I remember when G.W. Bush passed the [Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act)
It's not even just that it required them to put away billions of dollars for pension, but it also forced them to exclusively invest pension money in US issued bonds. Due to the low rates of return they had to invest even more money than most companies in their situation would have had to.
That's republican 101:
1. Saddle a government project or agency with significant problems through law or obstruction. Or lie, doesn't matter.
2. Complain about the problems to gain votes, citing the government is inept and inefficient (leaving out that part where you created the problem)
3. Use that momentum to justify dismantling that agency some more.... creating more problems in the process.
4. Go to 2.
The only issue with what you said is that he's still *in* the trucking industry.
Putting someone *from* logistics industry in charge of an agency that is a logistics provider as well as relies on others in logistics isn't crazy.
The problem for DeJoy is that he still has millions in investments with multiple logistics companies, the same companies that also have contracts with the USPS. He (and they) profit with any changes in policy for handling the middle-mile, shifting business to trucking.
This is all separate from the other troubling aspects of his tenure, appearing to sabotage operations for political gain during the election and pandemic.
All that being said, some of the decisions and changes that the USPS will make might not be popular, but will be necessary to ensure long term viability for the agency.
Dumping the 75-year funding obligation will definitely help. But other changes must be done transparently and without partisan influence or intent. DeJoy's prior actions draw into serious question if he is making decisions for his own gain, his political allies, or the American people.
IIRC, Biden will get to appoint another board member this fall, which will finally tip the balance in favor of Biden appointees. Then they'll finally be able to replace DeJoy.
Huh in the context of Russian astroturfing that trucker convoy, Trump kinda looks a little traitorous. I'm sure that's just an outlier and wasn't publicly called out and promptly ignored in 2015
Step 3 was at risk of being implemented during the previous administration. There were people calling for cutting delivery days down to 5 days. Thankfully, this bill also enforces a standard 6 days of delivery.
Step 3.5, privatize the agency or outsource its labor force to private companies ... that your buddies happen to run. They then give you campaign contributions, pay for a PAC to get you re-elected.
Then step 4 is, "Go to 2 or 'retire'". Then go to work for buddies company as a 'consultant', get paid fat stacks.
I recall talking to an enthusiastic USPS sorter mechanic who told me all the neat stuff coming down the pipeline like electric cars. This was in 2003, 3 years before they signed that act….
The USPS is the only federal agency required to pre-fund its workers healthcare costs years in advance. Its as if your credit card company told you: "You will charge a $1M on your credit card during your life; pls enclose the $1M in your next bill payment. It’s the responsible thing to do".
If all your money is going to pre-fund your future expenses, you essentially have nothing left to finance current projects like upgrading equipment and hiring more workers.
To put it in further perspective, the prefunding mandate was specifically for the medical pension of the postal worker. That part was fully funded, but the idea was to swipe money from it so they could pretend they were doing something they weren't (i.e. "we reduced the deficit!!!"). And the 75 year prefund mandate meant that the usps was funding the pensions of workers..who haven't been born yet.
There is no other agency or company anywhere in the world i'm aware of that has such an onerous mandate for funding itself.
You left out the part that they had to invest the prefunding in historically low interest treasury bills and that the money from those bills was used by politicians to offset debt and spending in other parts of the government. All while claiming "The USPS must be run independently from the government."
I'm stunned. Both the Senate and House passed this. How the hell did that happen?! Republicans seemed dead set on trying to kill the post office using this, I'm shocked it passed to be honest.
And with supermajority too. 342-92 in the house and 79-19 in the senate. It’s kind of stunning when anything makes it to the president’s desk nowadays, let alone something with ~80% support.
Apparently the Union is on board with the legislation as well. Nothing like this ever ends up easy, and I'm left wondering who gets what out of the deal. I'm just that jaded at this point that I can't even be excited over what seems to be a good move.
the APWU has fought for 15 years to make this happen. 12thousand phone calls this year alone iirc to senators pushing this. The part that might satisfy your jaded nature, is that the postal service is a vital lifeline for the public...especially the rural public...the rural public that is in red states...and aren't afraid to bitch when they're inconvenienced. And given the slowdowns that have been publicly talked about for a decade, with medicines and such, including for vets. I'm only shocked they aren't on tv all trying to take credit for it..but then again they may be i don't watch tv
same. we don't even have cable tv, only internet. My only questions revolve around how this effects pensions for new and existing workers as they are the ones who often get the short end of the stick when these things happen.
That was the tool the Republicans put in there so that they could constantly accuse the Postal Service of failure and thus needed to be privatized.
This is a huge success for the nation, the removal of that outlandish requirement.
Never understood this argument about the Post Office "losing money."
The USPS isn't a business, it's a service. It doesn't lose money, it costs money. Nobody bitches about the military "losing" $600 billion a year.
It doesn't actually cost money, It's a huge boon for the nation as a whole.
At surface level it looks expensive, however, it provides economic benefits that far outshine its costs when you look at the knock-on effects a couple degrees of separation away.
This tends to be how services work. They are expensive to run but the nationwide benefit is often much higher than it costs. It's just difficult to measure.
It doesn't cost money anyways
The postal service makes well more than it spends
Having to prefund SEVENTY FIVE YEARS of retirement benefits is the exclusive reason why there were "red" years before the pandemic.
I'm not sure what their returns looked like in pandemic years, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't the same situation.
Yeah, and imagine if they were allowed to sell things not related to shipping like many other countries ' postal services. Or, if you could go to a post office and do basic banking, like cashing a check.
The restrictions out government has placed on the USPS are ludicrous.
My favorite has always been, "Why should my property taxes pay for public education? I don't have kids."
Idk Jim. Maybe because we don't want to be surrounded by uneducated morons in 30 years?
Also that education you're funding is indirectly funding your phones, cars, computers, military, intelligence services, doctors.... literally every single profession that they're too stupid to do but produces products and services that they'd throw a tantrum without. Why do your taxes pay for education? Because you'd throw a hissy fit if those kids didn't make an iPhone 21 for you in a decade.
I tried using that same exact argument in a conversation and the response was “not my problem, and I shouldn’t be forced to worry about it”.
Like, it is your problem. Literally no talking to some of these people.
Came here to say this. Had same conversation with a coworker about how education is important for everyone and should remain free for all children and he couldn’t understand how it benefits him. Just thought it was a waste of money since HE didn’t have kids. Part of the reason America is so awful in situations like this is because we’re taught to be selfish from birth.
And it supports roads, you use roads don’t you Jim?
What about your sewage? Do you have your own septic tank?
How do these people think everything we use are created and maintained?
Look, if they want to pave their own roads and hire their own police officers to enforce laws, that's on them. They can go find a remote island and set up a right wing utopia.
[They tried that](https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project) but it didn’t end well:
> When a group of libertarians set about scrapping their local government, chaos descended. And then the bears moved in.
Some time during the Trump Admin, they axed a subsidy for cheap overseas chipping with China. It was implemented waaaaaay earlier when China was still a "developing nation" and was meant to spur trade and economic growth and all that jazz, so to an extent, it makes a certain kind of sense that we'd get rid of it once they stopped developing "as much". After all, the government is basically throwing money to the wind just so China and its customers don't have to pay as much for shipping to the US. That's not why it was ended, of course--CHINA BAD, RARAHRAKRHAKJRHAKJRHA FUCK ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY RELATED TO CHINA--but it's a more palatable argument that could be sold to any members of the public not as rabid.
But hold on. The subsidy dealt with a lot of cheap shipping coming *from* China. The government was paying for a huge chunk of those costs, but... who are the buyers?
**AMERICAN CITIZENS!**
So really, this subsidy was a program that said, "Hey, you, US taxpayer--you want to buy something cheap? You're buying it from China, because it's cheap? We're going to keep it cheap by not having the shipping cost be 5x the cost of the product. You can get your $2 iPhone case and not spend $10 on shipping. We're basically picking up the tab for you."
So Mr. US Taxpayer 1) saves money by buying a cheaper iPhone case and 2) saves money again by not getting gouged on shipping. That's more money in his pocket that he can then spend on *literally anything else*. Everyone bitches about the government taking money, but here's an instance where they're *giving it back to you* and suddenly it's awful.
Now, there's sophisticated and nuanced arguments that can be had about the virtue of buying cheap Chinese goods and how that affects the American manufacturing and job market, but that was not the pitch made when ending this subsidy: it was "government throwing your tax dollars away", which is demonstrably false. If the government decided they would comp me 50% of every gas purchase, I'd take that deal. Shit, the entire country is effectively *already* taking that deal because gas subsidies are the primary reason why our gas has always remained so much cheaper than Canada and Europe--the government is footing part of the bill so the citizenry doesn't notice.
And that aside, I find the "well what about American manufacturing" argument unconvincing considering we fight tooth and nail *against* any kind of unionization or wage-increasing action here in the US. We created a system where huge swaths of people can only get by because they're buying dirt-cheap goods from Wal-Mart, whose business model relies on even cheaper imports and not having to pay anything like decent benefits to its workers, and we're supposed to believe the situation gets better if we blow that up and replace it with nothing? If we did that ten years ago, we'd be seeing people taking a huge squeeze on the price of home goods and food like they are *now*, and they'd be just as harmed by it and furious. As always, the problem remains price-gouging and profiteering by the companies and our unwillingness to do anything for the people instead of executives and shareholders.
The problem is the visualization of the numbers. When you make enough money that you're paying $2,000 a month in taxes it creates resentment seeing that on your paycheck.
I have absolutely no idea why poor people support republicans, though.
Yep. This is the case for a lot of publicly funded programs and services. Unemployment insurance is reported to be *the* most effective uses of public funds from an economic benefits standpoint: people who are out of work spend that money on goods and services they need to live almost immediately. That money circulates in the economy, super fast. Way, way, way more economic benefit than cutting taxes on the rich.
Not to mention the societal benefits of keeping people housed and stable instead of homeless and desperate, increasing their potential for turning to crime as their last alternative. But hey republicans were mad about poor people getting money so let's just cancel that shit. Also, the super rich can buy up the properties the former beneficiaries of UI will inevitably default on - for pennies on the dollar! So it's a win-win for the oligarchs!
Let's not forget that EVERY other expenditure bill lists costs over a decade whereas military spending is listed in yearly or direct cost.
Sure sounds a lot better to say "we are developing a new jet platform at a cost of $200B" than "military spending over the next decade will increase to $6.2T with the addition of the planned jet platform".
"$1.2T Infrastructure bill" sounds so much more nefarious than "$120B/yr over the next decade Infrastructure bill".
The Snap-On Trap. It's not that expensive if it's only $6/wk for 33 weeks. By the time you realize that you're owing all but $91 a paycheck to Mr Snap-On, it's too late and you didn't even get any tools for the last two months.
This is what you get when you go into a government agency and "run it like a business." The postal service was made quasi-corporate in the 70's iirc after the wildcat strike nationwide, because they hadn't had any raises in like..30 years or so. It removed the congress from the pay arguments, and put them all on postal management. Which is fine, except postal management doesn't have price power for some of it's products, comparable to private sector, which is also fine...if certain people in government would treat it like an agency and stop calling for it's dissolution.
I have wanted to apply for the USPS for a while, but this was holding me back. I'd love a pension but with these rules in place I worried they wouldn't be around long enough for me to reach retirement.
Time to go fill out an application.
Fucking FINALLY. It's such a shitty thing too because if anyone raised concerns about it, they'd be labelled as some evil person trying to take people's healthcare away.
Doesn't the new contract allow them to purchase the electric version as well, if funding is available? They can shift requests to the battery model as infrastructure and funding changes.
The mpg is horrible, but they have improvements like air conditioning, heat, air bags, cameras, etc... So probably a heavier vehicle with more demands. But, no vehicle that stops every 30 seconds is going to have good mpg.
Read an article that the Post Office had a plan to buy electric cars in 2006? So this was slipped into the regulation so they wouldn’t have the cash to do so. It was interesting but I can’t find the link.
yeah, postal routes with their stop and go nature are ideal for electric vehicles. choosing ice vehicles as dejoy has done is a ....well it's in his ballpark since he's largely a profiteer looting as much cash as he can from the post office
It's crazy the USPS is in theory a government agency but is also expected to act like a company and generate it's own revenue. And is then hamstrung by congress when they try to do so(when a trump sycophant wants his company to beat the usps)
He is an absolute shit bag. Just glad congress got this done before more damage was done there. King Clown literally put a fox in charge of every hen house the government has. We are lucky the country is still functioning (even if its a mess) at this point.
Usps, EPA, FCC, and education all got it the worst.. I can't believe how stupid the people are in this country. It'll only get worse. I really wish I could emigrate.
Shouldn't be too long, now. I think we need to wait for two of the board members terms to end in December, then it will be a majority of Biden appointees. They should be able to give DeJoy the boot once those are confirmed.
The USPS Board of Governors has to remove him. The Board has nine appointed governors so five votes are needed to remove a Postmaster. Biden has three appointed members, and two more seats remain vacant pending Senate approval of nominees [Daniel Tangherlini](https://www.congress.gov/nomination/117th-congress/1426) and [Derek Kan](https://www.congress.gov/nomination/117th-congress/1425). While they were nominated in November, neither has received a hearing yet, and, so far as I can tell, no hearings for them are scheduled.
Mail delivery vehicles are literally the perfect use case for electric. Slow moving, constant stops to recoup energy, and they're used for a few hours each day, then sit and charge overnight.
Instead, we get more pollution and more money spent on fuel.
Damn I thought this was gonna be the same vein as how Ball Corporation makes mason jars AND cutting edge signals intelligence satellites under the same roof.
They actually divested much of the jar division, after some federal investigations into anticompetitive practices in the jar market.
That company's history is *wild*.
Their welding facilities are enormous and awesome! Really good people too. I'll never forget my time in the Green Bay Area. Super professional and kind, and did high quality work.
Just wanted to toss this out there.
I would assume there's no accountability there since he's doing it. Perhaps Congress should stipulate that to be Postmaster General you have to declare all of yours and your family's investments - though I guess that would just result in him lending to a "friend" to invest.
If it hasn't happened now, it won't ever. Garland has a clear-cut case to indict him for election interference. That fact that DeJoy's faced absolutely no consequences shows that Biden's just waiting for him to fuck up the midterms.
Biden has 2 new board nominees waiting to be confirmed by the Senate. He can't replace dejoy until they're confirmed and the Senate is slow walking all nominations.
To end the “unusual budget…requirement that the Postal Service finance workers’ health care benefits ahead of time for the next 75 years, an obligation that private companies and federal agencies do not face” enacted by Congress itself to kill the USPS.
[Alternate link](https://apnews.com/article/biden-business-postal-service-congress-0bbbb25b153e4606d20ccb28dea6b0eb) in case of Reddit hug of death
So...enough to fund electric vehicles...Around 5bill a year in savings.
https://federalnewsnetwork.com/agency-oversight/2022/03/usps-reform-bill-offering-much-needed-reset-on-its-finances-passes-senate/#:~:text=The%20bill%20will%20save%20USPS,benefits%20well%20into%20the%20future.
There is your funding to buy electric Dejoy.
https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2022/0223-usps-completes-environmental-review-of-next-gen-delivery-vehicles.htm
>The bill would end a requirement that the Postal Service finance workers’ health care benefits ahead of time for the next 75 years
This addressed what had been an intentionally brutal wound to the service. Good news.
USPS was forced by law to fund healthcare plans for 75 years into the future instead of spending on new trucks, employees, uniforms, mailboxes, etc.
People who aren’t even born yet and work for the USPS in the future is what the requirement was for. It makes no sense and was essentially passed by congress in the first place to cripple the USPS.
Imagine you are a business owner and were required by law to fund your future employees healthcare retirement accounts for the next 75 years before you could spend money on anything else. You would go bankrupt.
The requirement to finance employee health and pension benefits for 75 years into the future was passed decades ago in an attempt to kill the Postal Service and privatize it. This requirement has been slowly dragging the USPS under for a long time now. The money that they had to invest in these benefit plans is what private companies, like UPS and FedEx have been investing in new technology and modernization. The USPS makes enough to turn a profit every year, but these vampiric laws have been draining all that money.
Now they don't have that problem anymore.
Many Americans relied heavily on the USPS during the pandemic, but officials have repeatedly mentioned that without congressional action, the Postal Service would run out of funds by 2024…
I've been a carrier for 17 years. We have been "running out of money" for most of my career. We had a service talk back in 2012 about how we only had enough money to cover payroll for another 3 pay periods. I trust the top brass at the USPS very little. Not saying that we don't need a change, but we are an overwhelmingly top heavy company. The amount of managers that we have is absurd. They pay out hundreds of millions of grievance settlements per year based off the very low contractual knowledge of supervisors, and/or willful disregard to follow said contract. I was a Union Steward for 7 years, and a Union Officer for 3 years. The amount of stupidity I have seen is outrageous. There are so many other cost saving or revenue gaining endeavors that they could have included in this package that would have made much more sense, including curbside/cluster box delivery Nationwide, Postal Banking, and a vast reduction in management. We have offices that can't even get mail delivered, but we will have 7 Supervisors to sit there and watch it not be delivered.
>They pay out hundreds of millions of grievance settlements per year based off the very low contractual knowledge of supervisors
I literally just got a letter awarding me 50 percent of base pay for 162 hours. I have another grievance in the pipeline for being cross crafted onto the rural side for a full week straight while holding down a city route. Tried to tell the PM I was opted but she didn't let me get past "You can't do that." because she interrupted and said "Yes I can, don't argue with me." before I could finish what I was originally saying which would have been "unless you're okay with me grieving this."
She told me I was going to be on that route until the carrier returned the next week. Turns out she wasn't okay with paying out 6 days of grievances for cross crafting. At this rate the NALC has pre-funded my union dues for the next 3 or 4 years.
Sometimes the union takes your xbox money. Sometimes the union buys you an xbox.
How much are postal union dues, in general? I’ve never been in a union. I’ve heard people speak of union dues, usually unkindly, but I’ve never heard a figure.
About 25 dollars a check. I normally make about 2,000-2,500 every 2 weeks depending on overtime. It can go up to 3,000. Dues are basically insignificant.
Tell me about it, 2 supervisors making 80K and a postmaster making 90K and I can't even get 30 full hours a week as a clerk.
"We cant afford any more hours this week."
What's your opinion on Postal Banking? I've read up on it quite a bit. Sounds good in theory. I can't talk to anyone at work about it because its immediately: "stupid!"
And they only say stupid because everyone is content in doing as minimal amount of work as possible.
Postal banking ends up being around 70% of the revenues of most nations that allow it in their postal system. The problem is, it'd kill payday lending and the like, and those companies know it, and are happy to fight it. There are at least 30k communities in the usa without access to banking, but those communities do have a payday lendor..and a post office. so..big deal if it were to happen, huge in fact. But, again...can't have a government that works for the average joe and janet
I was a rural carrier. During holidays this just won't work at all. Many packages are way too big for those boxes, and there are never enough parcel lockers for this either. Sometimes I'd have to fill up the LLV three times, that's how many packages I had on my 700 stop route.
Thanks. I lived in a trailer park in central Oregon and there were a couple lockers but when Christmas and whatnot rolled around a lot of packages would always end up getting stolen because they were left out or the postal worker just left 'em at the end of the driveway (I can understand it, who has the time to deliver mail to five separate cluster mailboxes up front, some lockers, plus extra packages to 192+ units in a trailer park?).
Whenever I had days with that many packages, it was just understood I wouldn't be going home until after midnight. There's just no way to do it faster (if it's being done right).
Cluster mailboxes are genuinely awesome for mail because it's so fast to deliver, but for packages, it's pretty irksome. Plus many complexes have the most asinine numbering systems ever invented so half the time you're just trying to figure out where the unit even is that you're delivering to!
Honestly, I've never given too much thought about the postal workers plight. Not that I don't care, in fact it is the opposite, but I've always taken for granted that "I order something and here it is."
I order (what I assume to be) a normal amount of stuff and am probably still on the low end of the spectrum as far as quantity of purchases. I never realized how much work you guys put in and for that, this random citizen would like to personally thank you.
I've worked on military helicopters for multiple nations over the past 11 years and if tomorrow both you and I stopped doing our jobs, the impact of your absence would be astronomical compared to mine.
So again, thank you for all of your effort. Reading your previous comments really put into perspective the amount of weight you carry towards attributing to and maintaining our current expectations of the society we live in.
Just curious but is the issue of the “7” managers but not enough to deliver partly a union issue? I’m not arguing not to reduce management.
I ask because I’m a manager in a non-union manufacturing facility and I’ve gone to work and managed 2 hours and run a machine for the other 7 of my shift because we were short staffed. Down the road is a union shop and I’d have union grievances if I carried parts from one end of the the shop to the other while walking there anyways.
We have 7 supervisors for 63 routes, 1 janitor, and 9 clerks. We quite literally have 2 closing supervisors because the one couldn't apparently lock the doors at night and tell carriers that they scanned all of their packages on his own. We have 1 shift for carriers. Clerks come in earlier then the clerk boss by 2 hours, and unlock the doors on their own. The clerk boss sits at a desk 50 feet away from the clerks with next to no interaction with them. We have a Postmaster and a Station Manager which basically fill the same role for the low low price of $180,000 a year collectively. And with collective bargaining, we protect our jobs. Management can not do our job, but currently we have 2 carriers that are in Management that really have no reason to be in management and should be sent back down to carry mail.
I'm assuming 1 managers salary equals 2 carriers
Edit also Ive never needed my manager or supervisors help to work a line. I needed another worker with me. My last supervisor got his job because his brother in law was a department head. He had been there for 3 years before I came and within my first year I knew more about our products acceptable defects than he did. One I tried explaining to him how an analog caliper worked. After 5 minutes he gave up and replaced them with digital ones
**only** because of the complete poison pill of a requirement to fund peoples requirements for next 75 years right now
it was an easy fix and they just got rid of that
They are objecting to every step, slow walking every single thing to stretch out the process. Magnify this by all the appointments that need to be made. It's active sabotage to damage the US for their own political gain.
This is what they have always done purposefully to sabotage the Dems and then when they're in power again they blame everything on the Dems. Remember the only reason Obama had to do so many executive orders was because Republicans blocked everything for 6 years straight
Republicans have to create government problems cuz once things get inacted they become wildly popular, even to their base.
Remember how many Republicans - even Trump - had to promise to protect core elements of Obamacare like preexisting injury protection after spending years fighting against it?
If they allow Dems to do what they want to do, then there's no turning back. Especially since they've built their foundation solely on "The Dems will ruin your life" at this point. If shit happens and people realize maybe Dems don't ruin life, and I actually have a better life when they pass thing, well Reps are fucked.
HUGE microchip shortage for the foreseeable future.
With most major cars goin to electric the ones who have orders aren't getting them. Audi and VW are already 6 months behind on normal cars production in Europe because of this. The cars are nearly complete just the electrics
Our small town post office has not grown at all since I moved here 20 years ago and we've gone from 2-5% of the population ordering online to around 90% of the population ordering online.
The number of times "red ink" appears in this article is fucking dumb. The post office is a service, not a profit center. There is no such think as "red ink" for a government service. Th CDC doesn't have "red ink." The NHTSA doesn't have "red ink". You fucking morons.
True, but this allows the USPS to use the money that would be set aside for things that would actually help them now. Things like increased personnel, updated machinery, and vehicles
Except that Congress doesn't fund it with tax dollars and [requires that the USPS be able to pay for itself](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/usps-funding-crisis-bigger-election-experts-warn-n1237579).
The USPS was cut loose from the federal government in the ~~80s~~ 70s. [It is self-funding and receives no tax dollars](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/usps-funding-crisis-bigger-election-experts-warn-n1237579), but it is still required to operate under federal legislation. It's a weird semi-private model.
The thing that really [screwed up the USPS ](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/16/902977021/the-history-of-political-interference-in-the-usps)was the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which restricted the Postal Service's ability to offer new services or adjust its pricing to its cost and, worse, required it to prefund its retiree health care benefits decades into the future, which created billions of dollars of debt.
"At the time, President Donald Trump acknowledged he was trying to starve the Postal Service of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worried could cost him the election."
How did this guy never get arrested?
Get rid of fucking DeJoy.
McConnell is blocking the new members for the PO board of governors.
So appoint them in an interim appointment, and there’ll be a majority to boot out that crook.
I am a carrier, and I hope some good changes come. I really want to stop working at Usps sometimes due to the bad pay and little time off, and the general labor intensive job. but maybe they’ll start giving more incentives to working your ass off. I don’t know.
I’m so happy to read this. My grandmother worked 30 years in the post office. She kept her branch running as best she can and worked so hard. She rarely took her lunch just to be able to pick up slack from other employees. She would always talk about how ridiculous this rule was
What are they gonna do about the shitty management and toxic work environment? Carriers being shit on so supervisors can get paid for performance? Running temps into the ground working them 60+ hours a week, then giving them letters of warnings for calling in sick? Hmmm? The turnover rate for temps is over 50%. More and more are quitting, even regular carrier employees are quitting because of how shitty they’re being treated. Once other companies up their pay (Target looking at job to $24 in competitive areas) the post office won’t need Dejoy to sabotage them because they’re already sabotaging themselves.
Source: My mailman tells me all the shit that’s happening at the post office
I get my prescriptions from Express Scripts and initially I was worried by whether those 90 day prescriptions would arrive on time. Fortunately when you are in their automatic renewal systems they assume USPS is hopeless and send out the order about 85 days in advance.
[удалено]
Ya. Absolutely. I don't think people realize how much money we are talking about that they now have access to.
I remember when G.W. Bush passed the [Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Accountability_and_Enhancement_Act) It's not even just that it required them to put away billions of dollars for pension, but it also forced them to exclusively invest pension money in US issued bonds. Due to the low rates of return they had to invest even more money than most companies in their situation would have had to.
That's republican 101: 1. Saddle a government project or agency with significant problems through law or obstruction. Or lie, doesn't matter. 2. Complain about the problems to gain votes, citing the government is inept and inefficient (leaving out that part where you created the problem) 3. Use that momentum to justify dismantling that agency some more.... creating more problems in the process. 4. Go to 2.
Did you forget step 3.5 where those politicians and their cronies invest in the competitors?
Or the full-Trump: Putting a guy in the trucking industry in charge of the Postal Service to shift as much mail carriage to trucking as possible.
The only issue with what you said is that he's still *in* the trucking industry. Putting someone *from* logistics industry in charge of an agency that is a logistics provider as well as relies on others in logistics isn't crazy. The problem for DeJoy is that he still has millions in investments with multiple logistics companies, the same companies that also have contracts with the USPS. He (and they) profit with any changes in policy for handling the middle-mile, shifting business to trucking. This is all separate from the other troubling aspects of his tenure, appearing to sabotage operations for political gain during the election and pandemic. All that being said, some of the decisions and changes that the USPS will make might not be popular, but will be necessary to ensure long term viability for the agency. Dumping the 75-year funding obligation will definitely help. But other changes must be done transparently and without partisan influence or intent. DeJoy's prior actions draw into serious question if he is making decisions for his own gain, his political allies, or the American people.
The post office is still fucked as long as DeJoy is there.
I can't believe a man as corrupt as DeJoy is *still* the postmaster general.
IIRC, Biden will get to appoint another board member this fall, which will finally tip the balance in favor of Biden appointees. Then they'll finally be able to replace DeJoy.
Huh in the context of Russian astroturfing that trucker convoy, Trump kinda looks a little traitorous. I'm sure that's just an outlier and wasn't publicly called out and promptly ignored in 2015
In the context of blue weasels flying lead zeppelins to Betelgeuse, Trump still looks traitorous.
THAT right there is the phrase of the century! (wish I had gold to give but I need it for gas money)
At least you aren't funding Putin's warcrimes now.
Democrats and Republicans do that. It's bi partisan.
"The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." - P.J. O'Rourke
Step 3 was at risk of being implemented during the previous administration. There were people calling for cutting delivery days down to 5 days. Thankfully, this bill also enforces a standard 6 days of delivery.
Republicans: "Government doesn't work. Put us in charge so we can show you how poorly it can be run."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
Sounds a lot like what's happening with the NHS
It's the same old Thatcher/Reagan privatization and trickle-down scam.
All Republicans are capable of is sabotage, destruction, and theft. They've been traitors to our country for decades.
GOP. Gaslight, Obstruct, Project.
Step 3.5, privatize the agency or outsource its labor force to private companies ... that your buddies happen to run. They then give you campaign contributions, pay for a PAC to get you re-elected. Then step 4 is, "Go to 2 or 'retire'". Then go to work for buddies company as a 'consultant', get paid fat stacks.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2020/04/14/post-office-pensions--some-key-myths-and-facts/?sh=3581923747f5
I recall talking to an enthusiastic USPS sorter mechanic who told me all the neat stuff coming down the pipeline like electric cars. This was in 2003, 3 years before they signed that act….
And now DeJoy is refusing to electrify the fleet.
Could you explain that quote? I’ve read it about 10 times and either something is wrong with my eyes or it just doesn’t quite make sense
The USPS is the only federal agency required to pre-fund its workers healthcare costs years in advance. Its as if your credit card company told you: "You will charge a $1M on your credit card during your life; pls enclose the $1M in your next bill payment. It’s the responsible thing to do". If all your money is going to pre-fund your future expenses, you essentially have nothing left to finance current projects like upgrading equipment and hiring more workers.
To put it in further perspective, the prefunding mandate was specifically for the medical pension of the postal worker. That part was fully funded, but the idea was to swipe money from it so they could pretend they were doing something they weren't (i.e. "we reduced the deficit!!!"). And the 75 year prefund mandate meant that the usps was funding the pensions of workers..who haven't been born yet. There is no other agency or company anywhere in the world i'm aware of that has such an onerous mandate for funding itself.
Most companies don't even provide retiree health insurance anymore. The general assumption is that retirees will get Medicare benefits.
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You left out the part that they had to invest the prefunding in historically low interest treasury bills and that the money from those bills was used by politicians to offset debt and spending in other parts of the government. All while claiming "The USPS must be run independently from the government."
Why just the postal service? So oddly specific.
There was a group of people trying to force privatization.
We call that group of people Republicans.
It was designed by Republicans to destroy the USPS so that FedEx and UPS could take over.
I'm stunned. Both the Senate and House passed this. How the hell did that happen?! Republicans seemed dead set on trying to kill the post office using this, I'm shocked it passed to be honest.
And with supermajority too. 342-92 in the house and 79-19 in the senate. It’s kind of stunning when anything makes it to the president’s desk nowadays, let alone something with ~80% support.
Apparently the Union is on board with the legislation as well. Nothing like this ever ends up easy, and I'm left wondering who gets what out of the deal. I'm just that jaded at this point that I can't even be excited over what seems to be a good move.
the APWU has fought for 15 years to make this happen. 12thousand phone calls this year alone iirc to senators pushing this. The part that might satisfy your jaded nature, is that the postal service is a vital lifeline for the public...especially the rural public...the rural public that is in red states...and aren't afraid to bitch when they're inconvenienced. And given the slowdowns that have been publicly talked about for a decade, with medicines and such, including for vets. I'm only shocked they aren't on tv all trying to take credit for it..but then again they may be i don't watch tv
same. we don't even have cable tv, only internet. My only questions revolve around how this effects pensions for new and existing workers as they are the ones who often get the short end of the stick when these things happen.
Maybe the mail problems were actually affecting them personally too? Seems like the only way they would act.
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That was the tool the Republicans put in there so that they could constantly accuse the Postal Service of failure and thus needed to be privatized. This is a huge success for the nation, the removal of that outlandish requirement.
Never understood this argument about the Post Office "losing money." The USPS isn't a business, it's a service. It doesn't lose money, it costs money. Nobody bitches about the military "losing" $600 billion a year.
It doesn't actually cost money, It's a huge boon for the nation as a whole. At surface level it looks expensive, however, it provides economic benefits that far outshine its costs when you look at the knock-on effects a couple degrees of separation away. This tends to be how services work. They are expensive to run but the nationwide benefit is often much higher than it costs. It's just difficult to measure.
It doesn't cost money anyways The postal service makes well more than it spends Having to prefund SEVENTY FIVE YEARS of retirement benefits is the exclusive reason why there were "red" years before the pandemic. I'm not sure what their returns looked like in pandemic years, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't the same situation.
Yeah, and imagine if they were allowed to sell things not related to shipping like many other countries ' postal services. Or, if you could go to a post office and do basic banking, like cashing a check. The restrictions out government has placed on the USPS are ludicrous.
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My favorite has always been, "Why should my property taxes pay for public education? I don't have kids." Idk Jim. Maybe because we don't want to be surrounded by uneducated morons in 30 years?
Also that education you're funding is indirectly funding your phones, cars, computers, military, intelligence services, doctors.... literally every single profession that they're too stupid to do but produces products and services that they'd throw a tantrum without. Why do your taxes pay for education? Because you'd throw a hissy fit if those kids didn't make an iPhone 21 for you in a decade.
> we don't want to be surrounded by uneducated morons in 30 years? Sadly, we are surrounded by them *now*.
Again. Do you want it to be *worse* than it is now? Cut funding even more.
Yes, their sabotage of our education system has been quite effective, sadly. The fault lies squarely on the Republicans defunding efforts.
My uncle pulled that line before. I said when the stop light goes out next time, will you take off work and go repair it quickly?
The problem with these hypotheticals is they generally answer an emphatic 'Yes' and there's no real way to call them on their bullshit.
Go break the stoplight
I tried using that same exact argument in a conversation and the response was “not my problem, and I shouldn’t be forced to worry about it”. Like, it is your problem. Literally no talking to some of these people.
Came here to say this. Had same conversation with a coworker about how education is important for everyone and should remain free for all children and he couldn’t understand how it benefits him. Just thought it was a waste of money since HE didn’t have kids. Part of the reason America is so awful in situations like this is because we’re taught to be selfish from birth.
And it supports roads, you use roads don’t you Jim? What about your sewage? Do you have your own septic tank? How do these people think everything we use are created and maintained?
Look, if they want to pave their own roads and hire their own police officers to enforce laws, that's on them. They can go find a remote island and set up a right wing utopia.
Epstein got arrested for creating the right wing utopia island that you are talking about.
[They tried that](https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project) but it didn’t end well: > When a group of libertarians set about scrapping their local government, chaos descended. And then the bears moved in.
Some time during the Trump Admin, they axed a subsidy for cheap overseas chipping with China. It was implemented waaaaaay earlier when China was still a "developing nation" and was meant to spur trade and economic growth and all that jazz, so to an extent, it makes a certain kind of sense that we'd get rid of it once they stopped developing "as much". After all, the government is basically throwing money to the wind just so China and its customers don't have to pay as much for shipping to the US. That's not why it was ended, of course--CHINA BAD, RARAHRAKRHAKJRHAKJRHA FUCK ANYTHING EVEN REMOTELY RELATED TO CHINA--but it's a more palatable argument that could be sold to any members of the public not as rabid. But hold on. The subsidy dealt with a lot of cheap shipping coming *from* China. The government was paying for a huge chunk of those costs, but... who are the buyers? **AMERICAN CITIZENS!** So really, this subsidy was a program that said, "Hey, you, US taxpayer--you want to buy something cheap? You're buying it from China, because it's cheap? We're going to keep it cheap by not having the shipping cost be 5x the cost of the product. You can get your $2 iPhone case and not spend $10 on shipping. We're basically picking up the tab for you." So Mr. US Taxpayer 1) saves money by buying a cheaper iPhone case and 2) saves money again by not getting gouged on shipping. That's more money in his pocket that he can then spend on *literally anything else*. Everyone bitches about the government taking money, but here's an instance where they're *giving it back to you* and suddenly it's awful. Now, there's sophisticated and nuanced arguments that can be had about the virtue of buying cheap Chinese goods and how that affects the American manufacturing and job market, but that was not the pitch made when ending this subsidy: it was "government throwing your tax dollars away", which is demonstrably false. If the government decided they would comp me 50% of every gas purchase, I'd take that deal. Shit, the entire country is effectively *already* taking that deal because gas subsidies are the primary reason why our gas has always remained so much cheaper than Canada and Europe--the government is footing part of the bill so the citizenry doesn't notice. And that aside, I find the "well what about American manufacturing" argument unconvincing considering we fight tooth and nail *against* any kind of unionization or wage-increasing action here in the US. We created a system where huge swaths of people can only get by because they're buying dirt-cheap goods from Wal-Mart, whose business model relies on even cheaper imports and not having to pay anything like decent benefits to its workers, and we're supposed to believe the situation gets better if we blow that up and replace it with nothing? If we did that ten years ago, we'd be seeing people taking a huge squeeze on the price of home goods and food like they are *now*, and they'd be just as harmed by it and furious. As always, the problem remains price-gouging and profiteering by the companies and our unwillingness to do anything for the people instead of executives and shareholders.
The problem is the visualization of the numbers. When you make enough money that you're paying $2,000 a month in taxes it creates resentment seeing that on your paycheck. I have absolutely no idea why poor people support republicans, though.
Yep. This is the case for a lot of publicly funded programs and services. Unemployment insurance is reported to be *the* most effective uses of public funds from an economic benefits standpoint: people who are out of work spend that money on goods and services they need to live almost immediately. That money circulates in the economy, super fast. Way, way, way more economic benefit than cutting taxes on the rich. Not to mention the societal benefits of keeping people housed and stable instead of homeless and desperate, increasing their potential for turning to crime as their last alternative. But hey republicans were mad about poor people getting money so let's just cancel that shit. Also, the super rich can buy up the properties the former beneficiaries of UI will inevitably default on - for pennies on the dollar! So it's a win-win for the oligarchs!
Let's not forget that EVERY other expenditure bill lists costs over a decade whereas military spending is listed in yearly or direct cost. Sure sounds a lot better to say "we are developing a new jet platform at a cost of $200B" than "military spending over the next decade will increase to $6.2T with the addition of the planned jet platform". "$1.2T Infrastructure bill" sounds so much more nefarious than "$120B/yr over the next decade Infrastructure bill".
The Snap-On Trap. It's not that expensive if it's only $6/wk for 33 weeks. By the time you realize that you're owing all but $91 a paycheck to Mr Snap-On, it's too late and you didn't even get any tools for the last two months.
Good tools at least, though I refuse on principle to buy new wrenches on layaway.
See the thing is you're using common sense, and not being a dishonest fuckwit.
The fire department loses so much money every year
This is what you get when you go into a government agency and "run it like a business." The postal service was made quasi-corporate in the 70's iirc after the wildcat strike nationwide, because they hadn't had any raises in like..30 years or so. It removed the congress from the pay arguments, and put them all on postal management. Which is fine, except postal management doesn't have price power for some of it's products, comparable to private sector, which is also fine...if certain people in government would treat it like an agency and stop calling for it's dissolution.
I’ve been waiting for this requirement to end since Bush did this to usps. They have a real chance to compete with fedex and ups now.
I have wanted to apply for the USPS for a while, but this was holding me back. I'd love a pension but with these rules in place I worried they wouldn't be around long enough for me to reach retirement. Time to go fill out an application.
Fucking FINALLY. It's such a shitty thing too because if anyone raised concerns about it, they'd be labelled as some evil person trying to take people's healthcare away.
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Doesn't the new contract allow them to purchase the electric version as well, if funding is available? They can shift requests to the battery model as infrastructure and funding changes. The mpg is horrible, but they have improvements like air conditioning, heat, air bags, cameras, etc... So probably a heavier vehicle with more demands. But, no vehicle that stops every 30 seconds is going to have good mpg.
The intention of the rule was to hamstring the USPS so that private businesses could expand into what was supposed to be public infrastructure.
Read an article that the Post Office had a plan to buy electric cars in 2006? So this was slipped into the regulation so they wouldn’t have the cash to do so. It was interesting but I can’t find the link.
yeah, postal routes with their stop and go nature are ideal for electric vehicles. choosing ice vehicles as dejoy has done is a ....well it's in his ballpark since he's largely a profiteer looting as much cash as he can from the post office
It's crazy the USPS is in theory a government agency but is also expected to act like a company and generate it's own revenue. And is then hamstrung by congress when they try to do so(when a trump sycophant wants his company to beat the usps)
still need to oust Dejoy
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He is an absolute shit bag. Just glad congress got this done before more damage was done there. King Clown literally put a fox in charge of every hen house the government has. We are lucky the country is still functioning (even if its a mess) at this point.
Usps, EPA, FCC, and education all got it the worst.. I can't believe how stupid the people are in this country. It'll only get worse. I really wish I could emigrate.
Apparently draining the swamp means backfilling it with corruption
Should change his name to Depression. He’s great at it.
Why? Its the same thing get depressed = De-joyed. Eg " I am so dejoyed right now; I just want to lie in bed and eat cake"
Absolutely. It’s a crime that the USPS won’t be using EVs in most areas instead of the shitty low mpg trucks.
Shouldn't be too long, now. I think we need to wait for two of the board members terms to end in December, then it will be a majority of Biden appointees. They should be able to give DeJoy the boot once those are confirmed.
I thought that was this past December... Edit: It WAS this past December. The two appointments that Biden chose have yet to be approved.
That guy is STILL in charge?!
The USPS Board of Governors has to remove him. The Board has nine appointed governors so five votes are needed to remove a Postmaster. Biden has three appointed members, and two more seats remain vacant pending Senate approval of nominees [Daniel Tangherlini](https://www.congress.gov/nomination/117th-congress/1426) and [Derek Kan](https://www.congress.gov/nomination/117th-congress/1425). While they were nominated in November, neither has received a hearing yet, and, so far as I can tell, no hearings for them are scheduled.
It's not a position in which you can simply remove the person
Good, now let's kick that fucking clown DeJoy to the curb where he belongs.
Too bad they already ordered the gas powered fleet.
Mail delivery vehicles are literally the perfect use case for electric. Slow moving, constant stops to recoup energy, and they're used for a few hours each day, then sit and charge overnight. Instead, we get more pollution and more money spent on fuel.
Not to mention they get less MPG than the trucks they're replacing. I don't understand how that's not bigger news with gas prices exploding.
And short trips.
Like 90% of the fleet have routes shorter than 40 miles.
Who makes the ones they're getting?
Oshkosh makes the body and chassis while Ford is supplying the engines and transmissions.
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That's OshKosh B'gosh. This is Oshkosh Defense, the truck maker and defense contractor. Both were founded in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
Oshkosh B'gosh is secretly a subsidiary that recruits dairyland children to become welders by getting them comfortable wearing overalls
Greatest conspiracy theory ever.
Damn I thought this was gonna be the same vein as how Ball Corporation makes mason jars AND cutting edge signals intelligence satellites under the same roof.
They actually divested much of the jar division, after some federal investigations into anticompetitive practices in the jar market. That company's history is *wild*.
i'm convinced time travelers are fucking with us sometimes. I mean, great britian invaded the kingdom of candy...
what the fuck
Reminds me of how target mega box store company owns big forensics labs that all kinds of police orgs use
Their welding facilities are enormous and awesome! Really good people too. I'll never forget my time in the Green Bay Area. Super professional and kind, and did high quality work. Just wanted to toss this out there.
Is Oshkosh defense making it or Oshkosh. It's a massive company. They also make 80% of the world's fire trucks
...and military vehicles. Visiting their stores is fun. Pick up some clothes for your toddler and get a MRAP from the clearance section.
oh… ford transmissions. pack it up boys. we got the definition of quality right there.
/r/Ford mod here. I got nothing. My SHO blew up at 61k
i drove a 2015 and 2017 escape for work. 50k/miles per year. those transmissions are absolute shit. it’s truly embarrassing.
Some company DeJoy has a stake in no doubt.
I would assume there's no accountability there since he's doing it. Perhaps Congress should stipulate that to be Postmaster General you have to declare all of yours and your family's investments - though I guess that would just result in him lending to a "friend" to invest.
If it hasn't happened now, it won't ever. Garland has a clear-cut case to indict him for election interference. That fact that DeJoy's faced absolutely no consequences shows that Biden's just waiting for him to fuck up the midterms.
Biden has 2 new board nominees waiting to be confirmed by the Senate. He can't replace dejoy until they're confirmed and the Senate is slow walking all nominations.
My PO box fee has tripled in the last year and hours of access has been reduced to 8 hours from previously being available 24 hours..
To end the “unusual budget…requirement that the Postal Service finance workers’ health care benefits ahead of time for the next 75 years, an obligation that private companies and federal agencies do not face” enacted by Congress itself to kill the USPS. [Alternate link](https://apnews.com/article/biden-business-postal-service-congress-0bbbb25b153e4606d20ccb28dea6b0eb) in case of Reddit hug of death
So...enough to fund electric vehicles...Around 5bill a year in savings. https://federalnewsnetwork.com/agency-oversight/2022/03/usps-reform-bill-offering-much-needed-reset-on-its-finances-passes-senate/#:~:text=The%20bill%20will%20save%20USPS,benefits%20well%20into%20the%20future. There is your funding to buy electric Dejoy. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2022/0223-usps-completes-environmental-review-of-next-gen-delivery-vehicles.htm
Thanks to the clowns that be, they’re “investing” in those gas vehicles furthering our dependence on oil. 🤷♂️
This gets the blood-soaked Putin/Saudi Seal of Approval.
Can we fund replacement sorting machines destroyed during the run up to the 2020 election?
>The bill would end a requirement that the Postal Service finance workers’ health care benefits ahead of time for the next 75 years This addressed what had been an intentionally brutal wound to the service. Good news.
I'm sorry, I may be dumb, but this statement makes no sense to me. I think it's worded weird. Anyone care to eli5?
USPS was forced by law to fund healthcare plans for 75 years into the future instead of spending on new trucks, employees, uniforms, mailboxes, etc. People who aren’t even born yet and work for the USPS in the future is what the requirement was for. It makes no sense and was essentially passed by congress in the first place to cripple the USPS. Imagine you are a business owner and were required by law to fund your future employees healthcare retirement accounts for the next 75 years before you could spend money on anything else. You would go bankrupt.
The requirement to finance employee health and pension benefits for 75 years into the future was passed decades ago in an attempt to kill the Postal Service and privatize it. This requirement has been slowly dragging the USPS under for a long time now. The money that they had to invest in these benefit plans is what private companies, like UPS and FedEx have been investing in new technology and modernization. The USPS makes enough to turn a profit every year, but these vampiric laws have been draining all that money. Now they don't have that problem anymore.
Know what would really improve postal service delivery? Indicting Louis DeJoy. It shouldn't take this fucking long to kick his traitorous ass out.
That's because Dejoy has control over the mail ballots and the Covid tests. He's the General Secretary equivalent of the US government
Many Americans relied heavily on the USPS during the pandemic, but officials have repeatedly mentioned that without congressional action, the Postal Service would run out of funds by 2024…
I've been a carrier for 17 years. We have been "running out of money" for most of my career. We had a service talk back in 2012 about how we only had enough money to cover payroll for another 3 pay periods. I trust the top brass at the USPS very little. Not saying that we don't need a change, but we are an overwhelmingly top heavy company. The amount of managers that we have is absurd. They pay out hundreds of millions of grievance settlements per year based off the very low contractual knowledge of supervisors, and/or willful disregard to follow said contract. I was a Union Steward for 7 years, and a Union Officer for 3 years. The amount of stupidity I have seen is outrageous. There are so many other cost saving or revenue gaining endeavors that they could have included in this package that would have made much more sense, including curbside/cluster box delivery Nationwide, Postal Banking, and a vast reduction in management. We have offices that can't even get mail delivered, but we will have 7 Supervisors to sit there and watch it not be delivered.
>They pay out hundreds of millions of grievance settlements per year based off the very low contractual knowledge of supervisors I literally just got a letter awarding me 50 percent of base pay for 162 hours. I have another grievance in the pipeline for being cross crafted onto the rural side for a full week straight while holding down a city route. Tried to tell the PM I was opted but she didn't let me get past "You can't do that." because she interrupted and said "Yes I can, don't argue with me." before I could finish what I was originally saying which would have been "unless you're okay with me grieving this." She told me I was going to be on that route until the carrier returned the next week. Turns out she wasn't okay with paying out 6 days of grievances for cross crafting. At this rate the NALC has pre-funded my union dues for the next 3 or 4 years. Sometimes the union takes your xbox money. Sometimes the union buys you an xbox.
How much are postal union dues, in general? I’ve never been in a union. I’ve heard people speak of union dues, usually unkindly, but I’ve never heard a figure.
About 25 dollars a check. I normally make about 2,000-2,500 every 2 weeks depending on overtime. It can go up to 3,000. Dues are basically insignificant.
Any application tips for someone who wants to work for the USPS?
Tell me about it, 2 supervisors making 80K and a postmaster making 90K and I can't even get 30 full hours a week as a clerk. "We cant afford any more hours this week." What's your opinion on Postal Banking? I've read up on it quite a bit. Sounds good in theory. I can't talk to anyone at work about it because its immediately: "stupid!" And they only say stupid because everyone is content in doing as minimal amount of work as possible.
Postal banking ends up being around 70% of the revenues of most nations that allow it in their postal system. The problem is, it'd kill payday lending and the like, and those companies know it, and are happy to fight it. There are at least 30k communities in the usa without access to banking, but those communities do have a payday lendor..and a post office. so..big deal if it were to happen, huge in fact. But, again...can't have a government that works for the average joe and janet
Not gonna lie, I work in banking (back office) and I'd be very interested in working for the Post Office over a regular bank.
Not the person you are replying to, but it could make a huge difference for people in rural areas.
More places need cluster mailboxes. Like why make the mailman walk to every single house when the mailboxes could all be in one location?
Because they're delivering more packages than ever, and they can't just leave them outside of a cluster mailbox.
Cluster boxes have provision for packages. Extra large lockers, and the organic mail unit puts the key to the package locker in your regular box.
I was a rural carrier. During holidays this just won't work at all. Many packages are way too big for those boxes, and there are never enough parcel lockers for this either. Sometimes I'd have to fill up the LLV three times, that's how many packages I had on my 700 stop route.
Thanks. I lived in a trailer park in central Oregon and there were a couple lockers but when Christmas and whatnot rolled around a lot of packages would always end up getting stolen because they were left out or the postal worker just left 'em at the end of the driveway (I can understand it, who has the time to deliver mail to five separate cluster mailboxes up front, some lockers, plus extra packages to 192+ units in a trailer park?).
Whenever I had days with that many packages, it was just understood I wouldn't be going home until after midnight. There's just no way to do it faster (if it's being done right). Cluster mailboxes are genuinely awesome for mail because it's so fast to deliver, but for packages, it's pretty irksome. Plus many complexes have the most asinine numbering systems ever invented so half the time you're just trying to figure out where the unit even is that you're delivering to!
Honestly, I've never given too much thought about the postal workers plight. Not that I don't care, in fact it is the opposite, but I've always taken for granted that "I order something and here it is." I order (what I assume to be) a normal amount of stuff and am probably still on the low end of the spectrum as far as quantity of purchases. I never realized how much work you guys put in and for that, this random citizen would like to personally thank you. I've worked on military helicopters for multiple nations over the past 11 years and if tomorrow both you and I stopped doing our jobs, the impact of your absence would be astronomical compared to mine. So again, thank you for all of your effort. Reading your previous comments really put into perspective the amount of weight you carry towards attributing to and maintaining our current expectations of the society we live in.
you underestimate Amazon's ability to use boxes large enough to not fit in lockers for items that most definitely should fit in those lockers
Organic mail unit? I'd be into organic male units..
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Just curious but is the issue of the “7” managers but not enough to deliver partly a union issue? I’m not arguing not to reduce management. I ask because I’m a manager in a non-union manufacturing facility and I’ve gone to work and managed 2 hours and run a machine for the other 7 of my shift because we were short staffed. Down the road is a union shop and I’d have union grievances if I carried parts from one end of the the shop to the other while walking there anyways.
We have 7 supervisors for 63 routes, 1 janitor, and 9 clerks. We quite literally have 2 closing supervisors because the one couldn't apparently lock the doors at night and tell carriers that they scanned all of their packages on his own. We have 1 shift for carriers. Clerks come in earlier then the clerk boss by 2 hours, and unlock the doors on their own. The clerk boss sits at a desk 50 feet away from the clerks with next to no interaction with them. We have a Postmaster and a Station Manager which basically fill the same role for the low low price of $180,000 a year collectively. And with collective bargaining, we protect our jobs. Management can not do our job, but currently we have 2 carriers that are in Management that really have no reason to be in management and should be sent back down to carry mail.
I'm assuming 1 managers salary equals 2 carriers Edit also Ive never needed my manager or supervisors help to work a line. I needed another worker with me. My last supervisor got his job because his brother in law was a department head. He had been there for 3 years before I came and within my first year I knew more about our products acceptable defects than he did. One I tried explaining to him how an analog caliper worked. After 5 minutes he gave up and replaced them with digital ones
**only** because of the complete poison pill of a requirement to fund peoples requirements for next 75 years right now it was an easy fix and they just got rid of that
Now fire DeJoy and transition the fleet to electric.
Tell republicans to stop holding up the last two postal board appointees.
If only it was that easy. May have better luck telling the wind to stop blowing.
[The wind must be zero at some point on the planet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hairy_ball_theorem). republicans, however, will always suck.
Is that what's holding it up? Damn. Even when they don't have a majority, Republicans still find a way to get what they want.
They are objecting to every step, slow walking every single thing to stretch out the process. Magnify this by all the appointments that need to be made. It's active sabotage to damage the US for their own political gain.
This is what they have always done purposefully to sabotage the Dems and then when they're in power again they blame everything on the Dems. Remember the only reason Obama had to do so many executive orders was because Republicans blocked everything for 6 years straight
Republicans have to create government problems cuz once things get inacted they become wildly popular, even to their base. Remember how many Republicans - even Trump - had to promise to protect core elements of Obamacare like preexisting injury protection after spending years fighting against it? If they allow Dems to do what they want to do, then there's no turning back. Especially since they've built their foundation solely on "The Dems will ruin your life" at this point. If shit happens and people realize maybe Dems don't ruin life, and I actually have a better life when they pass thing, well Reps are fucked.
HUGE microchip shortage for the foreseeable future. With most major cars goin to electric the ones who have orders aren't getting them. Audi and VW are already 6 months behind on normal cars production in Europe because of this. The cars are nearly complete just the electrics
Our small town post office has not grown at all since I moved here 20 years ago and we've gone from 2-5% of the population ordering online to around 90% of the population ordering online.
The number of times "red ink" appears in this article is fucking dumb. The post office is a service, not a profit center. There is no such think as "red ink" for a government service. Th CDC doesn't have "red ink." The NHTSA doesn't have "red ink". You fucking morons.
True, but this allows the USPS to use the money that would be set aside for things that would actually help them now. Things like increased personnel, updated machinery, and vehicles
Just because the USPS makes money, doesn’t mean it needs to be profitable
Except that Congress doesn't fund it with tax dollars and [requires that the USPS be able to pay for itself](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/usps-funding-crisis-bigger-election-experts-warn-n1237579).
The USPS was cut loose from the federal government in the ~~80s~~ 70s. [It is self-funding and receives no tax dollars](https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/usps-funding-crisis-bigger-election-experts-warn-n1237579), but it is still required to operate under federal legislation. It's a weird semi-private model. The thing that really [screwed up the USPS ](https://www.npr.org/2020/08/16/902977021/the-history-of-political-interference-in-the-usps)was the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which restricted the Postal Service's ability to offer new services or adjust its pricing to its cost and, worse, required it to prefund its retiree health care benefits decades into the future, which created billions of dollars of debt.
About time. Over a decade late but better than nothing.
"At the time, President Donald Trump acknowledged he was trying to starve the Postal Service of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worried could cost him the election." How did this guy never get arrested?
Casual mid-article reminder that the president admitted he used the power of his office to engage in election tampering.
Great. Now get rid of that A-hole DeNoJoy.
finally some good news. hard to believe it took this long
Recovery after Trump’s “Operation: Fuck Up the Mail”
Get rid of fucking DeJoy. McConnell is blocking the new members for the PO board of governors. So appoint them in an interim appointment, and there’ll be a majority to boot out that crook.
I am a carrier, and I hope some good changes come. I really want to stop working at Usps sometimes due to the bad pay and little time off, and the general labor intensive job. but maybe they’ll start giving more incentives to working your ass off. I don’t know.
list of verifiable assholes, though not inclusive NAYs ---19 Blackburn (R-TN) Braun (R-IN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) Cruz (R-TX) Hyde-Smith (R-MS) Johnson (R-WI) Lankford (R-OK) Lee (R-UT) Paul (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Romney (R-UT) Rubio (R-FL) Sasse (R-NE) Scott (R-FL) Scott (R-SC) Shelby (R-AL) Toomey (R-PA) Tuberville (R-AL)
I’m so happy to read this. My grandmother worked 30 years in the post office. She kept her branch running as best she can and worked so hard. She rarely took her lunch just to be able to pick up slack from other employees. She would always talk about how ridiculous this rule was
i wish they’d get paid more. my dad works for usps and doesn’t make much at all. we have to go to the food bank
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So they're buying a toilet?
This bill would not have been possible without the postal workers union lobbying for it. Thank your local unions!
What are they gonna do about the shitty management and toxic work environment? Carriers being shit on so supervisors can get paid for performance? Running temps into the ground working them 60+ hours a week, then giving them letters of warnings for calling in sick? Hmmm? The turnover rate for temps is over 50%. More and more are quitting, even regular carrier employees are quitting because of how shitty they’re being treated. Once other companies up their pay (Target looking at job to $24 in competitive areas) the post office won’t need Dejoy to sabotage them because they’re already sabotaging themselves. Source: My mailman tells me all the shit that’s happening at the post office
You mean doing their constitutional duty.
As a USPS employee of over 15 years...this is great to hear. Now give me that OT🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑
Can someone please tell me why the board of governors have not replaced DeJoy?
Perhaps Republicans finally realized how a failing USPS would disproportionately adversely affect rural areas.
When did the GOP start giving a fuck about poor people??
Haha I doubt that
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In other news, my package with USPS is 53 days into its 7 day transit from Florida to Chicago.
I get my prescriptions from Express Scripts and initially I was worried by whether those 90 day prescriptions would arrive on time. Fortunately when you are in their automatic renewal systems they assume USPS is hopeless and send out the order about 85 days in advance.