On Mar 15, 8:54 pm, pjb...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Paul J. Berg) wrote:
> `
> News article from Northwest Labor Press (****tland, Oregon)
>
> `
> A Beaverton (Oregon) postmaster's decision to contract out mail delivery
> is producing a major outcry among union letter carriers. National
> Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 82 has filed a complaint
> against Postmaster John Lee, and as of press time was planning to picket
> outside his office on March 15.
>
> Residents aren't too pleased either. For over a month, homeowners at the
> new Arbor Parc Bethany housing development had to drive 10 miles
> roundtrip to a postal sorting station to pick up their mail.
>
> The dispute is a local skirmish in a national war of ideology within the
> United States Postal Service (USPS). The Bush-appointed majority on the
> Postal Board of Governors has been pu****ng USPS to assign more
> deliveries to private contractors. Board Chair James C. Miller III, a
> former Reagan budget director, has called for wholesale postal
> privatization. NALC has energetically opposed the ****ft, arguing that
> privatization would not only threaten the jobs and incomes of America's
> 325,000 letter carriers, but would also compromise the security,
> efficiency and integrity of the mail, and put the long-term viability of
> the Postal Service in jeopardy.
>
> In Beaverton, Willie Higgins just wanted to get his mail. Higgins was
> the first person to move into the Arbor Parc development, in the Bethany
> neighborhood north of Interstate 26.
>
> Unpacking in his just-finished townhouse, he waited for a mailbox key to
> appear under his mat. It never came. Phone calls to Arbor Homes brought
> bad news: Delivery service - to the community mailboxes at the end of
> his street - would have to wait until mid-summer, when the development
> is half-full, he was told. Until then, he'd have to drive to Hillsboro
> to get his mail, a location that closes at 4 p.m.
>
> And yet, all around him and across the street from him, older residences
> and businesses were getting regular mail service.
>
> "I don't understand why the guy who delivers mail across the street
> couldn't simply add the new boxes to his route," said L.C. Hansen,
> president of NALC Branch 82. That's the way USPS normally handles new
> deliveries, Hansen said.
>
> Instead, residents had to pick up their own mail while USPS advertised
> for a contractor.
>
> USPS area spokesperson Kerry Jeffrey had few answers to Labor Press
> questions about the contracting process, but sources in the Beaverton
> post office said the Arbor Parc Bethany contract was advertised on
> Craigslist, and no qualified contractors stepped forward. When USPS
> started getting calls from several newspapers, management asked
> supervisors if they knew anyone who could deliver the route. On March 9,
> USPS signed a 120-day emergency contract with the son of a Beaverton
> postal supervisor, who then subcontracted with his girlfriend to do the
> delivery. Service to the development began March 12.
>
> But the inconvenience to Higgins and his neighbors calls into question
> the postmaster's assertion - in a Jan. 29 letter to Hansen - that
> contracting out wouldn't harm the public interest. Under its nationwide
> labor agreement with NALC, public interest is one of several things USPS
> is supposed to consider before contracting out - along with cost,
> efficiency and qualification of employees.
>
> USPS has had the option to contract out delivery since the Postal
> Reorganization Act of 1970, and private contractors already handle 1.9
> percent of deliveries nationwide - mainly on highway routes in rural
> areas.
>
> Arbor Parc is a change in scale. While Hansen was told to expect 374 new
> residences at that particular development,
> Jeffrey said 12,000 to 15,000 homes are planned for the area. That would
> make it the largest private postal delivery contract in Oregon and
> Southwest Wa****ngton, and could account for as many as a dozen letter
> carrier jobs.
>
> Jeffrey stressed that Post Office management isn't converting existing
> routes to private carriers, just new routes.
>
> But such assurances aren't much comfort to letter carriers, who see
> Arbor Parc as a foot in a door, and worry that the door will soon be
> wide open.
>
> Lee, who came to Beaverton after a two-year stint as postmaster in
> Tacoma, Wa****ngton, initiated a smaller privatization there last year
> when a newly built 128-unit condominium - a downtown city block
> surrounded by existing postal routes - was assigned to a contractor.
> That's the kind of thing that drives Hansen up the wall. Computerized
> route management and automated sorting have made the U.S. Postal Service
> the most efficient in the world, but Hansen thinks privatization could
> undo that. How could it be efficient to have letter carriers walking all
> around a building, but leaving the building itself to a private
> contractor who would have to make a special trip?
>
> "Universal delivery is an economic strength of our postal system,"
> Hansen said. "I don't think it's possible to lose economy of scale and
> not lose economic efficiency also."
>
> Letter carriers are also worried about erosion of public confidence in
> the mails.
>
> While the Internet has emerged as a postal service competitor, the
> public still views mail as the safest way to pay bills.
>
> But what happens when the public sees contractors in street clothes
> driving up in their own personal vehicles and opening mailboxes? And
> what will be the impact of higher turnover, diluted accountability,
> diminished professionalism? Union letter carriers are long-term, career
> employees of USPS, starting at $17 an hour and topping out at $22,
> whereas contract employees who clear $10 an hour will jump ****p when an
> $11-an-hour job comes along.
>
> And, Hansen adds, NALC members are federal employees who take an oath to
> uphold the Constitution. They have relation****ps in the community,
> collect food for the needy in annual drives, and serve as neighborhood
> eyes and ears.
>
> They are trained and ready to deliver medicine in the event of a
> national emergency, and are committed enough that mail service was
> uninterrupted in the days following the 2001 anthrax attacks.
>
> Two out of five USPS letter carriers are armed services veterans, owing
> to federal hiring rules that give preference to veterans. Contractors
> face no such requirement.
>
> USPS is America's second largest employer after Wal-Mart, and as
> employers they could hardly be more different.
>
> Jeffrey, the Postal spokesperson, said USPS has worked hard to answer
> concerns the public has had about contract employees. Contract letter
> carriers will be licensed and bonded, he said, will wear uniforms and a
> postal ID, and go through a criminal background check.
>
> In the final analysis, USPS decisions to contract out are supposed to be
> justified by cost savings. NALC disputes the notion that contracting
> saves money, but that's the rationale offered by Postmaster Lee, who
> forecast USPS will save $33,878 a year by assigning Arbor Parc to a
> contractor. Lee didn't return calls, and Jeffrey said he didn't know how
> the figure was arrived at. Hansen has demanded to know what the figure
> is based on, but so far hasn't been given the information.
>
> Stopping privatization is im****tant enough to NALC that the union agreed
> in recent contract negotiations to accept a more modest health benefit
> in exchange for a pledge not to contract out existing city carrier work.
> The postmaster general seemed to agree, but the Board of Governors
> rejected the deal, and the two sides then declared impasse. Under the
> rules for postal employee contract bargaining, the next phase will be
> mediation, followed by binding arbitration if no agreement is reached.
>
> Since then, union leaders say, there's been a ramp-up in contracting out
> around the country, with managers trained and given manuals that specify
> how to contract out.
>
> "We believe there's pressure being put on Postal Service management by
> the Board of Governors, a Board dominated by Bush appointees," said NALC
> national spokesperson Drew Von Bergen. "These people are unabashedly for
> privatization of the postal service, and if they can't do it in whole,
> they'll do it in parts."
>
> In a nutshell, Hansen says, politicians are interfering with effective
> postal management. "That's why we're going to the court of public
> opinion with a picket. We need the public to know what's going on."
>
> `
>What a horrible idea..I would have to wait until Saturday to pick up
a week's worth of mail then. I think I would just cancel all my
magazine
subscriptions then and just buy them..and let the
"post office" get rid of my junk mail!
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