Steering the Enterprise

(This article first appeared in the July-August 2015 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

This isn’t a review of a new, epic star trek saga. it is, however, the tale of an incredible journey into the black hole of privatization and the gravitational pull to blame you for it.

District managers, postmasters or area vice presidents, for that matter, do not run the Postal Service. Fourteen corporate elite “appointees” – nine governors and five commissioners – are at the helm of the USPS.

The nine governors select the Postmaster General and he or she selects a Deputy Postmaster General. (Currently, the USPS is being navigated illegally, since the board lacks a quorum, but that’s a tale for another day.)

The Postal Regulatory Commission, an independent agency, has regulatory oversight of USPS.

The USPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports to the governors, not management.

Postal workers work for an “independent establishment” of the executive branch that is slowly being turned into a Commercial Enterprise.

Deceptions and Disruptions

Fourteen years ago (19 days after the 9/11 tragedy), management launched the transformation concept, which laid the blueprint for converting the USPS into the commercial enterprise it is now.

The Transformation Plan (TP) intended to reduce the number of retail outlets (close post offices), match frequency to volume (five-day delivery), adjust service standards (facilitate the closure of mail processing enters), and revamp the network.

Under the pretext of improving service and reducing costs, management eliminated 200,000 jobs; got rid of personnel offices and bid units; closed post offices; consolidated plants, and involuntarily reassigned thousands of career employees. Many of you have had your work and home life disrupted by the TP.

Improving service and reducing cost is by no means new. Our second Postmaster General tried to expedite mail delivery by substituting horseback riders for stagecoaches – and got in trouble with none other than George Washington.

Our founding fathers knew the value of the post office and included such services in three of our most sacred American declarations: Second Continental Congress, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution of the United States.

Now, more than 200 years later, management still uses the pretext of improving service and reducing costs to undermine the service we provide the American people. Zones, zip codes, metro centers, mechanization, automation have all changed how we provided service.

But TP has gutted the workforce with continued abolishments, reversions, excessing, realignments, reassessments, migrations consolidations, etc., under various sub-plans like Evolutionary Network Development, Rationalization, Optimization, Four Walls and the current Operational Window Changes (OWC).

It’s Your Fault

What makes management’s current efficiency schemes insidious is that they blame you for the ills of the Postal Service.

They feed the media and academics the lie that you account for 80 percent of all postal costs. Lately they say it is ~80 percent, as if the curly squiggle will be understood by all as meaning 78 percent labor costs, which includes management’s exorbitant salaries and bonuses.

Management has traditionally peddled the falsehood that you are overpaid and underworked. Now, even so-called liberal academics claim you get a “premium” salary and benefits, making $18,700 more than comparable private-sector workers. These professional academics, some of whom are funded by competitors of the USPS, also claim postal workers have lousy productivity.

Some claim your wages and benefits eat up $57 billion out of $67 billion of postal revenue, and our managers feed into that myth. In turn, the media manipulates Americans into blaming us for the “broke” Postal Service.

Unfortunately, many Americans buy this garbage. They blame postal workers for long window lines, late or delayed mail, and accept the falsehood that your wages, benefits and retirement plans are excessive.

Battle Cries

As we struggle to secure a new contract, there are those crying out that the USPS commercial enterprise is robbing private-sector businesses. They claim the USPS has an unfair network advantage and that postal workers receive, process, and deliver mail that falls in the category of “competitive” (parcels) as well as mail that falls in the category of “monopoly” mail (first-class letters).

They also cry out that USPS should pay postal workers the same salary private delivery companies do, and save the American tax payers $11 billion in undeserved salaries and benefits. “It is time to privatize the Postal Service,” they demand!

We decry these falsehoods, pointing out that no direct tax money goes into operating the Postal Service.

Privatizers claim the USPS pays no taxes, vehicle registrations, parking tickets, etc. These muckrakers refuse to recognize that the United States Postal Service belongs to the people of the United States, not for-profit corporations.

The USPS delivers to more than 154 million addresses every day! The USPS is not broke – it has made an operational profit for three years in a row. Yes, it’s mismanaged and has financial problems, but it continues to be an American treasure that must be preserved, not privatized.

What Are You Doing About It?

Only one person can stop the privatization! You collectively must take action to fight back by:

• Becoming an activist to get decent postal legislation passed in Congress;
• Educating your co-workers, family and the public on the value of the USPS and its no-tax operation;
• Lending your local union a hand in varied ways, including picketing, leafleting, congressional visits, attending meetings – being the eyes, ears and voice of the union at work, and
• Standing up to managerial abuse and falsehoods about your productivity and wages.

I, and fellow Coordinators Sharyn Stone, John Dirzius, Kennith Beasley and Mike Gallagher, thank all of you who support our contract fight by being active and urge the rest of you to get involved in our fight!

If you fail to take an active part through your union in saving USPS, if it is privatized and the workforce is dismantled, it will be way too late. You will be deep in a black hole of misery.