USPS

Zohar

USPS Default

Not that I am surprised given the inefficiency yet whats the alternative?

Syracusian

In addition to relief from the future retiree payment mandate, Yoerger said the proposed business plan of the Postal Service would include a combination of closing post offices, expanding joint ventures with private industry, and changes in how often you get the mail.
"Right now we are required to deliver six days a week," she said, "if it can go to five days a week, as proposed, we could better match the declining volume of mail."


That's the alternative. Delivering 5 days a week is not the end of the world, other POs around the world have adopted it as a standard practice for decades.

Mail delivery and all the other various activities that USPS is involved with (for instance in Greece the equivalent of USPS, called ELTA, deliver the monthly pension checks to elderly people who can't physically go to their local PO) is too important to be left in the hands of private courier services.

Zohar

I have yet to see such an inefficient business and unfortunately they have reached this point. Beyond competitive issues (internet and other) the personnel, operations, IT etc are lagging the 21st century. I have also had a fair share of misplaced/lost shipments. One item I mailed with delivery confirmation last week to San Francisco ended up going to Florida, Texas and then hitting the West coast after 14 days.

IloiloKano

Unreasonable (in this economy) employee benefits don't help the situation. There's a no-layoffs clause in the unions’ contracts for pete's sake, so even if they end Saturday service, they still cannot lay anyone off. Labor represents 80% of USPS’s expenses, compared with 53% at United Parcel Service and 32% at FedEx, its two biggest private competitors. And while FedEx isn't unionized, UPS most certainly is, and they both have working business models. US Post Office employees receive more generous health benefits than most other federal employees, yet when compared to private unionized employees at UPS, they are so way out of line with reality as to be insane.

I know I'm going to take some hits over this post, but come on people. Whether you are pro or anti union, liberal or conservative, there are clear working business models out there for comparison that flat out scream USPS's major problem is not the Internet, but exorbitant employee pay and benefits.

I have good friends that work for the USPS, and I don't want to see them hurt by reductions in pay and benefits, but if it doesn't happen very soon, they may not even have jobs in the near future.

Edited to add the NYT source I used for claims made in this post.

Zohar

IloiloKano - I couldnt agree with you more. A system that provides immunity from bad performance/productivity leads to inflation in resources, and a huge deficit. At times when I goto the post office counter I feel as if the employees are doing me a favor and not there to deliver a service but simply cruise through the day/week/month. Unfortunatley some of these employees are not hireable by the private sector - no private business would agree to this mentality.

This is beyond liberal or conservative. This is about sanity. If Syracusian has a reference point to a better service level, let's follow that as this one has failed.