BY MARK JAMISON Here’s a resolution for the New Year: Support the people’s post office. That means working to preserve an essential national infrastructure and rejecting initiatives to dismantle it, like closing post offices and cutting window hours, delivering the mail fewer days of the week, and converting customers to cluster boxes. It means working to ensure that the post … Read More
The plot thickens: An OIG solicitation, the Palmer Square Post Office, and the CBRE-LCOR connection
There were a couple of interesting developments this week in the story about how the Postal Service and its real estate broker CBRE are handling post office lease deals and the sales of postal properties. On Christmas Day, the USPS Office of Inspector General posted a solicitation notice looking for a supplier to do an analysis of the fair market value … Read More
Standard Mail slows down: The Postal Service requests an advisory opinion on load leveling DSCF mail
The delivery of a large portion of Standard Mail is about to slow down. Today the Postal Service submitted a request for an advisory opinion to the Postal Regulatory Commission concerning a change in service standards for DSCF Standard Mail. DSCF discounted mail is mail that’s been presorted and prepared according to postal regulations and then entered at one of the … Read More
PRC grants rate increase but for less than two years
The Postal Regulatory Commission has approved the Postal Service’s request for an exigent rate increase of 4.3 percent, but only for about 18 months to two years, however long it takes to recoup $2.8 billion in lost profits. In the short term, the increase will help deal with the low liquidity problem, but it will not fully address the long-term … Read More
USPS releases November financial statement: Status quo
The Postal Service released its monthly financial report for November today. It shows a profit of $119 million in “controllable operating income,” and revenues are up 1.5 percent over last November. After deducting $475 million for the monthly prefunding payment to the Retiree Health Benefit Fund and adding in $210 million for an adjustment to the Workers Compensation fund (adjusted … Read More
John Nichols: Thank a postal worker this holiday
John Nichols, on of the progressive movement's most stalwart supporters of the Postal Service, has this to say: "Postal workers are giving it their all this holiday season, as cards and packages must be delivered among ice storms, snowstorms and wild temperature drops. Yet postal workers are still under assault from political slackers in Washington — like House members who … Read More
Mail Late? Tell the PRC about it, says APWU
APWU: Businesses, customers and APWU members who have complaints about delayed mail should be sure to let the Postal Regulatory Commission know, says Debby Szeredy, the union's executive vice president. "Much of the delayed mail is in areas where plants and post offices have been consolidated or closed or where hours at post offices have been reduced," she said. “Filing complaints … Read More
USPS takes the PRC to court over barcode issue
The Postal Service has filed an appeal with U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, challenging a ruling by the Postal Regulatory Commission concerning the USPS request for a rate increase under the price cap. The PRC has already approved most aspects of the request, but it held that “certain mail preparation requirements [i.e., barcoding] were governed by restrictions on … Read More
Has Canada Post gone postal? CEO Deepak Chopra’s remarks will live forever
Calgary Sun: "If governments gradually defeat themselves, then the imbecilic boss of Canada Post dramatically accelerated that process this week. Didn’t catch what Canada Post CEO Deepak Chopra told a parliamentary committee? Rest assured, you’re going to be hearing about it a lot between now and the next federal election. If Chopra isn’t repudiated by the prime minister sometime soon … Read More
The PRC decides the rate case: What’s in Santa’s bag for the mailers?
On Monday or Tuesday of this week, the Postal Regulatory Commission will issue an order on the Postal Service’s renewed request for an exigent rate increase. If it’s granted in full, postal rates will go up about 4.3 percent. That’s on top of the 1.7 percent increase already granted under the CPI cap, so the total increase would be about … Read More
Call for a National Day to report Dark Delivery Hazards
Communities and Postal Workers United (CPWU)has called for a National Day to Report Dark Delivery Hazards. All letter carriers who are required to deliver unsafely, in the dark on December 21st (exactly one month after Brother Barnette’s death), are being asked to file a Form 1767 – Report of Hazard, Unsafe Condition, or Practice. Read more.
Five Houston post offices up for relocation and sale
A representative of the Postal Service gave a presentation at yesterday's Houston City Council meeting about the potential relocation of five post offices, all owned by the USPS. Federal regulations require the Postal Service to attned a meeting of elected officials or to hold a separate meeting in the affected community, but there's usually a meeting for each post office … Read More
UC Santa Cruz loses its post office
The Postal Service made UC Santa Cruz an offer it couldn’t accept, and as a result the university post office, which has been in operation as a contract postal unit for decades, will be closing this week. “The Postal Service, as was their right, approached us about new terms with the contract. Essentially the terms were unacceptable to the campus,” … Read More
Maryland moves forward on buying historic Annapolis post office
The GSA is close to settling on a $3.2 million purchase of the Historic Annapolis Post Office. The U.S. Postal Service agreed in May to sell the 13,000-square-foot building on Church Circle as long as it could lease back around a third of the building for up to 20 months, keeping the post office operation running. Read more.
Modesto post office murals shipped to Virginia
Two Depression-era murals from Modesto’s historic downtown post office were tucked away in a storage shed, virtually forgotten, for more than four decades. When the lost artwork finally was recovered two years ago, there was great joy and promises they’d be reunited with the other Ray Boynton murals on display in the building’s lobby. But that hasn’t happened. Before the … Read More
