TOPIC OF THE MONTH

As many of you know, I have been writing about privatization efforts that the Postal Service has been engaged in for many yrs. You may recall my article titled The Seeds Of Privatization Parts I and Part II. I also wrote an article titled Backdoor Privatization.

The essence of these articles concerned the various discounts and incentives that the Postal Service is offering big mailers to presort their mail. These efforts are now bearing their poisonous fruits, much to the dismay of Postal Workers who work in the many Processing and Distribution plants and Bulk Mail Centers.

In the larger plants such as the BMC Mail Centers and the big P&D plants we are seeing more and more presorted mail. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of presorted direct pallets. This mail is no longer processed by postal workers. It is now done by the booming presort industry. Where the workers are not unionized and are paid much lower wages then we postal workers.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY THE VOLUME OF THIRD CLASS MAIL, HAS SURPASSED THE VOLUME OF FIRST CLASS MAIL.THE RESULT IS A DRAMATIC DROP IN POSTAL REVENUE.

WHAT’S AMAZING, IS THAT SENIOR POSTAL OFFICIALS SEEM SHOCKED BY THIS DEVELOPMENT. THEY SHOULDN’T BE, THEY PLANNED FOR IT WITH THEIR PRESORT INCENTIVES. PERHAPS THEY WERE SHOCKED BECAUSE IT WAS THE ONLY PLAN THEY EVER PUT FORTH THAT ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED!

Now the Postmaster General has announced his new transformation plan. In this plan he stated that there is a need to consolidate facilities and possibly close some of our P&D Centers. Surprised? I’m not, this is what they have been planning for years. Their intention is to get out of the processing and distribution business. Their vision

is to have as much mail processed at the presort plants as possible. Thus justifying, the need to reduce postal clerk and mail handler staffing. Why do you think they offered a special discount for mailers who presort their mailing, down to the carrier routes! I have been saying this for years. But for some odd reason our national unions have not realized this until this year when the national APWU, for the first time challenged the most recent, presort discount proposals.

Just a few years ago the trucks going to other BMC’s at the NJI-BMC had maybe three or four direct pallets on them. Today every truck contains as much as 40% or 50% direct pallets! This is mail that was, just a few years ago processed and sorted by postal workers today it is being done at the presort houses.

This not only hurts us in the fact that fewer postal workers are needed, but as we seen in the recent APWU National Arbitration. When the APWU, attempted to raise the argument, that the clerks wages, should be compared to those of the Federal Express and UPS employees. The arbitrator quickly shot that argument down and stated that they should be compared to the non-union workers in the presort industry. When he compared our wages to theirs he stated that we enjoyed a 30% wage premium. So this is another seed planted by the postal service that has produced poisonous fruit for us postal workers.

Now this may sound like more bad news and it is! I think that by now all of you who work on the floor will have to agree that what I’m saying is true and accurate. As an elected representative, my job is not to just react to events that happen on a daily basis but to have the foresight to look down the road and see what threats are headed our way. I have been doing that, for many years now and I had hoped that our Local and National Leadership would have taken heed. I tried to do my job by sounding the alarm. Now we are at the point where the seeds that I said were being planted have blossomed into poisonous fruit that now threatens our jobs in a way that we have never experienced before.

Please no profanity, just fair and honest discussion and please sign your name to your opinion.