Tag: usps

Postmaster General Stepping Down

By
Tad DeHaven

Postmaster General John Potter has announced that he is stepping down. The Washington Post speculates on the reason for Potter’s departure:

It is not immediately clear why Potter decided to step down, though USPS staffers and others in the postal community – a wide fraternity including the shipping industry, labor unions and large retailers – signaled recently that he was likely to go after another record year of financial losses and failing to earn greater management flexibilities from Congress.

When Potter testified before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing in March on the USPS’s desire to drop Saturday delivery, I noted that his comments indicated the need to privatize the U.S. Postal Service.

In his testimony, Potter stated:

If the Postal Service were provided with the flexibilities used by businesses in the marketplace to streamline their operations and reduce costs, we would become a more efficient and effective organization. Such a change would also allow us to more quickly adapt to meet the evolving needs, demands, and activities of our customers, now and in the future.

Of course, Congress has shown virtually no interest in giving the USPS, which is bleeding red ink, the greater flexibility it needs. This makes me wonder if Potter will reach the same conclusion that his predecessor, William Henderson, reached following his departure from the USPS.

Three short months after Henderson stepped down as postmaster general in June 2001, he penned an op-ed in the Washington Post that called for the USPS to be privatized.

Henderson wrote:

But for all the ways in which the Postal Service already resembles a private company, it lacks the advantages of any other corporation, such as being able to turn on a dime when it comes to rate changes, perhaps raising prices at times of high demand and lowering prices to entice customers during traditionally slow times, which for the Postal Service means summer. Today, a price change requires the permission of the Postal Rate Commission – a yearlong process.

And unlike a private company, the Postal Service has a universal service obligation, meaning it must deliver everywhere, six days a week, at a regularly scheduled time, making the delivery even for a single piece of mail, which is not cost-effective. And it means delivering in the Grand Canyon and in rural Alaska and in high-risk neighborhoods and lots of other places where delivery is not cost-effective.

The trade-off is that the Postal Service gets monopoly protection; no private company is allowed to compete with it head to head by carrying letter mail or using the mailbox. It should give up that protection for the greater benefits of privatization.

Henderson’s conclusion still rings true almost ten years later:

I can’t believe that 25 years from now the Postal Service will still be owned by the federal government. But the point is that, as with any government asset, this one needs to be maximized. And that means we need to free ourselves from the usual discussion about controlling costs or keeping rates stable or mailing more, all of which is simply a form of denial about the real issue. The model itself is not going to work for the long haul: It must be changed.

Unfortunately, Congress is still in denial. In commenting on Potter’s departure, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) offered the vacuous statement that his successor “must strengthen the Postal Service by cutting costs, enticing more customers and putting this vital institution on a sound financial footing.” Instead, Sen. Collins and her colleagues need to recognize that the USPS model “is not going to work for the long haul” so long as politicians ultimately remain in charge.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy

Postal Service’s Financial Woes

By
Tad DeHaven

The U.S. Postal Service is in a lurch after Congress wrapped up business until November without giving the USPS a break on a $5.5 billion retiree health benefits payment that’s due tomorrow. Combined with an expected loss in the billions of dollars, the USPS could run out of money in October.

In addition, the USPS’s regulator today rejected the USPS’s request for an exigent postal rate increase. The Postal Regulatory Commission acknowledged that the recession has led to a substantial decline in mail volume. However, the PRC rejected the request because the rate adjustments “represent an attempt to address long-term structural problems not caused by the recent recession.”

The PRC singled out “an overly ambitious requirement for the Postal Service to prefund its future retiree health benefit premiums.” The prefunding requirement stems from a 2006 law that sought to address unfunded obligations for retiree health benefits. Last year, Congress agreed to reduce the USPS’s 2009 payment by $4 billion in order to help it keep its head above water.

Congress did not provide such relief this year, which some members of Congress have inappropriately criticized as being a “taxpayer bailout.” However, allowing the USPS to defer its obligations only increases the possibility that future taxpayers could be on the hook. Therefore, policymakers who are critical of giving the USPS another break are correct when they state that the government mail monopoly needs to be substantially reformed.

The PRC’s rejection of the rate increase request points to the problem with the government trying to run a business. If UPS or FedEx had to ask a federal regulatory body for permission to raise prices for their services, it’s unlikely that either would survive.

As I’ve previously discussed, the USPS is currently trying to get Congress’s blessing to eliminate Saturday service. While it’s ridiculous that the American people are forced to use a government monopoly that wants to raise prices while simultaneously degrading services, having to get Congress’s approval to alter delivery schedules is a serious problem for a commercial operation.

Postal management has succeeded in cutting costs, but still lacks the necessary flexibility that a private firm would possess. For instance, if the USPS wants to close post offices, it has to jump through numerous regulatory and congressional hoops. Last year, for example, the USPS proposed consolidating 3,000 postal outlets, but following a congressional outcry, the number under consideration was reduced to a paltry 157.

While the USPS has been able to eliminate a substantial number of employees through attrition, the USPS’s predominantly unionized workforce continues to account for 80 percent its costs. When weighing a decision on postal union contracts, arbitrators are not allowed to take the USPS’s financial situation into consideration. In addition to extracting benefits that are generous even by federal employee standards, inflexible union contracts also make it difficult for the USPS to efficiently manage its workforce.

Beyond the nostalgic depictions of the USPS being a “national asset” that “binds the nation together” is the unglamorous fact that it provides a service just like millions of other commercial outfits. Electronic communication and other technological advances are making the USPS’s mail monopoly increasingly irrelevant. Instead of haggling over six-day mail delivery and retiree health benefit prefunding formulas, Congress should start focusing its attention on getting the government out of the mail business once and for all.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy

U.S. Mail Monopoly Wants Rate Hike

By
Tad DeHaven

The long-term prospects for the U.S. Postal Service monopoly are bleak. To help stem the flow of red ink, the USPS intends to seek a rate increase. Only a government monopoly would try to raise prices when the demand for its services is plummeting. The rate increase will only push its already declining customer base to use cheaper, more efficient electronic alternatives.

The USPS is in need of drastic reform, but instead of looking at big picture, Congress is hung up on the USPS’s request to eliminate Saturday mail delivery service. In contrast, countries around the world are continuing to liberalize their postal markets by embracing competition and private sector involvement.

Britain is a good example.

In 1969, the British Post Office transformed from a government agency into a corporation, which would come to be known as Royal Mail. However, the company’s shares are owned by the government. In 2006, Royal Mail’s regulator removed its monopoly and opened British mail delivery to full competition, which the postal unions opposed.

Like their counterparts in the U.S., the British postal unions are a hindrance to effective and efficient postal management. With email and other technologies undermining traditional mail, neutering the inflexibility caused by unions is paramount for mail operations here and abroad.

According to the Daily Mail, the British government is now prepared to take the next step: privatization. In doing so, the government is considering transferring a portion of Royal Mail’s shares to its employees. Giving the employees ownership stakes would inhibit the unions’ ability to extract concessions that would negatively affect the company’s bottom line.

A popular argument against mail privatization in the U.S. is that an important service can’t be entrusted to self-interested capitalists concerned only with making a profit. But public officials are just as motivated by self-interest. The difference is that public officials aren’t subject to market forces, which compel private businesses to adapt and economize to survive.

For example, the third-ranking official at the USPS stepped down in May after it came to light that he awarded six-figure, no-bid contracts to former colleagues at various companies.

From the Washington Post:

A 64-page report by the Postal Service Office of Inspector General found that [Robert F.] Bernstock clashed with Postal Service lawyers over whether he could conduct outside business by using agency computers, e-mail and staff… Bernstock also used office telephones to conduct teleconferences and other meetings related to his private business holdings and also instructed staffers to conduct private work for him, investigators found.

The report details how Bernstock awarded non competitive contracts to five former business associates and a $1.5 million consultant deal with Goldman Sachs. He also violated company policy by negotiating a holiday bulk stamp sale agreement with Costco while owning $30,000 in company stock. The Postal Service requires officials owning more than $15,000 in a company’s stock to recuse themselves from any official dealings with the company.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy

The USPS’s ‘Automation Refugees’

By
Tad DeHaven

Jim O’Brien, a vice-president at Time Inc. and chairman of the Mailers Council, recently guest-blogged on the U.S. Postal Service’s inspector general’s web site on the subject of “automation refugees.”

O’Brien explains the origination of the term:

Back in 1990, Halstein Stralberg coined the term “automation refugees” to describe Postal Service mail processing employees who were assigned to manual operations when automation eliminated the work they had been doing. Since the Postal Service couldn’t lay off these employees, they had to be given something to do, and manual processing seemed to have an inexhaustible capacity to absorb employees by the simple expedient of reducing its productivity. The result was a sharp decline in mail processing productivity and a sharp increase in mail processing costs for Periodicals class. Periodicals class cost coverage has declined steadily since that time.

O’Brien then tells of visiting seventeen mail processing facilities as part of a Joint Mail Processing Task Force in 1998. During those visits he noted that the periodical sorting machines always happened to be down even though the machines were supposed to be operating seventeen hours a day. Although the machines weren’t working, manual operations were always up and running.

A decade later, O’Brien points out that the situation apparently hasn’t changed:

More Periodicals mail is manually processed than ever, and manual productivity continues to decline. Periodicals Class now only covers 75% of its costs. How can this dismal pattern of declining productivity and rising costs continue more than two decades after it was first identified, especially when the Postal Service has invested millions of dollars in flats automation equipment?

O’Brien probably answered this question when he noted that the USPS couldn’t lay off these automation refugees back in 1990.

As I’ve discussed before, the USPS has a major union problem. A new Government Accountability Office report cites as a problem the fact that most postal employees are protected by “no-layoff” provisions. The USPS must also let go lower-cost part-time and temporary employees before it can lay off a full-time worker not covered by a no-layoff provision.

Unfortunately, recent comments from members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee showed an unjustified concern for how potential reforms would affect postal employees. Labor isn’t the only problem facing the USPS, but Congress needs to understand that the postal service’s expensive unionized workforce is a crippling burden.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Tax and Budget Policy

The Postal Service’s Union Problem

By
Tad DeHaven

Comments from members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee at a recent hearing on the U.S. Postal Service’s woes indicate they don’t appreciate the USPS’s union problem. Postmaster General John Potter went before the committee to make his case for restructuring the postal operation, including greater labor flexibility.

From GovExec.com:

“You have to find people meaningful work, or no matter how compassionate you are, you’re not doing them any favors,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, criticizing holding rooms where underemployed postal workers wait until there are tasks for them to perform. “How many billions of dollars would have been saved if you’d aggressively right-sized the force before you came to us and said you want to go from six days [of mail delivery] to five?”

Congressman Issa should be informed that it is union rules that prevent postal management from laying off underemployed postal workers and having to put them in holding rooms.

Issa told Potter during his opening statement that the Postal Service has “more or less a third more people than you need,” but he said it “is not really acceptable” to convert full-time jobs to part-time positions, unless applicants are looking specifically for part-time work or part-time positions that lead to full-time work. Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., said she was concerned that part-time workers might not be treated fairly or could be excluded from collective bargaining agreements.

Lawmakers insisted repeatedly that even as the Postal Service confronts harsh financial realities, the agency must take into consideration the jobs of postal workers. “I’m hopeful this committee will find a way to deal with it that preserves the good faith that the people who serve the U.S. Postal Service have a right to expect,” said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.

These members might want to read the Government Accountability Office’s latest report on the USPS, which called the mail monopoly’s business model “not viable.” Union labor is part of the problem. The average postal employee earns $83,000 a year in total compensation and 85 percent of its workforce is covered by collective bargaining agreements. Labor accounts for 80 percent of the USPS’s cost structure.

The GAO cites the following as reasons why USPS labor costs are so high:

  • The USPS covers a higher proportion of employee premiums for health care and life insurance than most other federal agencies, which is impressive because it’s hard to be more generous than federal agencies.
  • USPS workers participate in the federal workers’ compensation program, which generally provides larger benefits than the private sector. And instead of retiring when eligible, USPS workers can stay on the “more generous” workers’ compensation rolls.
  • Collective bargaining agreements limit the amount of part-time and contract workers the USPS can use to fit its workload needs, and they limit managers from assigning work to employees outside of their crafts. The latter explains why you get stuck waiting in line at the post office while other postal employees seemingly oblivious to customers’ needs go about doing less important tasks.
  • Most postal employees are protected by “no-layoff” provisions, and the USPS must let go lower-cost part-time and temporary employees before it can lay off a full-time worker not covered by a no-layoff provision.
  • If the collective bargaining process reaches binding arbitration, there is no statutory requirement for the USPS’s financial condition to be considered. This is like making the decision whether or not to go fishing, but not taking into consideration the fact that the boat has holes in its bottom.

The fact that Postmaster Potter has to go to Congress to plead for help to make business decisions points to a fundamental problem. Government-run businesses are necessarily hamstrung by the whims of politicians, who often only have a vague understanding of economics and business. If FedEx or UPS had to get congressional permission to manage its workforce, both would collapse. As mail volume falls, that’s where the USPS is headed unless we privatize it and deregulate postal markets.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Regulatory Studies, Tax and Budget Policy

Congress Is Hurdle to USPS Reforms

By
Tad DeHaven

National Journal reports that two key policymakers don’t support the U.S. Postal Service’s desire to eliminate Saturday mail delivery. House Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jose Serrano (D-NY) says he’ll be working with USPS management and the postal unions to avoid service cuts. And House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee ranking member Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) announced that he too opposes the move.

Chaffetz intends to introduce legislation that would instead eliminate twelve delivery days a year. Twelve days? With the USPS facing $238 billion in losses over the next ten years, it’s hard to understand why the Republican congressman is fiddling around with such small changes.

From the article:

Chaffetz said he is concerned that if the Postal Service cuts Saturday deliveries, it could end up hurting itself in the long run by creating an opening for private delivery companies. “You have got to serve your customers, or somebody else will come in and do it for you,” he said.

What private delivery companies? UPS and FedEx are allowed to compete with the USPS on express mail delivery, but the USPS has a government-granted monopoly on regular mail. In pointing out that the USPS’s reduction in services isn’t good for customers, Chaffetz unintentionally make the cases for opening up the mails to competition from private providers.

“The challenge for the Postal Service is to become more relevant to people’s lives,” he said. “They have been cutting back … and I applaud them for that. The Postal Service is also one of the few things highlighted in U.S. Constitution. They’ve got to figure out ways to cut and make it more relevant.”

Mr. Chaffetz: The Constitution gives the federal government the power “to establish Post Offices and post Roads.” It doesn’t say the government has to have a monopoly over the provision of mail. Nor does it say that Congress must perform this service. Today, there are better private options.

The reality is that the USPS is bleeding red ink because it is becoming less relevant to people’s lives because of electronic communication. Surely Rep. Chaffetz doesn’t want the government’s mail monopolist involved in electronic correspondence to make it more “relevant”?

A story out of Finland demonstrates why that would be a bad idea. Finland’s state-owned postal service is testing a cost-cutting idea that would have it open mail, scan it, and then send an electronic copy to a digital mailbox. The original mail would then be sealed up and physically delivered, but delivery would only be done twice a week. Fins are rightly concerned about their civil liberties being violated by the government viewing their private correspondence.

The underlying idea behind the Finnish experiment is nonetheless sound. In a competitive market for mail delivery, electronic scanning and transmittal would be a more cost-effective – and thus perhaps profitable – way of getting people their mail. This could be especially appealing for costly-to-deliver rural areas, which proponents of the USPS often cite as a reason why mail privatization is untenable.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy

Thoughts on Five-Day Mail

By
Tad DeHaven

The USPS has taken the first step toward reducing mail delivery to five days a week by sending a request to the Postal Regulatory Commission. However, it will be ultimately up to Congress whether or not Saturday delivery is eliminated.

The USPS, which is in a death spiral, views the elimination of Saturday mail delivery service as a step toward regaining its financial footing. Not surprisingly, the decision is proving controversial among some members of Congress.

Here’s a better idea: give Americans the freedom to choose the mail services they want by repealing the USPS monopoly. That way consumers and businesses could choose to provide and use mail services zero days a week or seven days a week.

Online movie rental services like Netflix offer a small example. A lot of folks time their Netflix rentals so that they have movies for Saturday night. Eliminating Saturday delivery will necessarily degrade the quality of online movie rental services that people are paying for. With competition, Netflix could offer Saturday (or even Sunday) delivery through a private alternative. Perhaps there would be a surcharge, but at least consumers would be allowed to make that choice.

Supporters of the government mail monopoly regularly cite their amazement that they can drop a letter in a mailbox and it will arrive unharmed in another mailbox clear across the country. As a $70 billion operation with the largest workforce in the country, I would hope the USPS can pull off such a feat.

I find it more impressive that I can go into a grocery store almost anywhere in the country and be met with an incalculable number of choices. Take Coke products for instance. I recently made a list of the various Coke products available to me at a local grocery store. The following is just a sample: regular Coke, Diet Coke, Caffeine-Free Coke, Diet Caffeine-free Coke, Coke Zero, Coke with Splenda, Coke with Lime, Coke with Lemon, and Diet Coke Plus. Don’t like Coke?  There’s a similar array of Pepsi products. Don’t like either? The grocery stores also offer pricier micro-brands with all sorts of unique flavors.

These choices reflect the awesome power of the market, which provides nearly all the goods and services people want without any direction from officials in Washington. It would interesting to see what sorts of innovations and products private mail deliverers would come up with if the government’s mail monopoly didn’t exist. Instead, Americans are stuck with a government operation whose floundering business model will require it to raise prices while simultaneously reducing its services. So much for freedom of choice.

Topics: 
Tax and Budget Policy

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