News

A study made public last week shows that the United States Postal Service's (USPS) plans to downsize their business could produce revenue losses which eliminate any savings realized by their consolidation plan. The study, commissioned by USPS, was made public in testimony during a regulatory hearing last week regarding USPS's "Network Rationalization" plan.

USPS's plan calls for the closure or consolidation of more than 220 mail processing centers, slower mail delivery, ending Saturday delivery and the closure of small post offices. The study revealed at the regulatory hearing cited market research that estimated the impact of the changes could lead to first-class mail volume decline of 10.3 percent and total mail volume losses of 7.7 percent. The net revenue impact of the changes could be as much as a net loss of $1.9 billion, the testimony showed.



American union leaders called for a different approach to the problems facing USPS. Fredric Rolando, President of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said, “This substantiates our concerns that the proposed cuts are counter-productive....Any changes that make the Postal Service more efficient are a good idea, but they must be part of an overall business plan for the future, not merely cuts that degrade service and drive customers away. We are still awaiting such a plan from the USPS,"



Cliff Guffey, President of the American Postal Workers Union, added, "Congress must act immediately to prevent the Postal Service from going forward with this destructive program, It is now clear that massive consolidations will do much more harm than good.”



USPS is now claiming the study rests on unreliable data and has scrapped plans to have the study completed.



For a full report, see the APWU release here: http://goo.gl/bAvnI And the NALC release here: http://goo.gl/HLe5O