Quotable: "It is said when rumors replace information as a form of communication in an organization, you can be certain the organization is in trouble. If so, the Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union are in dire straits. While  postal employees and union members wait for hard information about rapidly changing events affecting their jobs, the storms swirling about the Postal Service continue to build. A partisan Republican committee is now plotting to change the laws that govern the Postal Service. The plan they present to Congress will certainly contain attacks on APWU members' jobs and benefits and possibly an attack on collective bargaining rights."  excerpt from "Workers Deserve More than Rumors"   Dan Sullivan, Editor Southwest Michigan APWU

Quotable: Omar. M. Gonzalez,  APWU Western Regional  Coordinator, described what he witnesses in Los Angeles on April 4 as "alarming." The commissioners seemed interested in only two things-limiting 'universal service' and finding ways to eliminate postal workers, " Gonzales said. The focus of that hearing was "Private-Sector Partnerships," yet panelists seemed to favor retaining "only the first mile and the last mile" from the current system, he said. "In other words, collection and delivery. There is a real danger that the commission is just trying to make it easier to privatize the system." The earlier public hearing (Austin, Tx, March 18) focused on the impact of technology on the nation's mail- delivery system. Yet those with the largest stake in the system-ordinary citizens-were able to participate in this "public hearings only when granted a few minutes to speak at the end of each session

Quotable: By and large, the Commission's members seem to be interested and engaged in the process. But let's face one very important fact; the Commission, which is comprised of intelligent and well-spoken Bush appointees, has had little, if any, prior exposure to the operations of the postal system. They are being asked to fully understand and thoroughly comprehend the complexities of a centuries- old organization - one that has evolved from horseback mail processing to our modern- day, highly-regulated, service-driven, digital sortation system. And they also are expected to absorb the details of  the competitive environment in which the Postal Service operates, to take into consideration the complete culture of the postal workforce, and to respect the work of the postal unions that have struggled endlessly to create a better, safer, and more productive workplace. Mark A. Gardner National Secretary-Treasurer National Postal Mail Handlers Union

Who Pulls the Strings at the Postal Service

"The Postal Service's mission of providing mail service to every American community, established by our nation's founding fathers nearly 230 years ago, was reaffirmed by Congress in the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. "The Postal Service  shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the nation together through the personal educational, literary and business correspondence of the people," the law states. "It shall provide prompt, reliable and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities."

In theory and in past practice, this means the Postal Service should serve the public above all by providing universal service at uniform rates. Today, however, public interests are often forgotten, and postal policy makers are increasingly serving one special interest — giant business mailers — due to the Washington, DC, special-interest game. In fact, corporate mailers wrote much of the Postal Service's Transformation Plan, a roadmap for rolling back six-day delivery and closing facilities, particularly in smaller rural and inner-city communities.

The Postal Service sponsors the Mailing Industry Task Force, ostensibly to provide a forum for senior postal managers   and the Postal Service's larger customers to communicate about technical issues and postal operations — all well and good: Business mailers are the Postal Service's largest customers, and the USPS has an obligation to serve all its customers well. Working behind closed doors, however, to develop and lobby for policies that favor mailing industry interests over public interests is another story.

Mailers 'Seize Opportunity'

In March 2000, the Task Force — led by Deputy Postmaster General John Nolan and Pitney Bowes CEO Michael J. Critelli — began working behind closed doors to develop the Postal Service's strategy for the future. As a willing partner, the Postal Service is counting on Task Force members to conduct lobbying and public relations campaigns to sell the reforms that the Postal Service and the mailing industry want.

In October 2001, the Task Force submitted to the Postal Service Office of Strategic Planning its aptly named report,        Seizing Opportunity, which contained many of the industry's recommendations for changing postal policies. Six months later, much of the report was prominently featured in the Transformation Plan. "The good ideas developed in 2001," Critelli said in the Task Force's Fall 2002 Progress Report to the Postal Service, "have been able to move quickly from concept to reality because of the remarkable collaboration between the industry members and the Postal Service."

As it happens, one of the Task Force's "good ideas" is the creation of a "corporate pricing plan." This new category of below-cost postage rates would enable the industry to further escape paying its fair share of the costs for the infrastructure the Postal Service needs in order to equally serve every American community. According to the Task Force report, USPS Vice President for Pricing and Classification Steve Kearney and the mailers developed it among 150 other new pricing "ideas" through brainstorming sessions, workshops, and interviews with mailing industry executives. The report further notes: "The Task Force applauded the decision by the Postal Service to include development of a 'corporate pricing plan' as an   objective of its Transformation Plan.

The Task Force has also created "an industry-wide Transformation Plan effort [to] develop and launch an advertising and marketing program ... directed towards influencers whose opinions and commentary could affect the outcome of legislative reform efforts."

Questionable Relationships

Under the law, Postal Service and all government agency employees are barred from directly or indirectly trying to influence members of Congress. Though the Postal Service collaborated with the mailers in drafting a master plan for transformation, it cannot legally lobby for the legislation required to enact certain components of the Transformation Plan, such as    changing the rate-making process, rolling back worker's collective bargaining rights, closing facilities, and ending six-day delivery.

The Task Force got around this problem by recommending the creation of a separate legal entity, the Mailing Industry CEO Council, to lobby Congress and conduct a public relations campaign to support the legislative changes the industry and the USPS both want. Unlike their private-sector Task Force colleagues, USPS officials will not serve on the CEO Council.

Members of the CEO Council will personally contact legislators to press the case for postal reform and, according to a    Sept. 23, 2002, Associated Press (AP) report, "the council will conduct grassroots campaigns through mailing industry employees, and use the Washington-based media to target legislators and other 'influentials,' and David Sable, a CEO Council board member and President of  Wunderman New York, who, along with Critelli, co-chairs the council's strategic planning committee. By the way, Sable's direct-mail and public relations company is in charge of the mailer's public relations efforts.

Though the Postal Service cannot officially participate in the CEO Council's lobbying activities, it tacitly endorses them, or at least the deputy postmaster general does. The Sept. 23, AP report also said, "The CEO Council will be able to raise the voice of the mailing industry, and be heard above the din of other interest groups, such as private shipping companies and employees unions said John Nolan, the Deputy Postmaster General. Nolan sits with other CEO Council members on the Mailing Industry Task Force, which works on proposals for postal reform. 'When it comes to the legislation, the squeaky wheel sometimes gets the grease, and so it makes a lot of sense. It's just that we can't advise them what to do,' Nolan said."

That the Postal Service is relying on the mailing industry to do the dirty work of lobbying for its Transformation Plan is made clear not only in Task Force reports it makes available on its Web site, Mailing Industry Task Force, but in the statements    of its other leaders as well.

At a Sept. 25, 2002, meeting of the National Postal Forum in Boston, USPS Board of Governors Vice Chairman S. David Fineman asked the mailing industry leaders to support the Postal Service's plant consolidation plans. A congressman "ranting and raving about what happens to

XYZ community," Fineman said, "might be right because XYZ is terribly affected... But I'll tell you right now, if you people and others don't have any backbone and stand with us as we begin to downsize the Postal Service, it will not happen... Stand  with us, shoulder to shoulder as we start to move in to the 21st Century." Fineman chairs the governors' strategic planning committee.

That Pesky 'Universal Service Burden'

The mailers and their CEO Council will likely heed Fineman's call to arms because the projected savings from closings would be needed to offset the revenue the Postal Service will lose if their plans for postal rate-setting and corporate pricing become a reality. A cheaper Postal Service means even cheaper rates for business and advertising mail.

So perhaps it is not surprising that the mailers' Transformation Plan calls for relieving the Postal Service from its "universal service burden" of maintaining the workforce, facilities, and equipment needed to operate the 38,000 postal facilities. The plan calls for pursuing "regulatory and legislative reform to provide the Postal Service the latitude to adjust service levels   and delivery frequency."

The Transformation Plan was developed with plenty of input from the mailing industry, but virtually none from its workforce   or ordinary customers. As a result, it is a blueprint for keeping big mailers' rates down, no matter the cost to postal workers or the American people.

Source: The American Postal Worker Jan/Feb 2003 issue  pages 20-21