What would you do to save the USPS?

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

End all non-profit and bulk postage discounts. It might be less revenue in the end, but it'd be a lot less junk mail and a hiring freeze would eventually lead to attrition by retirements instead of lay offs.

I agree non-profit and other special discounts should go. But bulk and periodical mail is where the PO makes its money. The PO has to deliver 1st class whether they have 1 piece or 100 on the route, but they only deliver bulk mail if they have a certain amount of weight or pieces. They don't make anything sending a truck out two miles from the PO to deliver a 46 cent 1st class letter, but add 100 pieces of bulk mail to the truck at 17 cents and the trip becomes profitable.

[matt711]

Eliminate the postal workers union, restructure the pensions, and drop all the bulk mail. All three of these things are big money losers for the USPS. Offer first class, priority, and next day services only. Stop "designing" new stamps, have a single stamp.

[Halm]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

. . . but add 100 pieces of bulk mail to the truck at 17 cents and the trip becomes profitable.

I don't think we would be having this discussion if they were profitable.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

No one else is allowed to deliver first class postage. That inneficiency, that lack of competition drives up the price.
If that monopoly was lifted, the competition for that part of the business would drive the price DOWNWARD!

No it wouldn't. Nothing stops UPS or FedEx from delivering a letter EXCEPT the price. It costs $5.60 to send an envelope via UPS.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by RWebb

eliminate pensions

That sounds great until you or a family member has worked there (disclaimer: I don't) for XX years and expected to live on the pension they were promised. I'd be screaming if they decided to take it away.
The service at the local office sucks but that isn't the main issue. There is just less mail being sent. IMO, the main problem with USPS is they have no control over what they can charge, when they are open, what services they offer... The USA needs to suck it up and either subsidize the P.O. (Heck we subsidize farmers, the milk industry, even the oil industry) or release the regulations and allow them to do what it takes to be profitable or fund it as a neccesity.
Go private? I don't think we can do that. The mail is a main part of our infastructure.
Or we could pass ObamaPostage?

[sammyg2]

Hey, maybe if we made the USPS compete with the IRS for a share of the gubmint health care scam that'd solve the problem for us, as the IRS would eliminate the USPS and make it look like it never existed.

What could go wrong?

[WIL84911]

Ex city carrier here for 12 years so I've seen the morale inside. I say get rid of the union.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by matt711

Stop "designing" new stamps, have a single stamp.

Actually, new stamps are a money maker like gift cards that are lost or never used. People collect stamps and they are not cashed in.
How about no special rates for political organizations?

Better still, charge double if the organization has certain words in the name like... O.K. that last sentence should be in green.

[Por_sha911]

How about this?
Since the lottery fixed the problems schools had with money, we could make prostitution legal and promise to put a percentage into the USPS??

[VincentVega]

Maybe Ayn Rand should have written a book about the Post Office?

Sounds great that free enterprise should take over but I doubt many/most would be happy with that. Do you actually believe another provider could backfill mail service for remotely the same cost?

The PO vehicle fleet is complex enough to scare away most, not to mention the complex machines and systems. UPS has great tech for parcel shipments/processing, a little different than sorting mail at high volume.

Tons of people have already been cut and I suspect more cuts are coming. How do they cut people that have a current contract? New terms when the contract is up but you cant do that at the drop of a hat. Besides, the mail carriers I know actually do bust ass and earn their keep.

[widebody911]

The USPS Media #FAIL

Rewind back to 2006.

Things were going well for the Post Office. They were making money. They were even seriously considering replacing a large part of their fleet – the largest fleet of vehicles in the nation – with electric vehicles. It would be a huge boost for the electric car, and a huge slap in the face of oil barons like the Koch Brothers.

The Post Office had to be stopped, and Republican Congressman John McHugh (NY) was the man to do it. He had been a member of the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, and was deeply in the pocket of right-wing interests. In 2006, he succeeded in proposing and then watching pass the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. It was passed by a voice vote in a Republican Congress and signed by Republican President George W. Bush.

What the law did was ram a poison pill down the throat of the Post Office. It required the USPS to pre-funding its Retiree Health Benefits Fund for more than seven decades out into the future – and do it all within ten years. With this law, Congress forced the Post Office to set aside money for the health benefits of future retirees who aren’t even born yet.

It’s an obligation that no other private business or government agency has ever had to comply with before. And it costs the Post Office $5 billion a year.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by WIL84911

Ex city carrier here for 12 years so I've seen the morale inside. I say get rid of the union.

It would prevent future issues for sure but the pensions are what's killing profitability.

Also concerning taking away pensions:
We can't tell people that they don't get what they worked for. If we did, then what stops any company from breaking contracts because they didn't make a profit? Talk about slippery slopes.
Dear Mrs. Jones,
We aren't going to give you the life insurance money for your recently deceased husband's policy that you've been paying for all these years. We are losing money these days and so you are S.O.L.
Sincerely,

[Cannonball996]

why do people still need to make a trip to the post office? all your shipping needs can be done online, I ship every day with USPS to places all around the world, items big and small. its simple, print a label slap it on a box or envelope, and hand it to the post man when he comes. so they dont really need a retail counter at post offices anymore, get rid of them.

[Scott Douglas]

First thing I'd do is make sure every employee knows that it is unacceptable to have a package marked 'Fragile' end up looking like this upon delivery.

[Por_sha911]

What? No one likes ObamaPostage?

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by Cannonball996

why do people still need to make a trip to the post office? all your shipping needs can be done online, I ship every day with USPS to places all around the world, items big and small. its simple, print a label slap it on a box or envelope, and hand it to the post man when he comes. so they dont really need a retail counter at post offices anymore, get rid of them.

Right! Everyone has time to sit at home instead of being at work so they can look out the window for the letter carrier to arrive.

[70SATMan]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

End all non-profit and bulk postage discounts. It might be less revenue in the end, but it'd be a lot less junk mail and a hiring freeze would eventually lead to attrition by retirements instead of lay offs.

That would also reduce the impacts from cutting down delivery days from a pile up of material.

[Ronbo]

Originally Posted by Zeke

I thought eliminating Saturday delivery was a no brainer.

I believe the PO was ready to do this but was stopped by Congress as six day delivery is mandated.

[Ronbo]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

That sounds great until you or a family member has worked there (disclaimer: I don't) for XX years and expected to live on the pension they were promised. I'd be screaming if they decided to take it away.

I agree with you, but it could be phased in. Say all new postal employees hired beginning January 2015 do not have the defined benefit portion in their retirement package. It would be similar to how the rest of the federal government switched from the CSRS to FERS retirement systems in the mid 1980s.

[Por_sha911]

Originally Posted by Ronbo

I believe the PO was ready to do this but was stopped by Congress as six day delivery is mandated.

See post #25 "IMO, the main problem with USPS is they have no control over what they can charge, when they are open, what services they offer..."