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Don’t Let Business Lobbyists Kill the Post Office
By Matt Taibbi
The Times has an editorial today about the future of the U.S. Postal Service:
Postal officials say they must close about 3,700 underused post offices (there are 32,000 nationally) while offering alternative services through local businesses. They also want to consolidate hundreds of regional processing centers and eliminate Saturday mail deliveries.
An aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was warning me about this last week. There are organic reasons for all of this: The U.S. Postal Service is staring down the same barrel trained at our magazine and newspaper businesses, i.e. its revenue model is being wiped out by the internet.
But politics also plays a huge part in this. In 2006, in what looks like an attempt to bust the Postal Workers’ Union, George Bush signed into law the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. This law required the Postal Service to pre-fund 100 percent of its entire future obligations for 75 years of health benefits to its employees – and not only do it, but do it within ten years. No other organization, public or private, has to pre-fund 100 percent of its future health benefits. Read More
I was a strong supporter of the post office and unions in general until recently. In the mid-2000s, the Postal Service began installing machines in each office capable of weighing and metering packages for mailing. They were accessible 24×7 and I used them quite frequently. I arrived at my post office one day and found the machine missing. After waiting in line for an extended time, I asked a surly, slow-moving postal employee what happened to the machine. He told me that it had been removed due to recent provisions of their new Union contract. I protested that it was available when the post office was closed and he said "they can hire people to work at night if they want people to mail packages at night".
I admit that the Bush administration undermined the Postal Service in a big way but the Postal Union is doing itself no favors. The Postal Service needs to exploit it's infrastructure to offer better service and lower prices than UPS and Fedex. I'm slower to judge than most and I have lost faith in the ability of the organization to compete in the 21st Century.