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Lean, agile Postal Service touted URL:
Washington -- The financially troubled U.S. Postal Service can become leaner and more efficient if it shrinks its workforce, imposes new time limits on collective bargaining and develops a pay-for-performance system, a presidential panel said Wednesday. The President's Commission on the Future of the Postal Service also recommended loosening limits on executive pay and requiring postal managers to justify their functions and the size of their staffs. "We're asking the Postal Service to act more like a business. And incentives, pay for performance, is part of being a business," said panelist Joseph Wright, president of PanAmSat Corporation, a provider of video and data broadcasting services. Later, Wright said: "We really do believe there is too much structure and too much staff." Commissioner Norman Seabrook, president of the New York City prison guards association, was the lone dissenter on recommendations to speed up collective bargaining, to add pension and post-retirement health coverage to collective bargaining and to set up a pay-for-performance system for management and union workers. Pay-for-performance leads to establishment of a "good ol' boy" network in which managers simply reward workers they like, he charged. Other commissioners argued that such a system can be made to work if it is carefully managed and the standards for winning extra pay are clear to everyone. William Burrus, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said the proposed changes would hurt workers and vowed that union members take their case to Congress to "ensure that none of this sees the light of day." "It was indicative of the slant of the committee; they went into it with an intent to reduce labor costs," Burrus said. "And while they would say they 'adjusted' the collective bargaining process, they shredded it. . . . They've declared war on postal employees." President Bush appointed the nine members of the commission, many of them corporate executives, in December to study ways to improve the Postal Service, which has 735,000 employees and an annual budget of $66 billion. The independent agency, hit hard by declines in first-class mail, is $11 billion in debt and has not turned a profit since 1999. The commission's report won't be issued until next week, but panelists approved their final recommendations Wednesday and in a meeting last week. Many of their proposals would require legislative action in Congress. Among other recommendations, the panel said the Postal Service should allow customers to buy -- at a premium -- personalized stamps bearing their photograph or other image or inscription. Allowing mailers to personalize stamps would add value to sending materials by mail, said Harry J. Pearce, co-chairman of the commission. "There's enormous creativity out there," added co-chairman James Johnson, citing the popularity of personalized license plates. Personalized stamps were introduced in Canada in 2001 and have proven very popular, Canada Post spokesman Tim McGurrin said. Customers send in a picture and Canada Post reduces it to a sticker which can be placed in a postage stamp that has a blank center. The Picture Post stamps sell for $1, compared with the 48-cent regular price for Canadian stamps. Panelists also said the Postal Service should create a system to track mail for security purposes. Last week, the commission approved recommendations to give the Postal Service more flexibility in setting rates and closing postal facilities. Panelists also said the politically appointed, Senate-confirmed board of governors should be transformed into a corporate-style, 11-member board of directors with business backgrounds and more authority to oversee Postal Service operations. The president would name the top three members, who, after being confirmed by the Senate, would select the other eight with the Treasury Department's help. The Associated Press contributed to this report. |
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