Today the Postal Service submitted its calculations to the Postal Regulatory Commission for its density rate authority and retirement rate authority to increase rates in the coming year. These are the amounts that the Postal Service is permitted to raise rates on Market Dominant products beyond the Consumer Price Index (which, until November 2020, had put a cap on increases). … Read More
Lease dispute over an Alexandria, VA post office goes to court
The Community Branch post office in the Mount Vernon Plaza shopping center in Alexandria, VA (22306), is set to close at the end of February. The owner of the property has filed a lawsuit against the Postal Service, and both sides are telling the media that they can’t talk about the case due to the pending legal action. A local … Read More
Lawsuits respond to USPS announcement it will buy more EVs
On Dec. 20, 2022, the Postal Service issued a press release announcing it would buy more electric vehicles than it had committed to just a few months ago. On that same day, the Postal Service submitted the press release to two district courts that are hearing challenges to the USPS environmental impact statements that were done in connection with purchasing … Read More
Winter 2023 CPWU Newsletter
The Winter 2023 newsletter from Communities and Postal Workers United (CPWU) has articles about letter carriers in Maine rallying to protest overwork, understaffing, robberies, delay of mail, and prioritizing Amazon parcels; the increasing number of letter carriers are being robbed on their mail routes; the victory on electric vehicles weakened by exclusion of union workers and public charging stations; and … Read More
OIG provides a Primer on Postal Reform
The USPS OIG has just released a report entitled Primer on Postal Reform. The report reviews the key provisions of the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 (PSRA), signed into law on April 6, 2022, and “identifies potential opportunities and challenges they present for the Postal Service.” As described by the IG, the financial provisions of the PSRA “will eliminate … Read More
You’ve got no mail: The OIG reports on the problem of undelivered routes
The #USPS OIG has just released an audit report on Delivery Operations – Undelivered and Partially Delivered Routes. This refers to instances where carriers were unable to deliver all the mail along their assigned route on the scheduled delivery day. The causes include unavailability of carriers, severe weather, traffic, accidents, blocked receptacles that prevent the carrier from servicing the route, and … Read More
Canada’s postal workers want to put public charging stations at post offices: Why can’t it happen here?
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has put forward a plan — Delivering Community Power — to transform the postal system in ways that will “fight climate change and deliver vital new services to every corner of the country.” Under the plan, post offices would offer new services, like high-speed internet; provide low-fee financial services; and expand their role as … Read More
Clearing up a few misconceptions about S&DCs and EVs
The Washington Post is reporting that the Postal Service plans to spend almost $10 billion for 66,000 electric vehicles and related infrastructure, a big win for the Biden administration and environmentalists. This is, of course, very good news, and one hesitates to throw cold water on the announcement. But unfortunately, in reporting on its scoop, the Post — as it … Read More
Postal Confidential: USPS hides more information about its leased facilities
For many years now, the Postal Service has published state-by-state lists of its owned and leased facilities under the Freedom of Information Act. The practice represents the kind of transparency one expects from a government agency. For some reason, the Postal Service recently decided that the reports on its 23,000 leased properties were providing too much transparency. A few days … Read More
Has Biden taken a pass on his opportunity to replace the PMG?
President Biden has apparently passed up the opportunity to replace two members of the USPS Board of Governors whose term expired on Dec. 8. The USPS website now shows these Governors as serving a holdover year until Dec. 2023: William Zollars “served the remainder of a seven-year term that expired on December 8, 2022, and he is currently in his … Read More
USPS OIG launches audit of plan to centralize carrier operations
The USPS Office of Inspector General is doing an audit of the Postal Service’s plan to relocate letter carriers from post offices to centralized Sort & Delivery Centers. Here’s the OIG’s announcement: Postal Service’s Development and Communication of Sorting and Delivery Centers Recently, the Postal Service announced their intention to consolidate delivery operations at more than 200 post offices and … Read More
The PRC finally starts asking the USPS about the S&DC plan
The Postal Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing the Postal Service’s request to make its pilot USPS Connect Local Mail (CLM) a permanent product. CLM offers same or next-day delivery for documents sent at a post office with a delivery unit (carrier operation) to the addresses served by that DU. Today the PRC asked how the CLM product would be impacted … Read More
