Postal Service Looks To Cut 40,000 Jobs In First Layoff In History

[babylonsister]

http://www.ksla.com/global/story.asp?s=9247633

Postal Service Looks To Cut 40,000 Jobs In First Layoff In History

By Jonathan McCall - bio | email


SHREVEPORT, LA (KSLA) - "We lost 2 billion dollars and like any other business we have to stay afloat." And to keep from sinking, the United States Postal Service is considering cutting thousands of jobs nationwide. Lavelle Pepper with the post office in Shreveport says they too are feeling the affects of the same disease hitting the country... a struggling economy. "We employ about 685,000 people. If we do layoffs it would include clerks, carriers, mail handlers across all crafts."

Pepper says the postal service is looking to eliminate 40,000 jobs nationwide. There's not an exact number on how many of those could be from the Ark-La-Tex. Pepper says workers who are not part of union with six or less years of service would likely be the first on the chopping block. "We've identified 16 thousand people that are not covered under contract. We'll see what those numbers add up to."

The postal service is also offering early retirement packages to workers over the age of 50 who have more than 20 years on the job. But according to pepper it may not be enough. "The preliminary numbers look like it's not going to be enough and we may have to do something else." But despite what may happen, Pepper says customers will not feel the pain they're going through. "The general public when it takes place won't se any decrease in service.. They largely won't know about it."

[Parche]

1. They Are Gonna Go Postal When They Hear This

:scared: :scared: :hi:

[adamuu]

3. that's horrible nt

[DJ13]

2. Oh good, how much worse can they get?

Just last week all 10 pieces of mail in my box were for another address.

[DesertFlower]

4. hoy shit. nt

[Frustratedlady]

5. Why don't they drop Saturday deliveries?

That would surely help somewhat. The political mail had to have helped them to a point. That was the most mail I've received in years.

[csziggy]

10. That is probably why they did not lay off people until now

And if the USPS had real package tracking, they could compete with FedEx and UPS for package delivery. But all their tracking number tells them is that a package was received in their system. No clue where it is or if it will ever arrive.

Between that, email and the move to pay bills electronically, the USPS delivers ads and a few personal letters and packages. While I have friends who are carriers, I can't see submitting anything of any value to their system of snail mail. No wonder they are losing money!

[PATRICK]

21. They tried and failed

It hurt service, boosted overtime and backlogged mail for the always heavy Monday delivery, was unpopular with people who want weekend service. Still it was an idea much less impractical than almost ALL current touted options. They are making gargantuan errors is blanket changes that will make the situation worse on a scale they will never have the slightest ability to comprehend. The workers come in and try to move mountains. Supervisors stagger around the increasing size and impossibilities. Upper management looks to sell us all out or get a big bail out from the government, probably both.

Since the bastards would never ask before they took a maniacal ax to the service, Obama could save many decent jobs and the service by taking care of the shortfalls now. These idiots certainly won't do anything that will work and the next shortfall by next year will be in the billions with no practical or impractical solution at all.

[SOS]

6. Wall Street lays off 70,000, gets $1 trillion

Post Office needs $2 billion, doesn't get a penny and lays off 40,000.

Once again, the rich are bailed out, while the office workers and postal workers get fired.
This system is absurd.
They are actively working to destroy the middle class.

And once workers can no longer afford to buy the goods and services they produce, the economy dies.

[ColbertWatcher]

7. Another first brought to America by the GOP. Bastards. n/t

[uppityperson]

8. What?!? holy shit. Whew, with a whistle in that.

[Snotcicles]

9. Whole lotta privatizing goin on. nt

[ColbertWatcher]

27. Yup. Another government service defunded by the GOP. n/t

[OhioChick]

11. Wow.

Too many jobs being lost.

K&R

[tjwash]

12. Unfortunately, that makes sense....blame the intertubes.

What with email and IM, there are a hell of a lot less letters, and post cards, and greeting cards and things like that being sent through the mail. And then there is direct deposit of checking, and I don't even REMEMBER the last time I actually used a stamp and an envelope to pay any of my bills.

So...that actually makes some sense that they are losing money.

[Blasphemer]

14. I wonder how much of the postal workforce can be reassigned

There are still insufferably long lines at the Post Offices in some areas while in other areas, they are never short staffed.

[PATRICK]

23. They are working to kill off

window service which may be a win/win step to closing local small post offices the politicians have kept open forever. The delivery mail carriers are already reduced by the modernization that cannot cope at all with crisis and inside the machines can't work at all without people to man them and run unprodcutively and slow with reduced staff. They have one person or two run around an entire machine which of course must stop entirely at times and more things just go wrong. The clunky old manual system meant many workers, simple attrition, adjusting of man hour. The new system stands or falls on automation that depends on a reduced work force with less flexibility and the narrow system MORE dependent on them.

RTo make the system appear productive and workable they have already reduced the work force and depended too much on overtime. Overtime is not fat on the system and if instead you trim the workforce you will fail even as you try to increase overtime for the survivors. That has happened very much in the less automated past when hiring freezes were in place too long.

[dysfunctional press]

13. how about a No Zipcode Left Behind Act...? get rid of under-performing zipcodes...

and divide them up & combine them with neighboring, better-performing zipcodes.

the first zipcode i nominate for dissolution: 60625- the ravenswood station on lawrence at western in chicago.

[Hotler]

15. Put Americans to work!

Pay your bills by mail. I do for that reason.

[alfredo]

16. My former union steward said it is just a rumor

[babylonsister]

17. That's good news if he's right. Thanks for checking it out. nt

[alfredo]

18. This has been around for a couple weeks I believe. Now that DHL is

going down the tubes in the US, that will mean more packages for USPS and UPS, and FedEX.

There's going to be a shakeout across all industries. Hard times coming.

[PATRICK]

24. Unions are the last

to get the word. They shouldn't be, obviously, but that is how the place is run. Most union communications are NOT saying this is a rumor or unlikely.

[alfredo]

28. You wouldn't believe how fast rumors spread in the Post Office. It's almost

as bad as the military. Until it is confirmed, I will take it with a grain of salt.

[PATRICK]

29. the BEST source

are the mechanics who go online on the national network to get real info about machines and coming installation and new technologies. The bosses online get too much BS or as little as the unions. When one passes on what one heard from the mechanics bosses and workers can be stunned by what is actually going on around the country and in the future. Every other rumor source is crap, so it gets worse because the most audacious gossips fill in the gaps- or the most gullible or boldly incompetent bosses.

[alfredo]

30. They were the coolest guys at the PO. I remember when they installed the

letter sorting machines. They're incredible instruments that had to be aligned perfectly, and then all those belts, gates, sensor had to be perfect. These guys got it right the first time. The machines were controlled using QNX. It was rock solid.

[kcass1954]

31. Not a rumor. They're weeding out. Mr. kcass has 29 years with the Postal Service.

Two months ago, he got a retirement package (unsolicited). They're trying to get everyone who's eligible to retire. Part of Tour II (the day-time shift, comprised mainly of workers with more than 20 years service) at my husband's facility has had their jobs abolished. Tour II is going away for the most part, and those who don't retire are going to nights. When the new regional facility opens next year in Opalocka, they're going to staff it with the unassigned regulars. Make it tough on the older workers so they'll be willing to leave.

They sent out all these retirement packages, but there's no incentive to take the early out. My husband is short 1 year of service time and 4 years in age for full retirement. We can't afford for him to leave yet. By the time they take out survivor's benefits and our health insurance, we won't be able to live on what's left.

[struggle4progress]

19. It was a mistake to go along with Republican demands to run the Post Office like a business

It's turned the Post Office into a junk mail delivery system

We ought to go back to running the Post Office as a Federal responsibility, subsidizing it when necessary, and raise the rates on junk mail: everybody gets too much of it anyway -- and it mainly goes into landfills

[PATRICK]

26. The same mailers

who got reductions and rate deals will not, in the current meltdown, accept higher above inflation rates.
That is what is making this disaster so perfect. The long term move to e-mail will accelerate and we will go the way of fossil fuels much more swiftly, depriving those caught deprived of technology from their mail.

The Post Office is a huge human/paper nationwide network with areas of high profits and rural areas operating at a loss. If the networks fails, it implodes. A siege mentality may be one description, with closings, consolidations growing in number even before this. ironically, the more employment is reduced the fewer workers eventually affected by the collapse. The main plan seems to be to leak the whole system to private corporations to flog the dinosaur for the waning profits while it is still needed.

[PATRICK]

20. A created disaster

despite whatever rationale they use and this one seems eager to open the door for layoff options forever.
Most of what postal management says and does is as crooked as a corkscrew. Hence, after decades of "modernization" they are not prepared in any way for a predictable confluence of problems. The automation
is dependent on the already reduced workforce. Despite mail volume slowdowns, ALL of the mail could be delayed by workforce reductions and overtime IS increasing already based on their counter productive panic moves. They also favor work methods guaranteeing the most hurt employees leaving more productive, labor saving devices idle and reviving cramped manual operations, poorly jury-rigged.

What is interesting is how many bosses have low seniority. They would be critically reduced(in management's eyes at least though they get not a scrap of work out of the building) if the unions get their way in insisting their positions be included in the mix. Non union members in no man's land would seem an unsympathetic bunch and they usually are but it might set a precedent for skipping management or goading them to take supervisory positions..

If they didn't try to cheat the workers with the way the early retirement packages were crafted... Well there are countless what ifs. The place was set up to fail and hand over to privatizers as in ALL RW led countries. The real failure comes when the jobs are privatized, downgraded into abusive poorly paid jobs, and never deliver the mail as well as the old USPS..

[PATRICK]

22. Pepper is either insane

or a grotesque liar if he thinks service will not be drastically affected or that all the money or service will be saved by the remaining workers doing tons of injurious overtime. Whole time slots and automation machinery will be idled. Regardless of volume that means trouble and created volume backlog.

[opihimoimoi]

25. The GOP and their Flawed Philosophy Caused this shit..they went and picked Bush

Who then went stupid on us..We rewarded stupid with a new 4 year contract and he went worse stupid...which is hard to do...

Thanks Bushie...Heckofajob.....