Yes, according to Postmaster General Pat Donahoe's testimony
With no remaining borrowing authority, at some point in FY 2012, the Postal Service easily reaches a point where making payroll is no longer possible. Unable to pay our employees or suppliers, we are forced to cut back service. We cannot afford fuel for delivery vehicles and lack resources to operate our facilities. Unable to support our infrastructure, the mail delivery system grinds to a halt. No mail is collected or delivered, resulting in serious repercussions throughout the mailing industry, ultimately leading to million-dollar losses for thousands of companies and lost jobs, wages, and benefits for millions of workers. These results take a significant toll on an already shaky economy.
Bill Mc Allister, the dean of postal industry reporters, pointed me toward this quote from his testimony that provides more specifics about what could happen than my previous post "Will FedEx be Stiffed?"
This quote suggests that the Postal Service may have a shut down date in mind given current financial projections. This announcement should add postal employees, mailers and parcel shippers to the list of those who have to look at the risks that they face from a potential shutdown. The sooner they can get information on possible shut-down dates, the sooner they can make preparations for alternative means of delivery if a shutdown occurs or seek alternative employment to avoid being caught up in a potential shut down.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
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18 comments:
I think all this doom and gloom is based on a scenario where the $5B+ pre funding nonsense would be paid, which it is not. The pre funding issue is over.
how will the union pigs continue to steal us blind? what trough will they turn to next?
Thats B.S.! Every time USPS wants to close an underperfoming post office the locals scream you cant do that. If the GAO returns the Billions of dollars in overpaid prefunded retirements due to their accounting error the USPS will be just fine. But no, they wanted to steal the money from the USPS to use elsewhere.
Check the facts folks..
Anonymous said..."how will the union pigs continue to steal us blind? what trough will they turn to next?"
Just another talking point; "the evil Union" from a right wing nut job. Grow up loser.
the trough that has the 20 billion pre funded retiree health carebucks and the 75 billion in over payments to the pension fund.next question.
The USPS subsidizes the US government with overpayments for CSRS and FERS pensions and retirees' health care. The latter was set up by Republicans in 2006. They are the greedy ones that don't want to change it.
stop wasting fuel usps-duh. Why the forced extra street time? Mail can be organized in the office -this reduces street time and conserves fuel-and will probably reduce accidents. I just don't get it-I guess we want to go totally broke.
Sell it off to the highest bidder while it still has some value. USPS is an anachronism in the modern age and it won't be missed by too many.
Face it, folks. We are dinosaurs. We can maybe hang on for another 10 years but the writing is on the wall. Concentrate our efforts on parcel delivery....that's the best we can do.
hey anon! the union that is stealing you blind?!@#~ is the same union that gets you $25 per hour! You think the PO would be paying us good wages and benefits without the union???? Dream on douchebag!
They could save labor hours by taking some of these walking routes in "some" neighborhoods and make them NBU/CBU's. This would increase deliveries from (example) 200 deliveries to 800 deliveries in an 8 hour day.
USPS could increase revenue by charging a small fee for forwarding mail. There are many ways of saving money and creating revenue.
The PMG said 95% of letters are walk-sequenced. Google 'OIG postal DPS audit' to find out it's actually 90.7%.
I wish the postal habit of making up numbers would grind to a halt.
Stop blaming the Republicans for the prefunding problem. The Democrats were in charge of the Senate, House, & the Presidency for the last two years and they never fixed it, so they are just as much to blame. It is time to stop focusing on a singular party to blame and instead focus on the individual candidates. Convince the individual Democrat or Republican candidate to support the USPS publicly and back away from full party support. It'll be more effective. Right now the Democrats don't have to fix the problem because they recognize the Unions will support them regardless; there's too much animosity between the Republican party and the unions. If they realize they have to act or the unions would be willing to support Republican candidates who will then there is initiative to do so. Focus on the individual candidates and get them to PUBLICLY support the USPS.
Our politics have generally seemed to degenerate into increasingly dangerous episodes of brinksmanship. Why should the senior management of the Postal Service act any different than the rest of those on Capitol Hill?
Threaten financial Armageddon and see who blinks first. Mr. Donahoe and the BOG have expressed a vision of the Postal Service as a purely corporate entity where the USO takes an increasingly diminished position in defining the agency.
In order to attain this vision it is first necessary to squelch any conversation about what the Postal Service could and should be and whether its obligations truly lie with serving the American people as whole. Making it seem like the mail truck is about to drive off the bridge has reduced the terms of the conversation greatly.
The truth is that without the onerous pre-funding requirement the Postal Service is both solvent and profitable today. And with only moderate adjustments to address the over-funding of the retirement obligations the Postal Service remains viable for several years; time enough to have a meaningful conversation about the role of the post as part of the national infrastructure and the possibilities of bringing the definitions of that role into line with changing technologies.
Mr. Donahoe and the BOG do not want to have that conversation nor do they want breathing space since that would directly undermine the direction they have chosen to take the Postal Service.
USPS will survive, doom & gloom people get over it. Priorities....
*RESTRUCTURE the prepayment of retiree benefits to a reasonable amount.
*TRIM the bureacratic fluff-fluff of USPS hierarchy....most of them do little but dream up needless mandates.
*FURTHER CONSIDER 5 day delivery, I'm not sold on this idea because I'm not sure of the actual cost savings. If it is a real cost-saver, let's do it.
*MINIMIZE the closure of rural post offices. One of USPS' greatest strengths is it's ubiquity. Closing thousands of rural POs based on the revenue they generate is by far the stupidist of all Donahoe's ideas.
APWU is weakest union around, sure got us some benefits, but surrendered some others. That's why management continually violates the contract because not scared of any union actions. How many PTF's out there can't get converted to regular for years, even though the agreements states other wise, residual vacancies (in with holding for over 2 yrs), retires (jobs just abolished not by regulations), 80 - 20 regular ratio, etc. Any personal problem gets met with the same response from union official "THEY CAN DO THAT".
Another threat by Donahoe and the BOG. Hold them accountable for their lavish wages and benefits and wasteful spending. Investigate the corruption. Stop Pay for Performance which is usually falsified anyway. Hold supervisors responsible for their own contractual grievances. Stop the credit card fraud. The top execs have created a millionnaires' club and have destroyed the service as it was meant to be.
I think the Post Office needs to be restructured...I don't exactly know how...but it definately needs to be changed. I know when I was hired, I had to pass a drug test...I think if they had a mandatory drug test across the board (management & union) they could weed out quite a few people that are not adhereing to the rules...because if that rule doesn't apply to them...how many more do you think they will & do break?
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