Solidarity. Postal workers and other labor organizers gathered at Congressman Adam Smith's Tacoma offices to show their support for Congressional action. (Photo by Steve Dunkelberger )
The U.S. Postal Service is straining under mounting debt and the drop of mail delivery volumes brought by the rising popularity of e-mail, online banking and instant messaging. While that is a national issue, local labor groups organized a rally in hopes of gaining political support for Congressional efforts to keep the letters flowing and postal paychecks coming.
Tacoma’s Pine Street center and another one in Fife, for example, are being reviewed for possible closure alongside 250 others around the nation. Those centers account for several hundred jobs. Both postal centers have seen cuts already. Local mail could soon be sorted in Seattle and trucked to Tacoma rather than being sorted locally, meaning potentially longer delivery times.
The Pierce County Central Labor Council and National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 130 members gathered supporters at the local offices of Washington’s Congressional delegation on Sept. 27. The local effort at the Tacoma offices of Congressman Adam Smith (D-Tacoma) was a coordinated rally that also included events at Congressional offices in Shoreline, Everett, Bremerton, Seattle, Mercer Island and around the nation.
“The United States Postal Service is important to the country, and we must find a way to maintain it in this uncertain fiscal climate,” Smith said in a statement because he could not attend the rally. “Postal workers provide many vital services, including connecting rural communities, supporting small businesses and making sure seniors can get their prescription drugs delivered on time.”
Union rally material points out that the Postal Service actually made money, some $600 million, in recent years. That profit came even with the downturn on mail volume brought by the recession. That profit came from cuts already made to the service.
“They have cut people. They have cut this, and they have cut that,” Postal worker and Union Shop Steward Cody Bryan said. “They have cut to the bone.”
The Post Office is facing tough times and an uncertain future even after deep cuts in recent years. Unlike other federal agencies, the Postal Service does not receive taxpayer dollars. The sale of stamps, shipping costs and other services fund its operations. Mail volume has declined by more than 43 billion pieces in the past five years and is continuing to decline. That volume translated to first-class mail dropping 25 percent and single piece first-class mail – letters bearing postage stamps – declining 36 percent in the same timeframe. Overall mail volume is less than half of what it was just 10 years ago. The cuts and closures have not been enough.
“We have reduced our annual costs by more than $12 billion and our workforce has been reduced by 110,000 career employees over the past four years, but we must do significantly more to return to profitability,” said Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer Patrick Donahoe during a speech last week. “We must reduce our annual costs by $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable, and we do not currently have the flexibility in our business model to achieve these cost reductions.”
The Postal Service is still in what Donahoe called “a dire financial predicament.” The mail provider could technically go into default as soon as this week because it has a $5.5 billion pre-payment for retiree health benefits due Sept. 30 that the Postal Service cannot afford to pay. Its financial picture just gets worse from there if left unchecked.
“The Postal Service is facing the real prospect that it will not be able to meet payroll next (fiscal) year, thus disrupting mail delivery,” Donahoe said.
The current proposal to keep the Postal Service financially sound includes dropping Saturday mail delivery, and changing the benefits package for postal retirees by ending a 2006 requirement for the Postal Service to prepay for its retiree benefits and closing as many as 3,600 post offices around the nation. Those changes require Congressional action.
Smith and 215 other Representatives are co-sponsoring House Resolution 1351, which requires the federal Office of Personnel Management to return some $50 billion in overpayments the Postal Service made to the Civil Service Retirement System because of the prepay payroll policy. The cash infusion would allow the Postal Service to meet its fiscal year requirements and other debts as the system seeks to further transform itself in the digital age.
“It is not a labor contract that is breaking the Post Office,” National Postal Mail Handlers Union Branch President Gene Rezac said, adding that blame falls on the requirement for the Postal Service to fully fund an account now for the retiree benefits it will pay out decades into the future.
“No other business in America has ever been required to do this,” he said.
