation’s economy stabilizes, our business will stabilize along with it. But stability, by itself, cannot be our goal. A stability based on today’s conditions simply means that we have halted the slide. Success demands more than that. It requires that we create an environment that allows us to move forward from a position of financial security when economic conditions do improve, prepared to grow, prepared to make up lost ground, prepared to pay down our debt, and prepared to meet the renewed needs of our customers. I am confident that we can do that. Assuming that we achieve our planned $5.9 billion in savings, the Postal Service is still projecting a loss of $6 billion in 2010. This follows last year’s loss of $2.8 billion, and, in 2007, a loss of $5.1 billion. Mail volume is expected to plunge to only 180 billion pieces by the time we close our books on 2009 at the end of September. Declines are possible beyond that point. Looking ahead, and considering projections for the overall economy, we do not expect any near-term improvement. We anticipate continued volume decline and a loss of more than $6 billion for next year, based on the latest forecasts from Global Insight. The Postal Service is taking strong and focused actions to remove $5.9 billion from our cost base in 2009. Our plans call for reducing an additional $3.8 billion in 2010. These actions follow reductions of more than $2 billion from our base costs in 2008, and over $1 billion each year beginning in 2002. Despite the scale of these reductions, they are simply not suffiCient to close the expanding gap between a declining revenue base and the costs of financing a network that was designed to deliver mail to America’s 150 million families and businesses six days each week. Even in an extremely soft housing market, our delivery network must continue to expand to reach more than a million new addresses each year, adding to our fixed costs as revenue continues to decline. By taking the right actions now, we can make it possible for the Postal Service to effectively manage through today’s dire economic environment and emerge on a firm financial footing. As I mentioned, the Postal Service’s efforts — despite their unprecedented scale — will be insufficient, by themselves, for us to simply break even. They must be accompanied by changes in the laws that govern our operations. Adjusting the number of delivery days from six to five would have the net effect of returning to an average daily volume of six pieces per delivery. With the same volume spread over a five-day service week, our fixed network costs could be reduced by almost 17 percent. This level of potential savings is not possible within today’s constraints. Through January, we have made tremendous progress in aligning our resources with a reduced workload. With mail volume down 11 percent, we reduced mail processing workhours by 13 percent. We have reduced retail workhours by 11 percent — and we have done that without the need for across-the board reductions in retail service hours. We have not been nearly as successful in the delivery area, where workhours have been reduced by only 5 percent. That is because delivery workhours, unlike those of other operations, are predominantly fixed. Carrier travel time — from the Post Office to the route, between addresses on the route, and back to the Post Office — does not change in relation to mail volume. In fact, with most mail placed into delivery sequence before the carrier leaves the Post Office, the time spent making a particular delivery may vary little based on the number of pieces delivered to an individual address. Delivery is one of our most labor-intensive activities. Unlike mail processing, it does not lend itself to technological substitution. Nor does it lend itself to staffing adjustments based on mail flow peaks and valleys or to fluctuating levels of customer demand during the course of a single day, a single week, seasonally, or over longer periods of time. Delivery remains our largest, single cost center. And with revenue per delivery continuing to decline — due to fewer pieces per address and a change in the mail mix to lower-cost products — our overall delivery costs grow proportionately larger. In effect, we are financing a level of service that exceeds a declining demand. Recent independent polling suggests that our customers are generally amenable to a five-day delivery week. A USA Today/Gallup survey found that 57 percent of respondents see this as a preferred solution to the Postal Service’s financial difficulties. Similarly, a Rasmussen Reports survey found that 69 percent of Americans indicated that they would prefer five-day-a-week service to other alternatives. The Postal Service is the only carrier that offers regular Saturday service — and at regular prices. Reducing delivery by one day per week could reduce costs by $3.5 billion annually. This offers a significantly higher cost benefit than any other single option for operational cost reductions. If we reject this approach, we rule out our largest cost-management opportunity at this time when we are facing such staggering financial pressures. The demographics of our employee base also underline the importance of pursuing this option. Today, 162,000 of our employees are eligible to retire under regular rules. Within the next four years, that number will grow to 291,000. After that time, the number of employees becoming retirement-eligible will fall dramatically. There is no better time to reconfigure our service offerings and avoid a situation in which new workforce growth — and its associated costs -exceed current and anticipated future system needs. Although the financial situation of the Postal Service is grave, it would have been even more untenable if it were not for the aggressive actions we have taken to protect the organization’s viability. We recognize that, despite the sources of our financial distress, the Postal Service itself has the primary obligation to bring costs in line with revenue to the extent possible. We have been doing that and we will continue to do that. Those actions began long before we began to see the effects of today’s economic distress. Source: PMG Potter’s Testimony to House Subcommittee
March 25, 2009
Please Note: We
cannot answer RIF or retirement related questions. |
March 20, 2009 USPS Continues Aggressive Steps to Cut Costs - USPS Press Release Closing administrative offices, eliminating positions, offering early retirements WASHINGTON — With no signs of economic recovery in sight, the U.S. Postal Service is taking bold actions in response to its ongoing financial crisis. Today the Postal Service announced it would be closing six of its 80 district offices, eliminating positions across the country and offering another early retirement opportunity. These actions are expected to save the Postal Service more than $100 million annually. The six offices closing — located in Lake Mary, FL; North Reading, MA; Manchester, NH; Edison, NJ; Erie, PA, and Spokane, WA — house only administrative functions and will not adversely affect customer service, mail delivery, Post Office operations or ZIP Codes. The functions of these six offices will be assumed by 10 district offices within close proximity. Additionally, administrative staff positions at the district level nationwide are being reduced by 15 percent. More than 1,400 mail processing supervisor and management positions at nearly 400 facilities around the country also are being eliminated and nearly 150,000 employees nationwide are being given the opportunity to take an early retirement. In the past year the Postal Service has taken very aggressive cost-cutting actions, including: Cutting 50 million workhours; Halting construction of new postal facilities; Negotiating an agreement with the National Association of Letter Carriers that adjusts letter carrier routes to reflect diminished volume; Freezing salaries of all Postal Service officers and executives; Instituting a nationwide hiring freeze; Reducing authorized staffing levels at postal headquarters and area offices by at least 15 percent; Selling unused and under-utilized postal facilities; Adjusting Post Office hours to better reflect customer use; and, Consolidating mail processing operations. The Postal Service is streamlining operations and improving efficiencies across the board in order to protect its ability to provide affordable, universal mail service. By modifying networks, consolidating functions and restructuring administrative and processing operations, the Postal Service is adapting to meet the evolving needs, demands and activities of its customers. NAPS PROVIDES THE INFORMATION BELOW Organizational Changes – March 20, 2009
District Closings
It will take approximately 5 months to close down the functions performed at the impacted districts. We expect this to be finalized by the end of August 2009. Impacted employees will be given 5 months notice to look for a placement within the Postal Service. If unable to do so, the employee will be given a RIF notice on June 24, 2009. Once the RIF notice is received, the employee then has 60 days before their employment status with the Postal Service will end on August 28, 2009. Function 1 – EAS positions In excess of 1400 EAS positions in more than 400 facilities will be eliminated in mail processing operations. These positions are being eliminated based on a mathematical computation designed to readjust our management-to-craft employee ratio to factor in the thousands of craft employees who have left the Postal Service in the last several years. An employee who is impacted by this decision will be given 4 month’s notice to look for placement within the Postal Service. If they are unable to do so, the employee will be given a Specific RIF notice on May 27, 2009. Once the RIF notice is received, the employee has 60 days before their employment status with the Postal Service will end on July 31, 2009. Additional information on the elimination of these positions will be provided. OPM VERA Rules - Go Here
2004 USPS VER Please Note: We cannot answer RIF or retirement related questions. |
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