Take the poll, found to on the upper right corner of this blog.
There are a few options.
1) Keep things the way they are. (We've done it for hundreds of years and it's not worth the PR and service hit.)
2) Skip Saturday delivery.(Catch up on Monday. Perhaps we could still deliver P.O. Boxes on Sat. Just no physical delivery)
3) Deliver on Saturday, but skip delivery on Tuesday (Tuesday is a light day anyway.)
4) Another possiblity. (Use the 'comment' tab below to tell me your alternative.)
To comment on any of these, click here.
417 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 417 Newer› Newest»I think if we curtailed mail on one of the lower volume days, such as a Tuesday or Thursday would save hours. The savings could also be in sick leave hours and annual leave. If I had a day off in the middle of the week, I could make my doctor appt. and banking appts. at that time.
Keep Service a Priority in this Service organization. Going to a 5day delivery is some idea of a "quick fix", but in a "negative" approach. There must be another way to generate revenue in a positive way. How about charging for street delivery as well as P.O. Boxes. One dollar a week; $52.00 a year. Charge for the service rendered rather than give it away free.
What about the Tuesday after a Monday holiday if there is no Saturday delivery? There would be a lot of mail to deliver.
The Postal Service originally only delivered 5 days a week. I am surprised at how many responses act like we have alot of choices. All the public has to do to keep 6 day delivery is to use the Post Office. The root problem is they are not doing that. Why? I also wonder how many of our own employees pay bills on line, no longer send letters and cards and buy from companies who ship with our competitors? Are we partially guilty for our own demise?
this is a no-brainer ...4 ten hour days keeps the t-6 program working , which we need that other person to efficiently handle the route when the regular is gone ..overtime pay after 10 hours ....
Its very simple. GET RID of managements bonuses and FOLLOW the contract that been signed on both sides of the table thus will reduce grievances greatly. Just follow the contract.
No need for saturday delivery. would eliminate odl carriers working ot on days off. one day less fuel costs. What difference if you don't get a bill or statement or junk mail on Saturday. Might be good to have window service for sales and pick ups on Sat at least half day.
I have long thought that residential delivery should be M-F maintaining other post office functions.
Another idea: charge a nominal fee for each COA.
I believe that the USPS should go to 5 day delivery and that Sat. delivery should be discontinued. I believe that most customers would give up Sat. delivery if it would help to keep the price of postage the same or from increasing every year. Most people are busy on the weekends(running errands or gone out of town) and would prefer not to have their mail sitting in the mailbox or having to remember to have their mail held. Discontinuing Sat. delivery should have been done years ago.
Joe in IA
Close Saturday, split a 5 day week with half staff off on Saturday-Sunday, other half off Sunday-Monday. To save money, clerk and carrier positions are being cut all over the country... as i see it, the service could save a bundle by eliminating the position of delivery confirmation coordinator in all regions.
It is a no brainer to close on Saturdays. Most businesses do not get their mail on Saturdays. Carriers have to fight to get mail in boxes on Mondays because mail was not picked up on saturdays. The savings would be tremendous.
Going to "5 day delivery only" would be a big mistake. We already can't get the mail we've got out;
letter carriers are already overloaded and working too long of hours. You want to cut back delivery and raise postage?
Hmmm...less service at a higher
cost? Can you run our customers
off any faster?
Saturday should be the day to eliminate because that would save us fuel,sick calls,workhours, businesses are closed any way. You take a day out of the week we are just cutting our throats businesses want there mail during the week.
Saturday delivery should have stopped long ago. The ads should all be delivered on Friday so people can plan their weekend shopping. Sure some people won't like it at first, change is never easy. But if we don't change we won't survive. We would not only save money on salaries but whole plants could be shut down. The savings on lighting, heating and cooling alone would be tremendous. This talk about canceling delivery on Tuesday is ridiculous, it would create a scheduling nightmare.
In light of the bad economic conditions in this country the USPS should get rid of saturday delivery and not have any post offices open at all on that day. Also management should look at trimming the fat as they say in their own ranks like other major corporations do. All extra non-essential trips, per diems, bonuses for management should be curtailed. Another idea to save money would be for the postal service to go to 4 10hr days across the country, eliminate all casuals, and reduce number of hours PTF's work. You would save quite a lot of money and save jobs for regular employees.
I think they need to do away with Saturday delivery and look at the smaller offices to cut the amount of hours they are there in a week! There is no sense in paying a person to sit in a small office for 8 hours a day doing everything in 4-6 hours that needs to be done. That would eliminate some payroll dollars that could be put to better use elsewhere. Afterall look at how many nill bills go out on Saturdays! Definately do away with Saturday delivery in the rural small offices would save money also. Start thinking outside the box; especially in small towns.
We need to look at ways of improving our customer service. We need to stop putting people in positions they are not qualified to do. Our customers expect us to know our product, if we put employees in positions they do not have training for our customers will go elseware to a company that they can be more confident with
yes get rid of saturday delivery - we will save millions by not having so many TE's ,, T-6's, RCS'a - slim down the post service even more!!!!!!!!
Don't take away the one advantage we have on our competitors, six day delivery. Start with cutting out Satuday delivery in areas that are serviced by Level 15 and below post offices and have an office within a 50 mile radius that they can utilize if needed. Many of those areas are only serviced by UPS once a week now.
In our district alone there are 300 of those offices and that would be a minimum of 31,000 hour savings per year, not to include the HCR savings for that day. Then look at reducing the hours of operation in those same offices that the Postmaster only does about two hours of work and gets paid for eight. This organization has some of the same mentality as Ford & GM with their protecting the upper level. Stop the waste, fraud and abuse of OIC details and the bogus 991 program that draws many substandard employees into postal management. Then review the Supervisors Workload anaylsis and really question why some of them are needed when we have all the technology and micro-managing going on ever hour of the day.
Then look at bringing the craft employees up to the same performance level and accountability instead of giving more work to the good workers. Some people need more mentoring than others.
The entire country is set up at Monday thru Friday business, unless you happen to be in retail. Stop delivery on Saturday, only observe widely observed holidays. As a Postal employee I would rather enjoy having weekends off like the rest of blue collar workers.
So, Saturdays off would make Tuesday crazy if Monday was a holiday. Tuesday off would make Wednesday crazy if Monday was a holiday. I believe we should keep six days and try to save money somewhere else. Stop picking on the lower end and look a little further.
Have normal delivery for regular customers monday thru friday and have business open during saturday/ that would leave regular customers that would do other business that wanted to do business go to the business place (bulk mail) if they needed it. reduce amount of hours set at 0900 to do special mailing from 0900 until 10:00 am express only.
I agree with alot of the comments on this blog. I don't believe that any carrier would be laid off the office that I am in is short on carriers anyway. I also believe that the retail side should stay open. We need all the revenue that we can get. I also think that we need to really look at our employees, there are a lot of slugs in the Postal Service that are not helping the situation AT ALL. They gripe and complain when they don't get the OT that they are used to BUT don't do anything at all in that OT status. They hide from management and generally don't do their job. But yet they are still around because of the union. I am not a member of the union and got a very discouraging letter that basically told me that my job will be in jeapordy because I don't belong. I have 20 years in and have had a horrible time with the union. Good luck to the Postal Service I do hope that we can do something and soon because I DO LOVE MY JOB.
Quit your crying! If the Post Office does not fix the financial mess it is in none of us will have a job here to worry about. Postal employees need to STAND UP,Work smart and protect the company and the customers we serve. The Post Office is in trouble, people are mailing one hell of a lot less letters. Cutting delivery and retail on Saturday is a good start but will it be enough to save the Post Office? How smart we work will determine how deep the cuts need to be for the survival of the P.O.
I hate to see us give up a day,As no one else deliver on Sat. I think Tue closing would create help problems. People call in sick on Sat so they can have a 2 day weekend. So Then they call in sick on Mondays and now have a 3 day weekened, That plus Monday holidays what would wed be like. I rather see Wed as the nondelivery day. All elections are on Tue and we are getting in to mail elections
would they change the day or drop mail elections.WE receive total more mail sat and mon than we have the other 4 days totaled together.
on sat & Mon then we rece
I think ending delivery on Sat. would work. Otherwise Wednesday, not Tuesday, would be OK. Whatever day is chosen, no mail should be sent to the post offices. Otherwise we will have our customers thinking they can just come down to the Post Office to pickup their mail instead of waiting for the next delivery day
Dropping Saturday delivery is the logical choice. We are getting alot of comments from the public- all want Saturday's dropped, not a Tuesday or other weekday.
Stop Saturday delivery. We can live without it. We are too spoiled in this NOW generation. One day is not going to kill anyone.
I believe going to a 5 day delivery would surely damage the future of the PO especially if they choose to cut out a Monday thru
Friday work day. The PO would not be picking up business mail or bringing it, therefore businesses would be encouraged to use other options
for communicating. Hence it would promote using alternative methods the rest of the week also. If Postmasters, Managers, Supervisors would
learn how to manage the mail (roll 3rd class), use employees effectively (t-6’s, PTF’s)overtime would be kept down.
Also, why can’t the Postmaster General ask to cut out some of the holidays we take. Think of the overtime saved and hours. Do away with 204b’s and
have Postmasters and Supervisors carry the work load the way carriers are expected to.
Just a thought.
Karen (from Pasco WA)
If every postal worker would stop paying their bills and getting their statements online that would increase revenue and extra letters back in the mail stream. Think about it, if you work for the USPS why are you doing this? Don't you like your job? I do!
Reducing the delivery days is a very bad idea. We are the one and only segment of the government that consistantly gets good marks from the general public. Reduce delivery and the general public has another reason to lose faith in the government. We need to stay steady and in plain sight to reconfirm that we are one of the few constants and things that can be relied upon. Besides if we only have 5 days route delivery we still have to provide P O Box service and retail service 6 days aweek. The mail still has to move from processing facility to processing facility. Making a huge backlog of mail waiting for delivery makes no sense. Freeze wages, renegotiate building leases, negotiate national contracts for heating fuel for cold climate offices, get rid of the mandatory sources on eBuy and let us smaller offices buy what we need at Walmart which is much cheaper and in quanties we can use instead of case lots we are stuck with, get congress to approve closing small offices that don't break even. There are many options available before we slap our customers in the face with less service on top of another rate increase in May.
Sat would be the day to skip delivery, Tuesday would be heavier volume because we will have to roll std mail on Mon. & deliver it on Tuesday. Poll the people most would not miss delivery on Sat.
i would just like to say that we could definately cut money elsewhere other than cutting delivery. we could cut out priority recovery it's not a gauranteed service we spend way to much on that i've seen it for a 4.95 package and to cut off the water coolers in office what a joke we can sure come up with better plans or we should start cutting at the top before we impliment these stupid ideas.
I am a rural carrier and a small business owner. Saturday's would be my choice to have no mail delivery "IF" it had to come to that. I firmly believe that if there would be no delivery on Saturday's, tuesday's volume would jump significantly.
Eliminating Saturday Delivery would be a huge cost savings for the Post Office. The public would adapt.
As a Postmaster I believe alot of us take on the added responsibility of a Postmaster position so we can have Saturdays off. Still it is hard to find people willing to take the job. Who will take it if it means working every Saturday. And what about all the higher level management? As far as the PMR issue, 4 to 5 offices can share and PMRs will get enough hours for the job to be worth their while. Same for the RCA's. Moral will jump with elimination of Saturday work and plumet with any weekday.
Tuesday is NOT, I repeat,NOT a good day to pick to have no delivery! Sick leave will be used. If Saturday's are picked, the post office should shut down completely. No mail moved at all. Think of the savings with that! The only place that will get backed up would possibly be the drop boxes. Mondays are already a mess with Sunday shut down.If everything was shut down that wouldn't be an issue.
It seems that everyone has ideas on how to cut another persons job or work. If every employee would send an additional card or letter every week that should help the bottom line. As Postal employees we should mail all of our bills and insist on getting them in the mail. No on-line bill paying or on-line statements. Lets work together to increase the revenue. For those who wonder what a Postmaster in a smaller office does after the mail is out we clean our offices, sell retail, do permit mailings, help customers and solve customer complaints. In other words we do the work of the carrier, associate, manager, custodian and sometimes even maintenance. And if we are lucky we can go to the restroom without someone yelling "is anyone here" PMR's are some of the lowest paid employees the Postal Service has. They do not receive any benefits. So closing small offices on Saturday would be a fraction of what would be needed to help the bottom line. Maybe we should do away with the cost of living raises. Consolidate District offices if we don't have as many employees why do we need a whole lot of pencil pushers? Do away with overtime and make sure we have employees that want to work.
Close on Saturdays if need be. Closeing during the week makes no sense.
no deliver on Saturday! Postmaster 4 day work week, Give PMR one day a week of work and they will not quite. or the turn over rate for PMR would go down.
We should not deliver on Wednesday. Saturday delivery is being advertised as an advantage over UPS and Fedex, so why lose that advantage? Tueasday would be ridiculous to skip after Monday holidays; there would be half a week's mail on Wednesday.
I've had several customers voice their disapproval for the 5 day delivery week. They are having trouble getting their mail (bills) delivered on time now as it is. How much worse it will be with one day less to move the mail.
Why don't we take the question to those that have a stake in it, the business world. What do they think of a 5 day delivery and which day would they think best to eliminate.
This would be the most appropriate time for us to scale back our delivery days. Everyone is having to tighten their belts, so we will appear cooperative with the general theme our president has put forth. Meanwhile, let's give our customers the best service they could possibly expect, then they won't be heading elsewhere.
Two cents ???? Make it 50 cents for a stamp, and leave it alone for a while. Imagine how much money is WASTED, every year. one cent, two cents... print and destroy. print and destroy year after year. How much are we WASTING by printing SO many stamps all the time ? Pick 5 or 10 styles and leave it the same for a while. at 50 cents...not the penny nonsense.
I can't see how we could go to closing the post office on Tuesday. We all know that numbers can be adjusted in any way to justify a decision. Though Tuesday may be the slowest day of the week processing-wise, when you take into consideration that many businesses are closed on Saturday, that day may be a busier processing day but it is a slower delivery day because of those closures. In addition, those business that are closed on Saturday would then only have four days of delivery if the post office is closed on Tuesday.
If the post office were to go to a five-day work week I would much rather see Saturday as the day that we eliminate delivery. Besides the fact that many businesses are closed on Saturday many people go away on weekends so I feel this would not be a major impact on our customer's lives. People come up to me all the time and I'd say nine out of every ten people support eliminating Saturday delivery. If I understand correctly, Canada doesn't deliver on Saturday either. I would recommend a survey to our customers asking their feedback on this issue prior to any decision making. Since we still may provide overnight express services on the weekend, perhaps there could be a way to still deliver mail to certain businesses requiring a Saturday delivery. There are carriers coming in on those days anyway to deliver express mail. One carrier per station may be sufficient. I think it is imperative that if carriers are justifiably expected to provide a high-standard of service to our customers we have to listen to what they say regarding any change the postal service is thinking of undertaking.
I would also like Saturdays off for a very personal reason. As I've matured as an individual I've become more observant with my Jewish faith. Having Saturdays off every week would enable me to go to Synagogue with my family every Saturday just as Christians are able to go to Church every Sunday.
The postal service is acting alot like the passenger train service did. It shut down lines that were not prime producers, and then they lost even more customers. As a mailing organization the six day delivery is what makes us better than the competition. If you kill the six day delivey what is next, charging more for rural delivery, elimination the delivery standards, closing up shop all together? All levels need to work a litle harder, and produce a little more. The upper management neeeds to cut details and fill positions. Cutting our delivery is a step twords closing the post office. We all need to make this organization the most profitable that we can so we have jobs in a few months, and in a few years.
Please consider that some offices (like Doctors) are already closed one day during the week in addition to Saturdays. My Vote definitely goes to eliminate Saturday delivery. Sick leave will be at an all time high. Rightly so. The higher ups get Saturday off, why not us!!!!
Stop deliveries on saturday but keep the Windows open for the buying public
Saturday delivery should be like Sunday delivery, only for premium products that customers have paid for, only in areas large enough to support it. If we cut delivery on Saturday, the plant is going to have to take a day off too, another huge savings. Cutting delivery any other day would disrupt business and is a ridiculous idea.
I think 5 days is the way to go. Cut Saturday. Businesses are closed and most people don't even check thier mail on Saturday. I heard about the possiblity of cutting Tuesday delivery. Will NEVE work with government. Tuesdays are election days and that would interupt the election process.
I have talked with a lot of customers , freinds and family. They do not care about Saturday delivery. What they do care about is the Postal Sevice staying alive. No mail delivery will save billins of dollars. We should of done this years ago and if we would of we would not be in the crisis we are in.
What is our name? The United States Postal SERVICE.
Going to five day delivery is like cutting off the hand that feeds us!
It is already tough enought to retain PmR's & RCA's
I believe we need to stop delivery on Saturdays. However, we should deliver mail on those Saturdays that have a Monday Holiday. Or better yet do away with the following holidays: Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Presidents day, Martin Luther King Day. We have far too many holidays in which the rest of the world does not, we can do without these.
How bout getting rid of contract offices that do an awfull job?? These contractors get paid whether they do a good job or not. I know of one in particular where we are losing lots of revenue because they can't figure out the postage using a Triner scale & measurements, but they get paid $200,000 a year! Put that work back in the hands of REAL Postal employees
Tuesday's would not work with vote by mail ballots and Tuesday elections. If you pay attention, it says "delivery". It doesn't state anything about the PO closing on Saturdays. We just have to ride this out. All of us need to hang in there and help others during these hard times.
No Saturday delivery is the way to go IF we continue to deliver to Post Office boxes on Saturdays and we HIGHLY advertise that we do. Cut costs and raise revenue with more P.O. Boxes rented for those who want Saturday delivery.
How about charging for forwarding service?? I know we have all these swell computerized systems, but there are alot of bad addresses out there now that companies won't accept a P.O. Box. How many of you have handled the same mailpiece more than once, or had to take extra time to help fix a forward because a customer doesn't understand the meaning of temporary? I think we should charge for this service.
6-day service is one of the important things that separates us from the other deliveries. We would be cutting our own throat to go to a 5-day delivery program. Consolidate area and district offices - keep the people who actually touch the mail.
If 5 day is passed by congress then it should be Wednesday as the 2nd no delivery day. Tuesday has too much volume especially after the congress mandated Monday Holidays.
We should give business an emergency break in the cost of standard mail. Opposite of what Fed Ex and UPS does when fuel prices go up they charge a surcharge. USPS should do a 10 to 20% postage discount for standard business mail. Supply and Demand. Demand goes down lower your price so demand goes up and vice versa.
Charge businesses according to which days they want an item delivered during the week. To encourage leveling of work load and receiving higher revenue for heavy days that require overtime. The overtime would be paid by the
Standard mail premium costs.
I am a PMR and only work on Saturdays. If we do away with Sat. I will be out a job. There has to be a better solution!
Why are we spending millions of dollars for software to assign suite numbers at office complexes when simply returning mail as insufficient address so mailer can correct their records is a cheaper and more permanent solution? If we would be allowed to return bad addresses, we would not have to spend money to babysit our mailers and we would not get the same mail time after time that has to be "fixed".
The Post Office should cut delivery on Saturdays. Most businesses are closed or no one goes through the mail until Monday anyway. This would save so much money, just in gas.
I am a postmaster of a rural area level 11 office. Tuesday no delivery is not an option in my opinion. We bring in revenue on Tuesdays and very few offices have a window open on Saturday. If we are just talking about cutting route delivery and continueing box delivery, that is discrimination to our route customers! I for one, would be willing to take annual leave once in a while so my PMR could work during the week. I have to take time off to go to the dentist, doctor, etc. I can't go to the bank and cash a check on Saturday or any other necessary errand might as well not have any delivery on Saturday if we absolutely must consider this.
Simple solution: Charge for Saturday delivery. Problem solved, work hours drastically reduced and revenue added. In no time mailers will drop mail to be delivered on Friday so it's on the kitchen counter for Saturday. Businesses will gladly pay for Saturday delivery rather than rate increases. The law may not even need to be changed.
I think that Saturday should be the day to close as now we close on Monday holidays and alot of businesses don't like it when they can't get there mail on Monday if we did Tuesday they would have two days plus Saturdays mail which could hurt alot of businesses. I also think we should try having people would get their maildeliver to the house put up curb side mailboxes think of what we could save on city carriers walking.
Another 300,000 employees would more likely spend money on weekends, movies, dinner, shopping rather than weekdays. Heh, that would help the economy! Get rid of Saturday delivery!
I think it's a great idea to offer Saturday delivery to PO Box customers only, giving my poor HCR driver two days off again.
I think the postal service should curtail 6 day delivery during the summer months. The mail volume is way down then. During the week , businesses want their mail. Many businesses are closed on Saturday. Hence, Saturday should be the curtailed day.
Our CFS sites around the country work around 41 million pieces of forwarded mail A MONTH (or almost half a billion pieces per year) at enormous costs to the company. We do this because it is a service our customers need, but why do we do it for free? Charging a $1.00 fee per month for each Change of Address card filed - just one dollar for all of the mail forwarded under that card each month - would raise in the neighborhood of 22 million dollars a month. Customers that update their addresses right away would not need to pay for a year of service, and this helps reduce CFS volume and costs. Those that use the service longer pay longer. That seems fair to me, and is a huge source of income we should be looking at.
I think Saturday delivery should be eliminated. That way Postal and Contract employees can have a weekend with their own families, like most other Americans.
I believe Saturday delivery should be eliminated. It would save millions of dollars. Keep the retail operations going to keep the PMR's and clerks in the loop. Deliver express and priority on Saturday for a surcharge. The fuel savings alone would save the postal service and the planet greatly. I myself, never check my mailbox on Saturday. This would eliminate much wasted overtime plus employee moral would get a great big boost. Mail volume on Saturdays is always much less than any other day of the week. My rural carriers get out of here at least an hour earlier but they still have to use the same amount of gas to drive the route.
GOODBYE TO SATURDAY DELIVERY.
It is time for the Postal Service to be a business. We should mirror what the business world does. Five day delivery makes good business sense. No delivery service on Saturday. Most businesses do not open Saturday or if they are open cannot respond to the correspondence they receive on Saturday because the other business is closed on Saturday. They wait until Monday. Many residential customers are away on weekends and don't even look at their mail until they get home on Sunday. Maybe in the past when people actually wrote letters to others, Saturday delivery made sense. With cell phones and email taking the place of the written letter, there is no need for Saturday delivery. The Service could reduce the workforce across the board, see siginficant savings in workhours and overtime plus reductions in transportation and utility costs. I am aware that I would be personally effected and may be displaced from my current position by no delivery on Saturday but I believe that it is necessary save my job and to ensure the very existence of the Service for years to come.
Rewrite the way we budget, using cost instead of hours. An office gets a 100 hour budget. The used 100 hours. Attaboy, smiley face.
But if 80 hours were straight time and 20 were overtime, the cost of those 100 hours they used is 110 hours (80 x 1, 20 x 1.5). Using hours doesn't show the real cost, and is a poor means of budgeting.
All we have to do is total up the hours an office uses by using (straight time x 1) + (overtime x 1.5) + (penalty x 2). Simple, and it would encourage management to manage to the real cost rather than using the easier way out of overtime and penalty.
I absolutely disagree with elimination of a day of delivery. Congress has been eager to assist banks, the auto industry, and Bear Sterns. Yet it gives the Postal Service mandates without the tools to accomplish its mandates. Congress needs to stop using USPS as its political football. There have been at least seven hidden stamp taxes caused by Congress in the last 20 years. Congress needs to fund these items themselves, and stop demanding postal employees to work harder and harder and have less to accomplish it with. Legislaters need to get real here.
I am by no means an economics major but I have worked for the Postal Service for almost 20 years in different capacities and I think that cutting Tuesday delivery would prove to be detrimental to the Postal Service in the long run. My experience as one who has delivered, distributed the mail, and worked window operations shows me that cutting Saturday delivery might not be quite as devastating as cutting Tuesday delivery could be. I realize that window operation expenses would not be decreased with a change to skip Saturday over Tuesday delivery, but Customer Service certainly would be. These are challenging times for everyone, I know, but I value our customers and their opinions and business practices. Although changing to a 5 day work week has been only a proposal at this point, the voice I’m hearing from customers is that they do not want to see it, and especially on Tuesday. By doing so, the USPS could be sending a message to our customers that we are buckling under the strain and must compromise customer service in order to survive; plus we're giving our competitors the edge. We are in this together and I hope that other means, such as getting a break in health care benefits payments, the Express Mail and Priority Mail price increases, two cent first class increase, cutting work hours etc will be enough to not only survive through the tough times and maintain our excellent customer service, but that we can use this as an opportunity to prove that we are here to serve our customers.
Do away with Saturday delivery. If we use 410,000 gallons of gas a day this would be a savings of over one million gallons of gas a month. Come on this is a no brainer.
It would be "CRAZY" not to deliver on Saturday. You would be cutting RCA's, PMR's and PTF's jobs. Their would be no reliefs for Postmasters, Carriers, Clerks or Mailhandlers. Tuesday should be the day!! Keep post offices open to the public. Put up the box mail and resume delivery on Wednesday.
Leave delivery days as they are now. There are a lot more ways the Postal Service can save expenses. Like renegotiate the vehicle lease agreements or even better get more ecomonic vehicles. Have all deliveries on the ground level. Do not go up on any steps or porch and no mail slots or inside door deliveries. Think of all the time saved and the wear, tear and injuries of the carriers.
we should offer window service and Post Office box mail on Sat., increase revenue, keep mail moving, but discontinue unnessacary delivery of mail on Saturdays. This way we can keep all services, with little impact but huge savings to the service.
I feel we should keep our 6 day delivery but maybe re-evaluate the no fee box rents and go back to if they want a box they pay. The rural routes actually make us no money but we pay out huge EMA's and pay. I have seen what my carrier makes in EMA and know what he drives. Trust me he does not spend what he is paid a year. There are a lot of people in my town who would love to have as an income what he is paid in EMA a year.
Saturday would be the obvious choice for a non-delivery day. Retail service would need to be retained, however, to service our M-F working customers. The PMR issue mentioned in other blogs would be resolved. Short staffed offices would see a relief to extensive pivoting. RCA retention could be a problem, but the monetary savings would be tremendous. My 11 employees would rather HAVE the paycheck, even if reduced, than none at all. If the Postal Service goes under, we all go with it!
Eliminate all overtime in delivery. Our number one cost as a company is paying ourselves, and overtime and penalty are prime reasons why.
How do we get rid of the OT? Evaluated city routes, just like with rural routes.
No OTDL, no OT grievances, no sixth-day OT, no penalty OT, no creeping OT, no...
We should go to 4 10 hour work days. That would be awesome.
I am a level 13 Postmaster. I have a PMR and they are hard to keep. If we have to do away with any day of delivery I think it should be Thursday! I don't want my PMR to quit and if Tuesday was the day off on Wednesdays there would be two days of mail, two flyers, and all the papers. I would bring in my PMR on Wednesdays if that's the case. I think the top dogs need a lot of trimming - bonus - what's a bonus?? We have annual performance ratings that we can't even reach so much for any raises for the rest of my postal career!!!
Eliminating Saturday delivery is the best day option. Eliminating POOM's is the best job elimination option...they are simply not necessary, and, micromanaging us to death. We should start charging for P.O. Boxes in rural areas again..we never had complaints when we did charge. We should have PMR's still work on Sat. to sort mail and sell retail. Customers could still come in to pick up their mail, if need be. Finally,
we could implement a guaranteed salary pay program for hourly, full-time carriers, with straight time for overtime...it is entirely legal within the Federal Wage & Hour laws. There would be seasonal lows where they would not be required to work 40 hours, but would be paid for 40. Then, there would be seasonal highs, where they could be asked to work more than 40 or daily overtime, but only at straight time pay. The opportunity is there, to save huge expenses on Sat. elimination and to save huge compensation costs for delivery...it's just that no one can think outside the box at headquarters. There are very smart people out in the field, but no on listens. Rural Postmaster
Close delivery service by carriers on Saturdays make sense, as many businesses are closed. Sick leave will increase and moral will go down.
Saturday non delivery is just that. The retail and small offices will be open to service our customers
If your artery was cut you would apply a tourniqet not a band-aid as we have been. Go to 5 day delivery soon before we bleed to death. When are the people in Washington going to acquire some common sense. As the slogan for Nike says "Just do it".............."Git'r done!"
Saturday is usually a light day with limited window hours...save the expense.
Stop Saturday delivery but provide express service on Saturday for those that just have to get it there. The premium price for Saturday delivery could be adjusted to cover the costs of its Saturday service. There really is no good reason to let the bleeding continue, I think the public would accept it after awhile and get used to it.
I agree with the person earlier that said do away with no fee boxes, I'am in a small office and most of my boxes are free, if they were to pay then that revenue would add up when you think of how many office's there are out there.Also some of the larger office's always say, close the smaller office's,sure anything to save them.The smaller office's are the ones who customers like because they are not treated as a number.I say get rid of the cleaning people in the levels 18 and below, that would save a lot plus each employee could do a little cleaning each day during their down time, which most have at least one person who could chip in.
I also think whatever it takes to keep our jobs is worth it,I would volenteer to give up hours on which ever day they choose just to keep my job.
We need our customers and Congress tell us what they want their Postal Service to look like down the road (one year, 5 years, etc.). Do they want/need delivery everyday? 5 days a week? 3 days a week? What about service standards? Do they want us to be tax subsidized, etc. Feedback I have received so far is customers want to maintain overnight delivery area, and most are not opposed to cutting back Saturday delivery (and save some transportation $). They are opposed to cutting out delivery on a business day.
We need to keep 6 days of delivery. The USPS was built on this and our customers want the 6 day delivery week.
If your going to do it pick Thursday then we have 3 days to recover from Monday and holidays. Then for Thursdays mail we'd have 2days to recover. Look how bad Mondays can be with just being closed Sunday.
I would like to see the 5-day delivery...only if it meant no delivery on "saturday"!
I have talked to many customers that feel that if we should be closed, it should be on a day that most other businesses are closed, and I deliver to a lot of businesses that wouldn't be happy , not getting mail on Tuesday. This would eliminate a lot of "extra mail" to deliver on a Wendnesday...which is already our heavest day, with our town paper being delivered on Wednesdays.
Also, it would eliminate the problem of "getting time off" when we are already short-handed and can't have more then one person from the offfice gone a at a time.
It would also promote some valuable "family time" for all us "regular carriers as well as the PTF's.
I think 5-day deliver will be good and stated above business is closed and residential customers are out busy doing things, my only other concern is that I think all mail should stop moving trucks and everything so as not to get hit with so much mail when we do return back to work
I believe we should cut out a delivery day during the week, probably Wednesday since holidays will have minimal impact.
We should NOT cut out Saturday delivery since this is our market advantage over our competition for parcel business.
Also, I think we should continue to provide delivery to the PO Boxes, all six days. This will generate more interest in PO Box rentals.
I agree with 5 day delivery. Eliminating Saturday delivery would generate the most cost saving for the post office. In my customer feedback,they do not care if they get mail on Saturday or not.
As a rural carrier I feel that if a five day delivery is needed it should be Saturday for many of the reasons stated in earlier comments.I do not feel that this is a good choice in that six day delivery is one thing that sets us apart from the competition. I think there better solutions. 1. I understand that MGMT. collected their incentive pay this year even though USPS was loosing money (this is a gift over and above the salaries earned)Solution: eliminate. 2.When investing in future technologies look at return on investment rather than this sounds good with a hoped for return.3.Close Post Offices too small to ever sustain themselves even in a good economy. 4.PMG Potter stood before Congress and stated that MGMT. wages were to be frozen at 2008 levels, I believe that rather than cutting service, all wages be cut 5% from Pmg Potter through the whole organization. With 650,000 employees that would produce approx. 2,000,000,000 in savings. 5. Eliminate eminent domain 6.Remember without the last-mile customer there is no first-mile customer.
It doesn't matter what we think, it never has. Despite the opinions of all answering this blog, top level management will try to make whatever case they feel will boost their NPA the most. Sight of the main goal has been lost for a long time... universal service to all customers. Its constitutionally mandated, and that is the only reason we exist. If it costs more today and tomorrow, then yes, we need to charge more (or re-visit congress to get them to support our constitutional mandate with tax dollars). But to keep cutting service to our customers?... Thats just wrong. Be efficient, be accountable, and be there for the public (not the customer). We have lost sight of the fact that the customer is not just who pays to mail something, but it is equally the non-paying person that receives the item... Do not cut any more service.
MOST Businesses ARE NOT closed on saturdays. Almost every retail outlet and most service outlets do business on saturdays. How about restaraunts? Open saturdays. Only the Financial sector closes. Lets serve our customers 6 days a week. Save money by eliminating useless reports and endless paperwork that is generated only to be filed away and never seen again. If we are to succeed we have to have the tools and be allowed to use them. Each Postmaster has a unique situation that can't be micromanaged from someone 1000's of miles away. Let them do their jobs and eliminate the burocracy. Then they can right size their own offices and manage the mail volumes unique to their own offices. Make the employees stake holders in the business and the PMG answerable to them. then there would be massive change that would save the PO!
Transition to a 5 day work week over the course of 5-10 years, in the long run, no layoffs will occur and money might not be saved up front, but will be saved in the long haul!
I thnk we should keep 6-day delivery. A lot of people can only get to the Post Office on Saturday, they work all week. I think most people are thinking of longer weekends, not the service we provide to our customers. I work 6-days a week, I think we ned the service. If we are not open, they will go somewhere else.
To make money you have to spend money. The same is true with saving money - a bit up front to save several times the amount.
Expand the staffing in Inspection Service units, with the extra people and money going to finding, arresting, and prosecuting FMLA (Federally Mandated Leave Abuse).
We have employees with restrictions that would almost require them to be bottle-fed (no use of hands, respiratory system, or expenditure of more than four calories per day on work-related activity). Those same employees share stories of what they did on the weekend with their co-workers, and when this is reported the inspectors say they don't have the resources to investigate all of the tips they get.
If we eliminate the nightmarish amount we spend paying people to not work, and recoup the millions we're spent so far on this, we're a lot close to surviving as a business.
As for paying the extra inspectors...? Put them on commission if you like, where they get 5% of what they save us. You'll have very motivated inspectors that still make a ton, because the abuse is rampant.
The people who are saying to go to 5 days a week obviously have not thought it through!! If you think business is down now, it will kill us to go to 5 day delivery, even if it is Saturday! Why are we getting drilled about customer service when PMG is about to take the "service" away. And about getting rid of small Rural Post Offices, what a dumb idea that is. THINK BEFORE YOU COMMENT. its your job on the line.
It is about time serious consideration be given to 5 day delivery the cost savings could be enormous and the impact although emotional would be minimal in comparison to the savings that would be realised.
The PMG outlined how this option is not our preferred method to help cut costs and offered other options first. If the Postal Service had to seriously look at this I personally would love for the day to be Saturday but my preference is not based on research of mail flows, salary and benefits, or impacts of the decision. I'm sure the Postal Service would research all of these and come up with the best option for the business and I'd support the decision if it was critical to do so. I'd prefer to keep my husband and me employed in our Postal jobs.
We need to maintain our standards of service, and that includes our Saturday delivery. As much as it is popular to go to five days a week, with Saturdays being the non delivery day, I believe that the savings will not compensate for the future harm to the service.
Since the rest of the business world operates on a M-F schedule I think we should also. We might consider having a couple of nights we extend hours to help our Sat. customers out. If we do Tues. I think we will just be sending our customers to the competition.
That's a great idea. Let's keep everyone working. Saturday and Sunday no work day.
My sister saids Canada has only 5 days and has been that way for years. Will really not make much difference but will reduce costs alot like fuel and labor. If customer want mail delivered quick then we build revenue from Express!
Commen sense says "do away with Saturday deliveries!" but then again Jack Potter is running the show and commen sense just ISN'T there!
By the time a customer gets thier mail on Saturday Most of the banks and other businesses are closed.
Fuel cost, overtime,and the consolidation of manhours to the peak days of the week would benefit our bottom line and improve the staffing and the moral of the workers who have to wait years for the opportunity to have at least 1 day of the weekend with thier families.
Express should be the only thing delivered on Saturday.
Sacrificing service??!! Who are you kidding?? Even in today’s delivery world there are still customers who are amazed to learn we are delivering on Saturdays! There is no real evidence to suggest that reducing delivery to 5 days would drive our customer base to UPS or FedEx. We still offer a better value and service to the public and have a better track record overall. I agree that Tuesdays would be a poor choice but Saturdays make sense. Oh, our compliments are driven on the 6 day service matrix you say? That is correct; there would be a massive restructuring of the employment staff across the board as we know it but to the benefit of the USPS. That is the point; reduce our costs while remaining viable to the public. PMR’s and RCA’s would be hard to find? Maybe so, but the restructure wouldn’t take place without a viable alternative. Wake up people! We are on the ropes and still taking hits left and right. The time to act is now! Stop the petty selfish entitlement way of thinking and realize that if change does not occur quickly, finding a PMR to fill in on your next 4 day weekend is the least of your concerns!! There are a number of alternatives out there regarding how to tailor a 5 day delivery service standard but we need to start to consider the options rather than just dismissing them out of hand. Unfortunately, Congress is on the side of those narrow minded individuals who don’t even want to think about 5 day delivery and will most likely dismiss the option before you have the chance to.
Yes, eliminate Saturday street delivery but keep open the Post Office on Saturday. Currently most smaller offices are closed or are open for a couple of hours. Instead, open all the offices for 4-6 hours and allow customers to pick up parcels and PO Box mail. This way street delivery is curtailed, but we make it up by opening the small offices and still allow mailings and picking up of mail. As far as the Plants are concerned, sort all first class on Sunday night and curtail all 3rd class until Tuesday. Work with the unions(snicker) to sort how to deliver mail on weekends with a Holiday, so that there is not a 3 day lull in delivering mail. Idea; with a Monday holiday make Saturday a delivery day and pay a new holiday premium so again there is no 3 day lull. After working for 24 years for the USPS we can easily combine 1 less day into the other 5.
We need to move to a 5 day work week for delivery operations, it would saves huge dollars on EMA/fuel costs and work hours. Anyone who thinks Tuesday is a good day to close is nuts!! You would simply shift our work load to 2 Mondays. If we skip Saturday, then Mondays would be heavy and we can shift standard mail over to Tuesdays. Are their other ways to save money, of course there is. Here are a couple of ideas. Cut out long details and make mangers fill jobs quicker. Wage freezes for ALL levels and remove layoff clauses. Remove daily intervention by unions and allow management to use any employee in any area they are needed. Move to one USPS union instead of 4 to prevent grievances on crossing crafts.
Why do we FWD free for a year 90 is enough the postage do after that. Why not charge for what it costs to move the mail Why are there 5 different prices for a box. What difference does it make what is inside the box - a book - a gift - printed matter - etc it costs the same to deliver. Why does it cost less for Nonprofit mailings it cost the same to deliver it . . .
Most businesses do not need saturday delivery, they're closed or don't have admin staff on site.
My household customers don't seem to care either - they don't have to worry about their mail if they go out of town for the day.
The major problem I see is the volumes on Mondays - if we get large amounts of committed standard mail I don't see how anyone will be able to meet their box up times or delivery standards due to too high a volume. If the plants can control the flow of this mail Saturday closed would be great - what a morale booster to our many employees that work saturdays for their entire careers.
Closing one day during the week would be a mistake since business customers are really our bread & butter.
Should we go to a 5 day work schedule? Wow……look at all the responses! If you are a craft employee who works part time, and most of your hours are from working Saturdays….you are probably saying NO! If you are a rural carrier who currently works a 6 day work week and looking at the prospects of having Sundays and Tuesdays off, you too are probably saying NO! But if you are a business that is facing losses……then you must examine all possibilities and this is one of those possibilities. We have been told for over a year now that we need to stop “doing business as usual” and yet it appears that HQ is not listening to their own advice. Every day HQ looks at the “numbers” as a measurement of success. They are only using the numbers to determine what to do or what day we should close on, instead of looking at all of their assets. Yes HQ, your employees are assets too! Their moral throughout this process is VERY important to the overall success. The districts are in constant battle for being number one and spends excess dollars in order to move up the list!! Is our ranking a measurement of our customer’s happiness with our delivery service? Can we say that just because our scanning performance is at 98% that our customers are happy? If our customers are happy and we are losing money…are we successful? That depends on your point of view. Our mission is to deliver the mail! Cutting costs is only a part of that mission. If we are not delivering the mail to our customers when they want it delivered, but we are saving money, then we are failing our mission! HQ must work very hard to accomplish the task at hand……deliver the mail at an affordable cost. We may end up going to a 5 day work week and we may need to trim the “fat” off our staffing. But we need to ensure that we keep enough people delivering the mail! We need to consolidate all the unions into one union and stop the craft wars. Management on the front lines need to be able to use any and all available people to do what ever task needs to be done to get the mail delivered! We need to cut staffing where managers are hired to micromanage the next “hot topic” and let managers do what they do best…….manage!
I think there are a lot of areas to cut costs before cutting the service to our customers. Start at the top and go down. There are managers in upper level positions that do little more than manage to come up with reports for us in the field to do, so they can justify their exorbinate EVA bonuses. *Eliminate or at least reduce EVA bonuses. *look at what positions are really necessary and get rid of the rest. *Make the upper management actually earn their salaries for a change. *Freeze all EAS salaries. *Stop wasting money on details and travel. Make everyone just do their own job. *Cut out meetings that are just expensive social events and not productive. *Leave the employees that move the mail alone, to do their jobs.
I have worked for the Postal Service 29 years and am thankful for my job. USPS is one of the best companies to work for in the USA and everyone needs to pull together to keep it that way.
There are 323 posts on this blog...so apparently evreyone wants to have a voice. I wonder, who did the PMG discuss the option of 5 day service with? Did he opent he issue for discussion with the acutal people who provide the service, or did he simply make an executive decision? Wouldn't it be nice if he actually took the time to comunicate with his "lower" staff?
Where can we generate additional revenue? Here are some ideas:
1) Stop giving online postage customers discounts! If someone uses clip and ship we give them delivery confirmation for free. We are giving away $0.65 with each parcel. With a mandate of 1/3 of our income coming from "other sources" that means big bucks.
2) Reduce forwarding mail for free to 6 months. During the next 12 months we would continue forwarding but charge $0.20 per piece. That would encourage the customers to notifiy senders of their new address quicker and reduce CFS costs.
3) Charge $0.20 for each piece of UAA mail that ends up in residue mail trays. Again, this would encourage customers to use the correct mailing addresses and reduce work hours looking for people.
4) Hire employees as employees and remove craft designations and primary job assignments. This would allow post offices to use people more effectively and end mindless grievances due to cross crafting.
5) Perform cost benefit analysis on EVERY new program after 90 days. For example, we must print the VOE surveys each quarter and conduct/document service talks. Most craft employees don't fill out the surveys anyway, so what makes management think they need to hear the results. If someone look at the cost of printing these reports, work hours spent in giving the talks, and the loss of productivity during the talks...you would see the program is not cost effictive. The postal service has 20-30 such worthless programs that could be eliminated.
I really hope that everyone thinks this through, it would make much more sence to have a saturday off from mail then a tuesday.
I like the idea of having two days off consecutively. I probably could have not had two carpal tunnel operations that is not considered work related if I could have rested more than one day a week. It makes since so we probably won't get it, and the union/management would make us pay dearly if we did.
If we close on Saturdays the smaller offices will lose their PMR's. Postmasters of these offices need to be considered. Maybe alternate larger offices can close on Saturdays.The customers should also be given a convienent alternative.
i don' know why you can't take some of the 42 hour office and turn them to 40 hour offices so you save the expense of having to pay PMR to work on Saturday.
Think about all the jobs lost if Saturday is not a mailing day. Not only the people on the route but also the PRMs who only work on Saturdays. As a custoemr also I depend somewhat on Saturday deliver. At least by keeping PO boxes, the revenue might increase because customers on the routes might buy Boxes rather than waiting for the mail to be delivered on Monday. I think whatever happens someone is going to be upset about it but all options need to be looked at and would be the way the post office needs to increase revenue and find out which way is the best way to do so.
Yes, I think it's necessary to cut costs. Let's be proactive and do it now instead of asking for a bail out later.
We will lose our PMR's if we cut
out Saturday and then what if myself as a Postmaster needs a day off or I am sick do I just lock the door because I have no relief??? Lets start by not having travel time and all the meetings.
We all hear how Saturday delivery is so important. If it were that important, why does every manager and everyone at the district offices have Saturdays off?
I definitely think that we should do away with Saturday delivery. I've wondered since the day I started why we ever had it. I can't tell you the number of times I've had someone comment to me as I was delivering on Saturday, "oh, there's mail on Saturday!" If people don't realize that we have Saturday delivery then how is it an advantage for us. It would virtually eliminate the need for T-6 swings. Not only that, but there is a possibility of shutting down plants on Sundays and eliminate that premium pay also. As soon as the prime mail gets out on Saturday, shut it down, open up again at say 10pm Sunday night to start the DPS programs. How many sick calls does your station recieve on Saturdays? I guarantee that is the most frequent sick day. If everyone had weekends off I would anticipate the sick calls to drop off dramatically. The morale would be boosted also. I would love having a Monday through Friday job at the USPS, something that is a rare find unless you've worked here for 30 years. I think the only reason the union wants Saturday delivery is to have more union members, and to get those members more overtime. People need to wake up and realize that they can't depend on OT. Managment staits it is the most efficient and productive work day, which I agree, but I guarantee that Friday will turn into that day. Everyone will be working hard on Friday looking forward to that nice Saturday/Sunday off. I think we are only fooling ourselves if we think Saturday delivery is helping our cause. If someone really needs something on Saturday set up a Saturday guarantee just like we have for Sunday on Express. Could generate more revenue there also. Just the thoughts of one dedicated postal employee.
Tues. is the day to have no delivery. It is the least day of mail all week long.
Canada has had 5 day delivery for years. We should have 5 day delivery also.
I believe our service would be in jepardy if we change to 5 day delivery. Our customers are expecting packages, letters and other important items every day. Should we make them wait another day? I don't think we should. We are here to provide service every day. Lets keep it that way.
I have worked for the post office for 40 years, when this came up before, big companies complained about not getting mail on sat,, they will do the same for any other day of the week, and more overtime would have to be used to deliver the mail the day after non delivery day,,, so lets just leave it alone and deliver 6 days a week like we have for years
I wonder if anyone who suggests a 5day delivery week thinks beyond the day off. Would subs stick around for a job that happens just for vacation time?
While it would save money I think there are other ways to cut the budget without taking away from the delivery service.
If we go to a 5 day delivery system, carriers and other crafts will be out of work. What will the CT's do? Will every route in every station have to go up for in-station bid to accomodate all the T6's that have a decent amount of seniority? What will that mean for ft carriers with little seniority? It means brothers and sisters without a job! It means ptf's and te's without positions. Why in this economy do we want to see MORE people without income?
Going to a 5-day work week with no Saturday delivery is the one of the best options for saving money. I have been talking about this for a long time because it also cuts out all of the T-6 Utility Carrier positions. This alone would save a lot of money. Some people argue that being closed 2 days in a row would create a big problem, but I really don't think so with the diminished mail volume.
Pricing and Saturday delivery are our main advantages over the competion. As hard as it is to retain relief carriers now, taking away a day of delivery would compound that problem.
Rural Letter Carrier, Hawkeye District
I think we should cut saturday delivery. The financial savings are worth it. Also, Many good things would change in the crafts too. Carriers would benefit from no longer have the rotating day schedule, sick leave abuse would go down, and we would not have contractual problems and staffing issues with holiday scheduling. Custodians could use that Saturday to maintain and clean the building better as it would be basically empty. PTF Clerks would be utilized to maintain distribution, and deliver to the box section on Saturdays, similar to a sunday operation. If it is well thought out and planned, the savings could be tremendous.
There are hard decisions ahead for USPS. Much thought and planning should go into these decisions. The USPS is a multi-layered organization that could slim itself down without cutting any further service and save jobs. If it is decided to go to a five day delivery then the only good choice would appear to be Saturday. Othewise there will be a workforce in choas with career long split days off. John Potter would you put in 30 years and never have two days off in a row? I didn't think so. If savings is what it is all about, then shouldn't the non producers go first and provide the tools to really clamp down on all of the unscheduled absences and employees who do show up just to collect a pay check. Be upfront with people and stop knee jerk decisions.
If five day delivery is what it will take to save our company, then that is what we should do. Saturday would be the only choice that makes any sense. This would make it more difficult to retain our pmrs, but if we still had po box and retail service that would still give us a reason for them to work on Saturdays. For all of you who say to close small offices, you absolutely do not understand the role a post office plays in the identity of a community. I would venture to say that most of you live in a city or urban area. Rural America needs its post offices; we are the glue that binds a town together, both with each other and with the rest of the country. For many rural Americans, the daily trip to the post office is the only social outlet they have. I liked the idea of combining the unions and everyone helps to do whatever is necessary to get the mail delivered. Assign employees where they are most needed that particular day. After all, we all work for the post office, and our mission is to deliver the mail. Whatever the decision ends up to be, let's work together as a team and do what it takes to keep this company viable.
Delivering six days a week is one of our competitive advantages. What we need to do is find other ways of cutting cost and ways to grow the business. What will we do when there is a holiday - we will end up paying major OT for being off for three days.
Eliminate 6 day rural and city delivery but keep retail operations open. Keep 6 day post office box delivery to allow customers to have 6 day delivery.
Instead of 5 day service, look into cutting more management jobs and definitely close EPM offices. There are too many, too close together and people drive to the nearest town for groceries, gas, etc, they can drive to the nearest town to mail pkgs. Everything else is taken care of thru the carriers. No brainer, save salary & bldg. expenses, save the service!
Saturday delivery should be discontinued because it would save tons of money on energy in Postal facilities, save on OT, make the PO more efficient, and save on transportation. Ninety nine percent of my mail is not First class mail that delivered on Saturday.
closing small town post offices is not right. close small town post offices and customers in this area probably would have to drive 50 plus miles for thier mail.i thought the postal service was about keeping customers. have postmasters in small offices that can retire retire and put postmasters that need several years in those offices. postmaster general and his helpers need to stop giving themselves raises, when he says we have no money. in the higher offices everyone has a secretary. eliminate some of those positions.
CLOSING THE POST OFFICE ON SATURDAY WOULD MAKE IT HARD ON THE WORKING PEOPLE, SUCH AS SCHOOL TEACHERS. THEY HAVE TO BE AT SCHOOL EARLY AND STAY AFTER SOMETIMES. COALMINERS GO TO WORK EARLY AND COME HOME LATE. LETS GET REAL, WE NEED TO SERVE THE WORKING PEOPLE TOO.
WHAT ARE YOU REGULAR EMPLOYEES GOING TO DO IF YOU ARE CLOSED ON SAT.? WHAT ABOUT YOUR PMR THEY HAVE TO BE GUARANTEED SOME TIME TO KEEP THEM. THIS DAY AND TIME WE ALL NEED TO WORK.
POSTAL EMPLOYEES COULD RAISE MAIL VOLUME BY PAYING BILLS BY MAIL....BUT OUR OWN BUSINESS IS PROMOTING MAILING WITH CLICK'N SHIP. THAT'S LIKE STOCKING K-MART WITH STOCK BOUGHT FROM WAL-MART...
continue 6 days a week. Reduce the workforce hours to 6.67 hrs per day/0 overtime. Eliminate 1/2 top brass (a cpl yrs ago, usps eliminated? all positions that did not touch the mail itself. What happened there??
I think that it is a great idea, that way the employees can have their quality time with their famlies and loved ones. I also think it will cut down on the sick leave use. Back in the days, we never had Saturday Delivery and everyone was fine. Lots of our mail volume is dropping due to computer technology. Yes for the five day week.
I think it is the most effective cost cutting messure at our disposal. I can't even imagine the cost in overtime, part time employees, benefits, fuel, etc which could be saved. I honestly think the impact to customers would be minimal.
I think mail delivery to the street should be cut out on Saturday. This would cut PTF positions and the cost of those benefit as well as fuel, etc. I do believe that offices should keep window and po box services available for those who cannot access the PO during regular week day hours. Even extend Saturday window hours. Those who require delivery on Saturday could just rent a po box which equals revenue. Closing small rural offices is NOT a good idea. Small rural communities depend on those offices. It would make much more sense to close the retail outlets popping up in every mall 1 mile from a post office. The PMR in a rural office is a very necessary employee that we don't need to lose.
I think doing away with Saturday delivery is a BIG MISTAKE!! We need to continue the services we provide to our customers. If we leave a door open to the competition they will walk through it. Besides Monday is already our biggest mail volume day. I can't think that the savings would be as great as management thinks.
i think they should deliver all mail on usps .com and get rid of all us clerks that would save the post office billions
Five day delivery would be a great cost-cutting option. However, our business customers would be impacted negatively if we eliminate a delivery day during the week, instead of on Saturday. I hope the USPS pays attention to what most of us are saying here.... We should consider the needs of our business customers if we want to retain their business.
I think Saturday delivery should be cut, except for Express. This would cost extra. That would eliminate all the city carrier utility carriers, or 1/6 of our city carrier workforce in the large offices. Keeping Express should keep the pieces that really have to get there on the weekend, like Sunday now.
Another cost saving measure would be installing NBU boxes on walking routes. I examnined a route last week that had over 600 deliveries, and walked five hours with very little mail. NBU boxes would save about 3 hours a day. In several places I have seen where they were installed over a year ago, people complained for about a month, then the convenience and security were realized and they just got used to it.
Deliver to PO boxes 6 days per week and 5 days route delivery.
Non-delivery day would be Saturdays when many businesses are closed.
I am a PMR at a very small 11 postoffice. the censes is to close on sat. deliveries. I do agree with this but then there would no reason for us to come and open the window for that 1.5 hrs. if there is no mail going in or out. most pmr's drive a distance to these small towns. to keep us in "the loop" of things going on and changes we could come in for 2 hrs. some othet time of the week. that works out best for that office. the only thing I for businesses would be their ads could be published in the Friday's papers instead of sat.
Only the carriers want Saturday as non-delivery days. If you have that many business closed on Saturday's are you doing undertime?? Probably not..
I have worked in the postal service fro almost 28 years. One of the biggest wastes I see every day is the city carriers in my area. The more the mail volume goes down, the slower they work to the point where they will even use overtime to deliver about 7 hours of work. A few years ago, it was suggested that city carriers be paid on a scale similar to the way the rural carriers have been paid. I think this would be great. The postal service would see the mail delivered faster than we have ever seen it. I disagree with stopping delivery one day a week (and yes, I work 6 days a week!) We need to improve our service and our image. Cutting out a day of delivery will not accomplish this.
Great Idea!!!!!!!!!Time to get with the program!!
Yes, we need 5 days look at all the gas alone we would save.
well.. everyone has something bad to say about every suggestion to save the post office and our jobs. If 5 day delivery can save enough money to allow us to keep our jobs ..great! But there should still be express mail serive
Everytime I read someone's comment and it has the word "overtime" in it I want to scream at them to wake up!
I think a 5 day a week is the best idea at this point. It definetly needs to be Saturday.We need to run this as our personal business. If we each took a hard look at what we make on Saturday and offer(many retail PO are only open 1 hour)...why bother???? It would save us billions on fuel,lights,man hours. We have to change with the times to continue to make changes that work. How many people do you know that actually send letters????That generation is passing (literally).We have to make hard decisions and closing that one day is the best common sense approach that we can make!!!!Everyone says we aren't government funded...well we sure run this "business" like the government- in the hole. Look at Retail businesses like Wal-Mart-we may not always agree with what they do, but they are a striving business, and there are huge changes that they continue to make.Email,face book is "our" generation. Yes, we have to offer the best services and I think we do, but we need to make this common sense approach and this change.....
I dont know if anyone is going to read this or not but, if we go to one less day of delivery(which is not a bad IDEA) it would save money for awhile until they decided that we actually did make money on that day. We still sell stamps and send packages whether it is busy or not. If you send out one flat rate priority package every 3 hours that is enough to pay for a PMR on saturdays and still enough left over for the power bill on that day. But if they do do it Saturday would be the ONLY option not a tuesday or any other day that would just be rediculous.
Shutting down Saturday USPS delivery will be shutting down the franchise the USPS holds on First Class Mail. Another slippery slope for the USPS; but it will enable other companies to come in and take the cream off the top.
The PO doesn't need to go to a 5 day week. Just get rid of some of the upper management people that don't touch the mail. Change some laws that congress needs to change, like no more RFD. That was put in when the Post Office got goverment money. That changed when it became the USPS. Charge all rural addresses 5.00 or 10.00 a year to get mail delivery to door. Only forward mail one time for a person in 6 months for free instead of for a year. There are times I had seen 6 yellow forwarding labels on one piece of mail. All for the rate of just one first class stamp, even though we tried to deliver it 6 times. No other company would do this, but congress had no guts to change the laws or they would not get reelected. Oh well so much for that idea. It will never work.
5 day delivery is a great idea but only if it is Sat that is cut out. It would be ridiculous to cut out a day during the week because this would inconvenience our business customers and is that what we really want to do at this time when we are struggling so hard to keep all the business we have. This is the way it should hav always been so that everyone could have 2 days off in a row not just a select few. Congress needs to wake up and move into the new century! We should also cut out all the reports that are needlessly printed out daily and the constant Big Brother interference, just let us do our jobs!
Huge mistake, that just opens the door for UPS, FedEx or someone new to grab Saturday as their new day and their new customers. Sure volume is down, it will only sink further if we are not here to keep what we have now.
And then there is the issue of substitute carriers and PMRs. They are gone for sure. The problems of no Saturday delivery are just endless!
Perhaps we need to cut out all of the EXFC measurments, I just cant imagine what that costs? We could do our own EXFC from our own offices,(that would be just another log, and we are all pretty good at logs these days.) I see my customers send cards to their friends or familys in the same town and not return back for delivery for 2 or 3 days. And this is not unusual.
One of the best ideas is close all of those 2 hour offices that are only 5 or so miles from a 40 hour office. I have worked in 3 of them. Boring places to be. 2-5 boxes rented(maybe), usually all no fee boxes and everyone that lives in those towns works, and shops in other towns. And usually buys their stamps in that other town because the hours of their own office are not conveinent when you work out of town anyway. Plus most of those offices are not even filled with PMs, but OICs (because who wants to apply for them.)And then they have mileage tacked on every day just to run them. There is absolutly no valid reason that they should stay open.
if we cut out saturdays, we are leaving ourselves wide open to two things: excessive overtime during the week and more stringent competition. re: excessive overtime, how often following a holiday do the plants fail to manage their mail properly, by not advancing what is available and inundating on the day after the holiday. this creates excessive overtime and we are proposing that we create this situation every week? while i agree with the concept, the ability of the service to work proactively will doom the process. re: competition, if we disappear from the weekend rolls, what is going to stop our competition from increasing their marketing in an effort to drum up additional business. while it may not be lucrative for us, it may stand to reason that our costs in terms of salaries alone make 6 day too costly.
Definitely,a 5 day delivery week makes economic sense. Saturdays are the lightest mail flow days. We lose a delivery day every holiday.On holiday weeks just add the Saturday to keep every week,365days a year,a 5 day delivery week.
Someone needs to face reality, multi-billion dollars shortfalls, a sagging economy, and a host of other reasons to implement the five day work week. do we wait until we have to lay-off junior employees to wake a few up, or are we just "hoping" this will not happen. Can these future alternatives really be happening to us? The untouchables better be ready for their own alternatives...I don't believe congress has the hutzpah/guts to act omn this issue anyway, at least not this term...
In 16 years of working for the post office I have never seen the staffing at a level we can cover time off. We are always under-staffed 1-2 people. I like the idea of a 5 day work week just so I don't have to work 6 days a week. I also think it would help reduce sick leave because those employees who always have to work 6 days could get a day off and not have to call in sick.
No Saturday delivery would save $$$$$.
What are we waiting for - let's do it!
i would love to see the po go to 5 day delivery . carriers are busting their butts to keep this company afloat. 2 days off in a row would do wonders for moral and their tired backs and feet.the union says saturdays are great for the carrier to meet their customers while they are home but mostly they get to meet the customer's dog who is loose because the customer does'nt even think about the carrier coming down the street. i bet most of the dog bites to carriers are on saturdays , that alone could save the po dollars, not to mention the safety for the carrier
no way.... that is our inroad with the competition
wow. again, the range of responses is from one end of the spectrum to the other.
how about a dose of reality?
losing 1 day will save 1.2 billion per year...less than the losses posted over the past several years.
here's the downside......
look at the people in the cases to your left and right.
Consider the eight people you work near....
One of the will be gone and you will have to pick up their work, WITHOUT A RAISE.
Rural carriers, you will have it better......
A 5 dy heavy route (say 45K) will become a 5 day HEAVY ROUTE, now that a 9 hour per day route will become 10.8 hours.
Although that will be WITHOUT OVERTIME.
While I agree that we should cut 1 day delivery, and that day should be Saturday, I shudder to think that the balancing of the mail and the equitable distribution of such should be left up to the plants.
It should be left up to the CUSTOMER!!!
After all, that's what we are supposed to be in this for, RIGHT?
I think it is a great idea. No more need for day off floaters and the fuel savings alone will greatly help reduce our costs. I think it will also reduce expenses incurred by motor vehicle accidents and industrial accidents as well. On the down side though it will make Monday delivery a bear and Tuesday delivery after a Monday holiday will be extra heavy. We will adjust somehow.
I think we should do away with Saturday delivery because we usually only get catalogs on Saturday anyway. Also think of the fuel costs and electric costs we will be saving by not having the stations open. I also think we should close the P&DC, BMC & NDC on Sunday to save costs. We only do standard on Sunday anyway.
NO to five day delivery! it is the only edge we have on our competition. they charge to deliver or they do not deliver at all.
let the public know this
saturday mail delivery is no longer needed. five day delivery will save money how can it not.
Our primary advantage over UPS and FEDEX is that we deliver on Saturdays and they don't. While in the short term the five day scheme would save money, I agree that it can be a very slippery slope in the long run. Don't you now wish that the USPS had made more of an effort to reclaim our package business from UPS when they were on strike in 1997-8?
If the post office wants to cut costs, I would suggest eliminating the vast variety of stamp designs and denominations they produce. A few basic designs per year should suffice both for postage and for interesting collecting. For example, the basic First Class stamp, the .01 cent denomination, the .10 cent denomination, plus $1 and maybe $5 denominations would work for making up the shipping cost on most packages. Additional denominations would be in the form of the bar code system, which is already in use. These stickers are rather plain, ....but could have a better design that could change annually. Collectors could start collecting various postage amounts rather than just stamp designs. As a stamp collector myself, I love variety. But,.... I still have to admit that standard postage stamps need to be implemented in order to save cash. The closure of post offices and the installation of self-serve machines in stores would most likely lead to bar code postage on those packages. So why not do the same in ALL post offices. ~~James Speorl-Frederick, MD
People need to realize that doing a way with 6 day delivery will be the end of the Postal Service. People who think they are just going to get weekends off will be sorry when they no longer have a job at all. If the law is changed to allow less than 6 day delivery it doesn't mean it will go to 5. It means that it doesn't have to be 6. It could be 3 or 2 or none. It is the first step to privitization. this change is not needed. There are better ways to deal with the problem without destroying the Postal Serive and putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work.
Like everyone has already commented, 5-day delivery makes sense in this new economic times. Saturday delivery can be eliminated and will save the Postal Service a lot. Rising fuel costs and another day of Carriers risking injury while walking could save millions of dollars.
Perhaps a 5 day delivery week will save some money, but I dont believe the Postal Service has taken a serious, in depth look at where money is going. In my dept. management spends nearly $50,000 per month outsourcing my job to local automotive dealerships and towing companies...while paying me to do menial work.
Unless thee are laws prohibiting this, the USPS should consider creating revenue by allowing local businesses to advertise on our LLV and other delivery vehicles. We could use vinyl murals on one side of the vehicle, target certain neighborhoods by vehicle routes, etc. Businesses would pay for the mural and pay for predetermined time lots, much like billboards all over cities.
instead of giving reduced service to our customers,how about reducing the number of managers,i mean you cant ignore the fact that all this five day talk coincides with the labor contracts expiring.we have less clerks, less carriers, less mail...the SAME AMOUNT OF MANAGMENT.IT doesnt make sense.Also how dare jack potter take a 850thousand dollar bonus on a company swimming in red ink.Cut the fat jack where it belongs(no pun intended) cut mgmt.across the board 25% and eliminate undeserved bonus.
The Postal Service needs to seriously look at the no-fee Post Office Box regulation. Many of the offices without city delivery have lost a tremendous amount of revenue because of this regulation. Unless I'm incorrect on my interpretation of the regulation, anyone living in a community without city delivery has the option of putting a box up on the rural carrier's line of travel thus they have an avenue for free delivery. Why do we "give away" our PO Boxes?
I think cutting out Saturday delivery makes sense in many ways! Businesses are closed, adn most people don't care about getting mail on Saturday's. Cutting out Tuesday's would only make business customers angry, as that is still a normal workday for them. Remeber the fiasco we had when President Reagan died, and we were closed for three days??? Holidays would be chaotic! Close Saturdays, make the employees happy with a two-day weekend, cut down on the need for utility carriers (and the costs associated with the extra workforce, I.e. benefits) and overtime...it only makes sense!
I would say make it five day deliveries(M-F no one likes to work on weekends unless it is their second Job or looking for overtime money or not enough money to meet their needs and this need to be studied on a case to case basis) and only have main Post offices open on Saturday doing additional convenient services like selling post cards, issuing Pasports, Passport photoes and other services as opening them on that day is not a liability but a revenue. Also have special Express mail deliveries rates for Priority and Express mails where when it is delivered counts. Everyday delivery and expected only to those services. No one can claim any damages for not getting their mail delivered on Saturday if they use first class mail. If reducing to 5 day reduces jobs and not losses then look at alternate source of revenue doing other services other than delivering on Saturday. If some locations are overwhelmed with work, we need to have good system where people are allocated based on volume. The automated system should be able to track easily how much volume each origin location can generate and its revenue. This should be good indicator for Projected Financials and staff allocation and future planning of services and staff.
With the stamp price increase and no longer having to pre-fund retirement (both will happen), six day delivery service can continue--as Saturday delivery makes the USPS special and doesn't eliminate a day of what we are suppose to do---provide service!
Five day delivery will save $$ and scheduling headaches. Any time we can save money, do it. The 2 cent increase will only affect the average family about 40 to 80 cents per month, can't say that about anything else that has increased lately.
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