Post Office Offering Early Retirement To 150,000 Workers, Cutting Managers

WASHINGTON — Battered by the economy, the post office is offering early retirement to 150,000 workers, cutting management and closing offices, the agency said Friday.

The Postal Service lost $2.8 billion last year and is facing even larger losses this year, despite a rate increase _ to 44 cents for first-class mail _ scheduled to take effect May 11.

The agency said it will reduce management staff nationwide by 15 percent, with more than 1,400 processing, supervisor and management posts at 400 facilities being eliminated.

And another 150,000 postal workers will be offered early retirement.

The agency also made early retirement offers last year but unions discouraged their members from accepting the offers and they were not widely used. The post office did not say if the new proposal would include financial incentives.

The American Postal Workers Union issued a statement Friday saying: "Retirement is a personal matter, and the union defers to the decisions of employees who meet the qualifications."

However, the union said it continues to challenge the Postal Service's authority to offer voluntary early retirement without including severance pay.

The 80 district across the country will be reduced by six with the closings in Lake Mary, Fl.; North Reading, Mass.; Manchester, N.H.; Edison, N.J.; Erie, Pa.; and Spokane, Wash.

District offices handle administrative functions and officials said the closing should not affect local mail delivery. The closings were expected to take about five months.

The first quarter of the fiscal year _ October through December _ is usually the post office's busiest, but it still posted a loss of $384 million for the period.

Officials said the economic recession contributed to a 5.2 billion piece mail volume decline compared to the same period last year. If there is no economic recovery, the Postal Service projects volume for the year will be down by 12 billion to 15 billion pieces of mail.

The post office said that over the past year it has cut 50 million work hours, stopped construction of new postal facilities; froze salaries for postal executives, began selling unused facilities and cut post office hours.

In addition, it is negotiating an agreement with the National Association of Letter Carriers to adjust carrier routes to reflect diminished volume.

Postmaster General John Potter has even asked Congress to consider allowing the agency to cut mail delivery back to five days-a-week to save money.

The post office does not receive a taxpayer subsidy for its operations.

___

On the Net:

Postal Service: http://www.usps.com

Comments

[Tammy Nakamura]

12:45 PM on 03/31/2009

what is the post office's goal's for this year?

[Lupin77]

08:18 PM on 03/22/2009

I would like to know why the head of the US post office gets $800 K a year plus bonuses while our prez only makes 400K. What's that all about?

[bigalsbeans]

12:39 AM on 03/22/2009

Ahhhhh, another union with their head in the sand. And many of you morons want the Union Payback Act (its laughingly called the employee free choice act) to pass? They discouraged their members to turn down the buyout offers. I bet the next one will not be as good, they will probably just be layoffs!

[BobbiBen]

12:22 AM on 04/17/2009

Is anyone aware that the early retirement offer penalizes employees 2% for every year before age 55? Since they only get 50% of their pay in retirement to start with, subtracting an addditional 2% penalty for each year of early retirement doesn't leave much to live on. THAT'S why the union is against it!

[MountainPenelope]

07:42 PM on 03/21/2009

USPS does a great job!

I have been selling online via Amazon & eBay for over 12 years and in that time only 5 parcels have not been delivered. ALL were in foreign countries!

Frankly, we could do without Saturday delivery. Cut it! This would eliminate the need for many of the "extra" part time people. This in itself should cut the deficit by half or more.

[frantaylor]

03:04 AM on 03/22/2009

Saturday work for the post office is flexible, it's intended to smooth out the fluctuations in the work load so that normal operations can run more smoothly. It's like the little tank in your water pipes that keeps the pipes from banging when you turn the water on and off.

[Lupin77]

07:00 PM on 03/21/2009

What I still can't understand is why the head of the post office gets $800,000 a year while the prez only makes $400,000 and also why the post office head gets yearly bonuses. No one has fully explained this.

[frantaylor]

03:01 AM on 03/22/2009

Because they maintain one of the pillars of modern civilization. They make far less than rock stars or baseball players.

[postalnut]

03:43 PM on 03/21/2009

The same thugs and criminals who have plundered our economy into the ground over the last 30 years are alive and well in the upper echelons of postal management. As a postal worker for nearly 33 years I know this first hand. They have been trying to privatize operations by outsourcing work to contractors, thinning the rank and file, weakening the various postal unions to the point of extinction, and turning the enormous mail volume into a cash cow for the entrenched few. If they do achieve their goals, the taxpaying public will be the big losers. If mail delivery is privatized the same fragmentation that plagues phone service will do the same to mail service. At first competing companies will keep postage down, but soon it will begin to creep up and before long what now costs 44 cents will go over a dollar. Service will deteriorate as minimum wage will take over and the public will be the victims of the "corporate executives" who now run the "Peoples Postal Service".

[scooperss]

01:52 PM on 03/21/2009

I USE the post office. Sure their rates keep going up, up ,up but it's still better than the alternatives. UPS or fedex won't be as cheap.

[rf dude]

12:57 PM on 03/21/2009

Geez - who's gonna deliver all

my junk mail...
__

[ipv4]

03:54 PM on 03/21/2009

Good point!

[eugenegerard]

12:33 PM on 03/21/2009

The leadership of the Postal Service has to be Bush Republicans. It seems they are trying to make it fail so they can sell it off and outsource the work. Fire their executive board and put Americans with American values in their jobs.

[naschkatze]

12:18 PM on 03/21/2009

My town needs a post office substation badly, but that won't happen now. Instead of bailing out Wall Street, Obama should be expanding the USPS and adding more jobs to the economy.

[ipv4]

03:55 PM on 03/21/2009

Did you not just read the article? They are losing billions.

[naschkatze]

08:14 PM on 03/21/2009

Yeah, so are the banks and corporations but they are getting bonuses. 150,000 little guys screwed.

[schatsie]

10:54 PM on 03/21/2009

Yes and Wall Street was making Billions.....Don't have a clue as to who to believe...

[frantaylor]

11:56 AM on 03/21/2009

I used to type usps.gov instead of usps.com, just to show my annoyance with a phony attempt to commercialize a basic government service, but it stopped working a while ago.

I got REALLY annoyed when Mitt Romney changed the name of the MBTA's web site to mbta.com. I sure am glad he did not get around to finishing that job.

[frantaylor]

11:30 AM on 03/21/2009

If the post office is SO inefficient, how is it that they manage to hold market share in a business where their competitors are the stuff of legend: UPS, Federal Express, DHL... These are some of the most innovative and agressive companies in the US today, and yet the post office trounces all of them in market share, year after year.

[JerseyGirl4Obama]

11:57 AM on 03/21/2009

Great comment.

The folks that want to privatize the post office will not guarantee delivery to every address in this country for less than 50 cents. With privatizing will come higher rates across the board and UPS, FexEx and DHL will not want to go to EVERY HOUSEHOLD. The will only want the first class business mail and the priority mail.

Many may not remember AT&T before it was dismantled. You had reliable service and a reasonable phone bill.

Be careful what you wish for.

[frantaylor]

12:04 PM on 03/21/2009

It is kind of funny to hear people in rural areas complaining about the cost of postage.

[texrednface]

12:30 PM on 03/21/2009

JersyGirl..Thank you for your astute comment.
I am tired of hearing the USPS getting ripped. I have never had a piece of mail or package lost. Contrast this with UPS. I have had packages lost or damaged when I needed the contents urgently. The USPS has service to areas and residences that the others do not. Priority Mail is fast and inexpensive.

The USPS is constitutionally mandated; it is a vital part of our national heritage and frankly a right of every citizen.
The past several years have seen a decline in Post office services because of top
management's desire to bust the Postal workers Union.

I can't understand people who kvetch about a 50¢ stamp, yet would pay outrageous fees to UPS,FedEX, and the defunctifing DSL.

[washlib]

12:27 PM on 03/21/2009

um..because we THE TAXPAYERS pay their exhorbitant losses each year. 2.8 BILLION lost last year, and more this year. UPS, etc would have a hard time sustaining such losses..

[TremoluxMan]

01:12 PM on 03/21/2009

Wrong. That is one of the biggest and most persistent myths out there. The USPS receives no subsidy or revenue from taxpayers. It is entirely self-supporting from postal rates and products. They are mandated by Congress to be a break-even operation. Some years there are surpluses; some years losses, but no revenue comes from the taxpayer.
In fact, in years past, funds were taken from the USPS to pay down the general government debt. UPS, FedEx, DHL, and others skim the cream from the parcel business. They don't have to delivery to every door, six days a week. Do some research on 1st Class rates in other countries and see what a bargain you get in the U. S.

[scooperss]

01:51 PM on 03/21/2009

Did you read the article? The last line is

"The post office does not receive a taxpayer subsidy for its operations."

DUH

[carnelld]

10:57 AM on 03/21/2009

Times are changing. With computers, e-mails, cell phone texting, covential mail service is
becoming a outdated.

The USPS must update and modernie to remain competitive. It is a sign of the times and change.

[frantaylor]

11:24 AM on 03/21/2009

You should check out a USPS center sometime. They have the most advanced OCR systems in the world, bar none. They are a model of efficiency.

[schatsie]

10:57 PM on 03/21/2009

I am not so sure...think about it, the healthcare system in Europe is not competitive, and they are paying 5% less of their GDP for the same outputs....and our system IS competitive whatever that means...

[frantaylor]

03:11 AM on 03/22/2009

"Whatever that means" is a truly appropriate way for you to end your posts.

[lochnessmonster]

10:09 AM on 03/21/2009

Didn't we know this was eventual with IM, email, twitter?

[frantaylor]

11:17 AM on 03/21/2009

Isn't the OPPOSITE inevitable with all the Internet purchasing? We keep the post office pretty busy and save gas, too.

[vesaversa1]

09:57 AM on 03/21/2009

This explain why the mail at my street address is so late now .Maybe i should having all my mail delivered to my post office box .

[frantaylor]

03:17 AM on 03/22/2009

Performance levels for mail delivery are guaranteed. The government uses the mails to deliver its official documents and it insists on prompt service. If you find that you are not receiving adequate service, there are avenues that you can pursue.

Perhaps you should make sure that you are using the correct address, sometimes even a small deviation can cause delays. You can punch your address into usps.com and make sure that you are using an address that is acceptable to them.

[demonopie]

05:38 PM on 03/22/2009

Maybe you are at the end of the letter carriers route now, things change.