Post Office funding

[pjstough]

12 hours ago, Kirk W said:

We lived on a rural route for the past 8 years and see absolutely no reason for routine mail, including the "last mile" deliveries would need daily delivery. We are only talking about 1 day. Of course, closing small town post offices and cutting deliveries on rural routes would also mean fewer postal employees, which could cause pressure on Congress again via the employee organizations. 

EDIT:  The same action for urban routes would make this a very significant savings. 

If virtually everyone on a rural or city route would agree that they dont need daily delivery, it would probably happen.

Last I heard the USPS had reduced its workforce from around 700,000 down to around 500,000, but his was a couple of years ago.  They have done this while adding thousands of rural and city routes.

One thing I observed when I was still working for the USPS was when the money crunch started as more routes were  added, instead of hiring more people for the routes reduce over time and people getting their mail at 8:00 at night the USPS hired more managers to drive what workers they had harder.

[sandsys]

14 hours ago, Kirk W said:

Years ago the post office would commission some business in the smaller towns to be able to provide rental postal boxes, to accept mail and to sell postage, as well as most other services that they provide.

Back in the 1970s I worked at Prudential Insurance Company's huge headquarters in Minneapolis at the "stamp desk" I sold stamps and handled certified, registered, and receipt requested mail. No other services there but I had a regular flow of traffic every afternoon.

Linda

[Kirk W]

10 hours ago, pjstough said:

Last I heard the USPS had reduced its workforce from around 700,000 down to around 500,000, but his was a couple of years ago.  They have done this while adding thousands of rural and city routes.

One thing I observed when I was still working for the USPS was when the money crunch started as more routes were  added, instead of hiring more people for the routes reduce over time and people getting their mail at 8:00 at night the USPS hired more managers to drive what workers they had harder.

This is difficult to understand. If I understand, USPS increased the number of managers who do not deliver any mail while decreasing the number of mail carriers, and by doing so, they now deliver mail on more routes with fewer total employees and less overtime? 

[pjstough]

1 hour ago, Kirk W said:

This is difficult to understand. If I understand, USPS increased the number of managers who do not deliver any mail while decreasing the number of mail carriers, and by doing so, they now deliver mail on more routes with fewer total employees and less overtime? 

They didnt decrease mail carriers, but they didnt hire enough new carriers, and so there is a lot of overtime, and into the evening deliveries.  Carriers are being micro managed more than ever before.  Most of the reduction in over all total employees is in the clerk and mail handler craft, mostly achieved by automation.

[Dutch_12078]

How's this for USPS efficiency: We have prescriptions coming from a CVS store in Gloversville, NY that shipped Wednesday. Today tracking shows that it went overnight from the Gloversville PO to the Springfield, MA distribution center and from there to the Albany, NY distribution center where it is now enroute back to the Gloversville PO for delivery to us on Saturday. That makes 3 days and about 277 miles to effectively go from the store 8 miles to our mail service. There must be a better way...