Postal Service Plight

The Postal Service will cut back to five days at first; using the excuse that it will keep costs down ["Postmaster General: Six-Day Mail Delivery Doesn't Make Sense," usnews.com]. However, I guarantee you, within a year or less, they will be right back demanding price increases and employee raises and giving up Saturday delivery will have been for nothing, except more profits for postal worker unions.

Comment by Dubois of NM

Postmaster General John Potter is the wrong person at the wrong time to lead the USPS. He's been at the helm far too long. The board of governors does not hold him accountable. He has not cut management positions. There could be a 50 percent cut in management positions, because there are way too many, but management protects their own. Potter seems to think that only craft should be cut, and service to the public should be cut. Someone needs to call him out on these issues, and stop letting him off the hook so easily. Ask him about his big bonuses when the USPS is so far in the red. The media needs to start doing their job. Don't just ask Potter questions. Do some real investigations on your own to find the real truth about the problems of the USPS. You could start by asking employee's of the USPS that are "in the trenches" day in and day out: the carriers, the clerks, the mail handlers, and the rest of the crafts as well. You are never going to find the truth by just asking Potter.

Comment by Don of WI

If on one hand we tell the postal service what to deliver, when to deliver and how to deliver, we are contributing to the problem. What do we want? The mail delivered everywhere fast and efficiently. Then we need to consolidate offices where feasible. Five-days-a-week delivery would not be the end of the world. Other services provided through the post office could increase revenue. Rather than complaining about the postal service, let's be thankful for the good service we have and come up with ways to preserve and improve.

Comment by Bard of PA

It is a federal law for the post office to deliver mail six days a week, and with this comes a monopoly on first class mail. Going to five days delivery could result in the possible loss of this monopoly. If this happens, you can close the doors and turn out the lights for the post office.

Comment by Drew Emerson of GA

It is obvious the only means to save money is to remove the many layers of management. Your first layer is line supervisor, second layer manager, third layer postmaster, fourth layer post office operations manager (POOM), fifth layer district manager, sixth layer area vice president, seventh layer the many vice presidents at headquarters. We have a vice president of sustainability. What function does this position perform? Managers create positions to maintain their employment. A review of the postal management structure would indicate the unnecessary positions and the vast waste of money on basically "do-nothing" positions.

Comment by Bob Czartoryski of MI

The Postal Service, in an effort to garner a larger share of the shipping services, has initiated flat rate shipping. You've seen the commercials..."if it fits, it ships for one flat rate anywhere in the U.S." Imagine the actual cost of the shipment with each of the Postal Service employees that have to touch a carton, shipping from the East to West coast. If they want to play with the big boys and girls, they need to base their shipping charges on the actual expenses to handle a given package. To make matters worse, with the proliferation of the internet as a primary means to purchase goods, flat rate shipping does not lend itself to the schema of website shopping carts. There is no way to design algorithms that will intelligently guess how much of a customer's purchase can fit into the various-sized flat rate boxes. Weight, destination and class of service is the only smart way to calculate the cost of shipping.

Comment by Andrew Auletta of NJ

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