Ailing U.S. Postal Service Tries to Avoid Twinkie’s Fate

[cheryl]

Ailing U.S. Postal Service Tries to Avoid Twinkie’s Fate - Bloomberg

While the Hostess Twinkie may not be as central to the U.S. economy as the mail, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe sees uncomfortable parallels of iconic products within unworkable organizational structures.

Like Hostess Brands Inc., where a labor impasse prompted the snack-food maker’s liquidation, the Postal Service, with 28 times Hostess’s workforce of 18,000, has been squeezed by labor costs and changing consumer tastes to the brink of extinction. The post office’s insolvency is less imminent while no less ominous, with Donahoe projecting that the service expects to run out of cash in October without intervention from Congress.

Turnaround specialists would be full of easy answers if the service were a private-sector company. The Postal Service is supposed to make a profit while operating as a government agency overseen by lawmakers who derive their authority over postal operations from the U.S. Constitution.

 

[TechGrrl]

Ailing U.S. Postal Service Tries to Avoid Twinkie’s Fate - Bloomberg

While the Hostess Twinkie may not be as central to the U.S. economy as the mail, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe sees uncomfortable parallels of iconic products within unworkable organizational structures.

Like Hostess Brands Inc., where a labor impasse prompted the snack-food maker’s liquidation, the Postal Service, with 28 times Hostess’s workforce of 18,000, has been squeezed by labor costs and changing consumer tastes to the brink of extinction. The post office’s insolvency is less imminent while no less ominous, with Donahoe projecting that the service expects to run out of cash in October without intervention from Congress.

Turnaround specialists would be full of easy answers if the service were a private-sector company. The Postal Service is supposed to make a profit while operating as a government agency overseen by lawmakers who derive their authority over postal operations from the U.S. Constitution.

The real squeeze is the requirement Congress imposed that the USPS pay all of it's health and pension obligations for the next 75 years up front. This is a ridiculous burden that no private company could possibly meet.
Congress needs to cut the USPS loose. Either that, or obey the constitution, and commit to subsidize 1st class mail to whatever extent is necessary. Everything else the USPS does could be done by private companies. But universal 1st class mail is enshrined in the constitution.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

While the post office may indeed be in the Constitution there is nothing say that they must continue to operate at a loss. Let them operate like any other business with the ability to raise rates, consolidate and/or close less than profitable branches/operations and trim their labor force.

 

[LongTimeComing]

At my air gateway, we already move quite a bit of USPS volume. They come into us separated in their own containers. We have USPS scanners and one of their long-boxes that we fill up each day. And from what I have gathered, the contract pays us per tote so we double scan everything so we ensure that we didn't miss a tote. Rumbling have also started about a fairly significant increase of USPS volume coming into us in addition to beginning outbound USPS volume. (requiring extra flights, even). I hate to see people lose jobs....but it's about to require my gateway to hire about 12 more hourlies and another PT sup or two....seems like quite the win for UPS.