USPS Hits GAO "High Risk" List
Editor. (views and opinions are not necessarily that of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union)
The Government Accountability Office has placed the U.S. Postal Service on their financial instability 'High Risk' List. 'The Postal Service urgently needs to work with Congress and other key stakeholders to develop and implement a restructuring plan to help put it on a more sustainable financial path. By adding the U.S. Postal Service's financial condition to the High-Risk List, we hope to bring attention to the agency's financial viability and its ability to provide sustainable, affordable, high-quality mail service,' said Gene L. Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO.
The GAO report targets, unfortunately, employee damaging fixes while not addressing major issues contributing to the financial decline. Not addressed were overly generous work-share discounts[1] to mailers and Negotiated Service Agreements which are special rate and service arrangements between the USPS and a mailer[2]. Additionally, many USPS facilities, plants, and processing facilities have been staffed continuously with "detailed" (temporary) staffing and managers, causing inflated costs due to continued per diem type expenses, to include lodging, mileage, etc.
As a union steward, I continuously see the same union contract violations repeated over and over again, without holding managers responsible for correcting the issues. The grievances are often paid, but the issues never corrected. The repeated violations center around Improper By-Pass Overtime, Crossing Crafts, and Casuals in Lieu Of, costing the USPS untold amounts of money. This is an area where the postal service Labor Representatives could invoke some trend analysis to determine which managers and facilities repeatedly propagate these costly violations. This would permit the USPS to either educate the poorly performing managers or shed themselves of the poorly performing leaders. This is not taking place. Managers are not held accountable for their fiscal deficiencies, which should be a first and vital path to cost reduction. Instead, GAO focuses on issues that suggest the reduction of employee benefits, contributing to the rapid decline of the American working-class in this country. GAO suggest Reduction of compensation and benefit costs through retirements, early retirements (without suggesting changes to the antiquated OPM limits on monetary incentives to facilitate the willingness to retire early), increasing health and life insurance benefit costs to the employee, and consolidations that negatively impact employees by excessing them to distant facilities. Although GAO's intent may have been to provide an objective analysis, it gives the appearance of too much protection of the Direct Mailing Industry by overlooking this as a target area for radical improvement and profitability through reduction of costly discounts, as well as overlooking the effectiveness Cost-benefit analysis relative to the aforementioned issues ...but hey, I am just a Mail Handler, what do I know? I know that the "Voice of the Employee" and a non-adversarial union and management team effort is vital to the efficiency and effectiveness of operations and the return to financial stability.
In synopsis, hold leaders to a standard of accountability that will result in the reduction of costly repetitive contract violations (this does not mean altering the contracts to remove employee protections), the concepts of trend analysis and Cost-benefit analysis, and eliminate cost-escalating discounts for direct mailers (discounts are fine if they are profitable and not just put in place to generate profitless volume). As far as Mail Handlers, we will all continue to work hard to provide expedient and quality delivery of the mail to our customers!
If you have suggestions for cost reduction, please click the comment link below and share your thoughts:
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Source: PDF Document: GAO Puts USPS on "High Risk" List
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1. Alberta, Paul M. "Gleiman Blasts USPS Over Workshare Discounts." Direct. Apr 22, 1999 12:00 PM,http://directmag.com/news/marketing_gleiman_blasts_usps/
2. Burrus, William. "Postal Regulatory Commission: USPS Could Lose Millions in Proposed Deal." American Postal Workers Union. 2009. http://www.apwu.org/news/webart/2007/webart-0799-boa-nsa-071029.htm
