Postmaster general: Saturday delivery could end soon, and in 15 years only three days a week

[somone]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/07/postmaster-general-saturday-mail-delivery-could-end-soon/1

Postmaster general: Saturday mail delivery could end soon
By John Bacon, USA TODAY

Saturday mail delivery could end soon and in 15 years "we'll be talking about delivering mail three days a week," Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe told the USA TODAY Editorial Board today.

USA TODAY staffer Carly Mallenbaum reports that Donahue forecasts an $8.3 billion loss in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 as the nation's move from paper to electronic communication continues to hammer the Postal Service. Even first-class mail, which had been the top moneymaker, stopped turning a profit when the recession hit, Donahoe says.

Donahoe says that "on September 30, I won't be able to pay my bills," Mallenbaum reports.

Donahoe told the board that eliminating Saturday mail delivery could happen soon, but stopped short of calling it "likely." He did cite a USA TODAY/Gallup poll, from 2010 that showed more than half of Americans had no problem with dropping Saturday mail delivery.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Three days a week would mean if you get a bill, you'd have to send out a payment

within a day or two after you get it to avoid it arriving late or just pay bills online.

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. Which would, in turn, result in a further reduction in PO revenue. nt

[indurancevile]

16. everything done online is the goal, so they can monitor our entire lives with the least trouble.

[JDPriestly]

2. They will have to change California legal procedure and law

concerning service of notice. This is bad news for litigants.

Another great American tradition destroyed by corporate greed.

[TheWraith]

12. "destroyed by corporate greed"? Do you have only one answer for everything?

How is more use of email "corporate greed"?

[JDPriestly]

19. The e-mail is one thing.

The big losses are in the mailing of packages and the like. That business is lucrative, and that is why FedEx horned in.

[FLPanhandle]

3. The world changes and the postal system isn't used as much as in the past

Dropping Saturday makes sense and why wait 15 years to go to 3 days a week for what is mostly junk mail anyway? Go to four days per week now.

[WinkyDink]

6. Yes, and with old folks croaking and less Social Security, next stop: Eden!

[FLPanhandle]

7. What exactly does cuts in Social Security have to do with technology/behavior changes?

Oh, wait a minute, it doesn't!

Try again with some logic.

[WinkyDink]

29. Just noting a general trend re: modern America's attitude towards the elderly.

Or maybe it is just my 87-year-old mother who doesn't own a computer and thus doesn't pay on-line or e-mail.
And with less SS, the chance of her buying (and paying for) a computer lessens.
You know; the SS checks that come in the MAIL.

Get it, now?

"No, Mr. Bond; I expect you to DIE."

[Occulus]

8. I am a postal employee

I work in a distribution center- the place mail goes to be sorted.

We do not have room to store all mail collected Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and still have Monday's mail get delivered Monday. Search my username and this subject; I've written two or three long and detailed entries on this.

We can't do it. Your mail will end up being several days late by the time you get it, instead of one or two days. We don't have the manpower, equipment, or space.

Ending Saturday delivery will do a whole lot all by itself to kill the USPS.

[FLPanhandle]

9. So why the proposal from the PG?

Is it a scare tactic to get funding, or does he have a plan?

[Occulus]

23. I *think* he's trying to justify further consolidation (relocating or eliminating positions)

in order to trim the workforce. We just got a new contract, but that doesn't seem to mean terribly much in this day and age.

When you read what postal managers and outside commenters say, bear in mind that there is faction that wants fully privatized postal service. Try to find them and filter them out; they're the ones who are ultimately the architects of current postal financial woes.

[ejpoeta]

11. that's ok. it sounds good. i mean, you can send a letter for like 45 cents.

but let's bitch and moan. and thank god for getting rid of saturday delivery because it's all junk mail anyway. i don't think so. without USPS which, btw is how if i buy stuff by amazon is how i get most of it right now, how much do you think it would cost you to get it via UPS or fedex? without the USPS as competition? I think they shouldn't stop it as it is right now. even if they had to raise the price of a stamp to keep the delivery as it is right now. I do still send stuff via mail. Not as much as I used to, but I still do. And I have the kids send stuff just so they at least know HOW to send something by mail.

[Nye Bevan]

4. Good. One less day that my mailbox gets stuffed with junk (nt)

[WinkyDink]

5. Frankly, another sickening failure of American "democracy", that we cannot fund THE POST OFFICE.

[deutsey]

10. That's my take on it, too. n/t

[canoeist52]

13. This is why junk mail is a good thing

Every piece of mail marked "no postage necessary if mailed in the US" gets sent back with useless piece of paper inside. Make those

banks pay for those stamps. My town postmistress agrees with me.

This is something we CAN do.

[DCBob]

14. Why wait 15 years to go to 3 days a week?? I suspect most people wouldn't care.

That would provide tremendous savings which the USPS desperately needs now.

[no_hypocrisy]

17. It would matter if you are being sued.

Let's say you get served a summons and complaint and that's Day One. You have 35 days to respond, that is, to send an answer to the Court by Day 35 after you receive the summons and complaint. You or your attorney mails it on Day 31 and it arrives on Day 36. Default Judgment, meaning the person suing you "wins" because you didn't respond by Day 35. Well, you could move to vacate the default judgment and get your trial, but that more money and time you didn't want to spend. (You or your attorney has the option to personally drop off the answer to complaint at the courthouse, but that's logistically not going to happen.) With mail on six days out of seven, there's some predictability to receipt of the mail. Half that, and you may have some serious unintentional consequences.

[DCBob]

34. Why? you would only lose a couple of days.

I am sure this country can adjust to 3 days a week delivery.

[no_hypocrisy]

35. A couple of days translates to losing half a week to a week.

Big difference when "time is of the essence" and faxed or e-mailed documents aren't accepted. The original received in the mail on a certain date can't be compromised.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. Mission accomplished

[Solly Mack]

20. I still write letters. (in cursive *gasp*)

Bummer.

[msongs]

21. Great news! USPS can slash the price of stamps in the same proportion and we all save :-) nt

[Daggoo]

22. what other countries do...

is close most of their government post offices and let private businesses (like Circle K, Office Max, Kinkos, etc.) operate postal
counters. (One or two regular main post offices still remain open).

That means that while the government still collects and distributes the mail, it vastly reduces the
number of employees it needs (counter clerks, janitors, office staff).

The businesses get a small cut from operating the counters--but this is far less expensive to the post office
than having to use its own employees to do the same work.

A second option (used I think in Switzerland) is to send out junk mail by email only. The post office
charges a tiny fraction for sending every postal customer the email. None of this is printed and hand carried
by carrier.

IOW, post offices are adapting to new technologies to stay solvent.

[lpbk2713]

24. Ed McMahon is rolling over in his grave.

:eyes:

[canoeist52]

25. Theer go thousands of good paying jobs. It's all in The Plan.

[happyslug]

26. Keep Saturday Delvery, but go to three days a week would be a better idea

Think about it, if you deliver mail on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, and then the same Carrier would drop off another set of mail on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, you can keep the present mail system without much change, just cut the Carriers by a third. This is how the Post Office eliminated twice a day delivery service starting in the 1940s.

Side note, prior to the late 1940s, the Post Office Delivery main to Urban Addresses twice a day, once in the Morning and again in the Afternoon. You could mail a letter and get a response by mail on the same day. Rural Areas never had this, and most of he post-WWII suburbs never had it, but was retained in urban centers well into the 1980s. Most residential homes lost it in the 1950s, but center Business Districts had it till at least the 1980s and some may even have it to this day (I am thinking in terms of New York City, Wall Street to its Downtown area NOT the rest of the City, nor even the rest of Manhattan Island).

Going to every other day mail service would permit the Post Office to keep its present Carrier system, One Carrier per route, with a "Floater" covering Five routes on the sixth day of delivery per week. A Carrier is paid Saturday through Friday. Each Carrier gets one day off a week in addition to Sunday. That day Varies from week to week, one week it is Monday, the Next it is Tuesday, the Next it is Wednesday, the next it is Thursday, the Next it is Friday and the next it is Saturday (Do to the fact the work week starts on Saturday, the week a Carrier is off Friday, ends on that Friday, and the week the Starts with the carrier off Saturday is the day (Thus the Carrier gets one weekend in six off on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but then has to work all six days the next full week).

The "Floater" Covers the day the main Carrier is off the route. The "floater" floats between five other routes filling in the day the main carrier of that roue is off work. This provides at least two carriers who knows that route and its idiosyncrasies.

On the other hand if you go to a Five day a week work week, the problem is what day does everyone gets mail? Is it Monday, Wednesday and Friday, followed by Monday, Tuesday and Thursday? Or is it Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then Tuesday, Thursday and Monday? Either way one day everyone gets mail. Another solution would be Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with another route getting the same Carrier, Tuesday, Thursday and the Following Monday, then the first route gets Wednesday, Friday and Tuesday, then the Second route gets Thursday, Monday and Wednesday. Then the First route Friday, Tuesday and Thursday. And then the whole series re-start with Monday,

Confusing, is it not? The simple solution is best and that is retaining six days of delivery but only on every other day. It solves a lot of problems.

[arbusto_baboso]

27. It ain't technology changes that are killing the USPS.

It's the semi-privatization. Look at the books then, look at them now. It's obvious.

[ileus]

28. Three days a week would be fine....they could start that next month.

[Oasis_]

30. 3 or 4 day delivery

Would cripple the USPS, as it would all but concede the very lucrative overnight and second-day package and parcel market to its competitors.

Close to 600,000 people (with good salaries, health care and benefits) are employed directly by the USPS, with hundreds of thousands of others indirectly (contractors, shippers, mailers)

The USPS is forced to pre-fund its retirement program to a much greater degree than the private sector, or any other government entity for that matter.

The internet has HELPED the USPS bottom line, as parcel deliveries increased significantly. First class mail represents an infinitesimally small percentage of overall business, as demand for the service has been on the decline for decades.

Parcel and package business, particularly prescriptions by mail and said internet-created continue to grow and expand--which is why the private carriers want nothing to do with the standard "letter-mail delivery" but will do anything to place USPS in an uncompetitive environment as possible (which includes the virtual elimination of the Postal Service)to increase market share in overnight and second day shipping for themselves.

Oasis

[Blues Heron]

31. as a netflix user, I'm not happy about this at all. n/t

[hunter]

32. Once a week would be fine with me.

Preferably the day before our rubbish is picked up.

[Yupster]

36. Same with me

I'd be fine with once a week.

It's a dying industry. Why prolong it.

[MouseFitzgerald]

33. I dont understand how we cant come up with $8.3 billion to fund the post office

Thats nothing. Republicans are trying to cut spending by trillions of dollars, we have money, we are just spending it on bullshit like wars, and failed healthcare system. It blows my mind that there are supposedly liberal/democratic people on this site that think any of our problems stem from the post office. Its $8.3 billion, thats nothing, there are a million different ways for our government to come up with enough money to make the post office solvent for decades.

This is all right-wing bullshit, this is about the post office being starved of funding and then stupid people blaming the post office for not being fiscally responsible even though it is a million times more efficient then any privately owned mail company. This is all an absurd manufactured crisis.