RE: Fighting ‘The Femail Man’
OK, the count is over, I’ve lost 5 hours in my evaluation as have thousands of “Rural Carriers” across the country, and I’m happy I still have a job. My point was proven to the nth degree as automation makes controlling our numbers easy for management trying to shift postal funds from one function to another. The arguments are the mail volume has fallen by 20%, (it always does in February.) Also there is an adjustment period just after a rate increase, which will now happen every year just after our mail count is finalized. To make up for the lost 5 hours I will be fortunate if I can add 5 more hours to my week through realignment of the routes in my Zip code. Just about the time that finalizes some new automation will be put into place and I will be looking for more hours to fill the hour shortage again. The POINT is automation is pushing us into a corner making speed more important than ever much more important than accuracy, and forcing carriers into the position of cutting customer service corners in order to get back by the new target time of 4:pm to get our collected mail back to the office so that a truck can get it to the plant yada yada yada. So Marty, pardon me if I laugh when you expect me to dismount during a snowstorm when darkness and a 4 P.M. deadline dictate my rules of engagement. Every business has its working rules and we have been privatized since 1971. The price of the stamp pays our fees, which are trying to compete with free email and an inflation price cap imposed by law. No pressure??? Customers think we are subsidized by tax dollars but we aren’t. The government still has control over us through the board of governors but our top man is a CEO of a corporation. Labor issues are settled through collective bargaining without that body having the freedom to strike. UPS has the teamsters if they have labor issues they can and do strike. They can strike! Marty, you have the freedom to strike if your craft feels so inclined, but not the craft members of the USPS. We serve 145 million addresses per day or more, which makes us the largest communications company in the world. We have to have working rules that make it economically feasible to deliver our product to the country in an efficient and timely fashion or else go bankrupt. Dismounting at every delivery during a snowstorm is not good business sense and would make necessary installing central box units to replace curbside delivery if you press the issue. The USPS could save 2 billion with a “B” just by eliminating some types of delivery. We don’t run on pipe dreams but economical realities just like every other business in the world. What you want could only happen if we were still subsidized by the tax paying public. So, to bring you back to the realities of the real free enterprise world and the economic pressures that govern the modern postal service I give you this information free of charge in hopes that you will make the best use and entertain the thought that you don’t dictate the working rules of the postal service, economic realities do that job for us. Have a nice day Marty.
