"Tucson mail-sorting center set to close in April" (Congress: law, association)

[Jun2018]

[quote=BajaAZ;36487363]The mail sorting center closing is just a sign of the times, not really a knock against Tucson. It definitely stinks in terms of job loss and whatnot, but anybody who works for the USPS has to know that their jobs are in danger as very few people use the mail service any longer except for junk mail. Important business documents and packages are almost always FedEx or UPS, there is almost nothing in the way of sending personal letters any longer, etc.. All over the country staffing is down and they haven't even got close to paring down enough to meet the severely diminishing demand.


Both UPS and FedEx rely on the Postal Office for the back-end of their cheaper two- to seven-day delivery options, Smartpost for FedEx and Surepost for UPS. Amazon also uses the USPS and enlisted it for Sunday deliveries. The post office's Parcel Select service, launched in its current format in 2008, allows the companies to transport the packages the long distance themselves, then sort by ZIP Code and deliver to the local post office. The letter carrier takes it for the most expensive last leg of the delivery. More work
now then ever...

[beTucsonan]

Originally Posted by Jun2018

Both UPS and FedEx rely on the Postal Office for the back-end of their cheaper two- to seven-day delivery options, Smartpost for FedEx and Surepost for UPS. Amazon also uses the USPS and enlisted it for Sunday deliveries. The post office's Parcel Select service, launched in its current format in 2008, allows the companies to transport the packages the long distance themselves, then sort by ZIP Code and deliver to the local post office. The letter carrier takes it for the most expensive last leg of the delivery. More work now then ever...

Not really. Those programs help, but it's a well published fact that the USPS' total delivery volumes are down and they are bleeding money. Volume is down, for example, about 25% at the Cherrybell sorting center in particular. Because of their commitment to deliver to every address (most of which now is bulk junk mail), the postal service basically loses money for each delivery they make. As you note here, they have made some changes to try and alleviate the situation, but neither of these programs - Smartpost or Surepost - are making enough money for them. In fact they posted a $5 billion loss last year (and almost $15 billion the year before!) That makes four straight years of billion dollar losses, btw, with 2014 looking to make it 5.

In response to these declining volumes and revenue the USPS has already closed over 200 mail sorting centers, and now they are closing 252 more, going from 673 sorting centers in 2006 to only a little over 200 after the latest rounds of closures are complete, including the one in Tucson.

With the population density in Southern Arizona as a whole being as low as it is, the targeting of this center doesn't surprise me, and keep in mind that this isn't new - the process of shutting this center down started in 2011. We can likely rely dependably on the Phoenix sorting centers for all of our needs. It will be a little slower, maybe, but consider that so far the only people to sound that alarm are the Tucson Letter Carrier's Association - not a group I'd call unbiased.

[LittleGirly]

Originally Posted by Jun2018

Here are the facts. The Postal Service’s financial report for fiscal 2014’s third-quarter showed earnings increasing in each mail category: packages up 6.6 percent, standard mail up 5.2 percent and first-class mail up 3.2 percent. Overall, revenue rose by $424 million. Why the positive trend? As the economy gradually improves, letter revenue has followed suit. Meanwhile, rising online shopping has boosted package deliveries, making the Internet a net positive (and belying your claim that digital communications are hurting the Postal Service). USPS, which gets no taxpayer money, has a $1 billion operating profit so far this year and has been operationally profitable since October 2012 – earning more revenue selling stamps than it spends delivering the mail. Why, then, the red ink? Simply put: congressional interference. In 2006, Congress mandated that the Postal Service prefund future retiree health benefits. No other public or private entity is required to prefund for even one year; USPS must pre-fund the next 75 years ahead and pay for it all over 10 years. That’s the red ink. Rather than break what works, Congress should fix what it broke by addressing the prefunding fiasco....

Exactly. Thanks for typing that up because that is the reason why they are hurting financially. They are pre-funding employees that haven't been born yet. 75 yrs of retirement funding now and no other company, corporation or governmental service has to do this. Google it.

[bongo_x]

Exactly. The Republican plan for years has been to break our public services and then say "see, they don’t work" so they can shut them down. Since the USPS works just fine they had to resort to extreme measures. Many rich people don’t think they need public services. Rich doesn’t equal smart, no matter what they would have you believe.

[Bummer]

OMG . . . now it is George W's fault.

[tumamoc]

Other than lost jobs, it's not a big deal at all. In-town mail is already sent to Phoenix. Any delay coming back here is unnoticeable.

[Jukesgrrl]

Originally Posted by Jun2018

... Simply put: congressional interference. In 2006, Congress mandated that the Postal Service prefund future retiree health benefits. No other public or private entity is required to prefund for even one year; USPS must pre-fund the next 75 years ahead and pay for it all over 10 years. That’s the red ink. Rather than break what works, Congress should fix what it broke by addressing the prefunding fiasco....

This cannot be pointed out often enough. The USPS is bleeding money because Congress set it up to do exactly that. It is not necessary. These retirement funding requirements are NOT, repeat NOT, the way it's done in the private sector. it's the simple reason why private enterprise appears to be able to deliver letters and packages cheaper than government employees can do it. This was an end run around the public's desire to support their local post office, with employees they know from their community, over anonymous corporate entities that might be thousands of miles away from where they live. When Congress wants to kill off unionized, publicly funded jobs, they often do so in a most nefarious way.

[beTucsonan]

Well - this is all pretty off-topic, but the prefunding thing isn't quite the mess everybody is making it out to be. It's a requirement to prefund the retirement liabilities of current employees or current pensioners, not any future employees, etc.. The reason that 75-years gets tossed around is due to accounting rules (which apply to all pension funds) factored in with life expectancy, etc.. The reason for all of this is that the USPS was dramatically underfunding it's pension on a massive scale, approaching a $100-billion dollar shortfall. There were motions to force the same requirements on private-sector pension funds but they failed for various (and somewhat obvious) reasons. The reason the legislation worked with the USPS and the USPS alone is due to it's semi-private/semi-public nature and the resulting fact that congress has a lot more oversight over USPS than private companies.

The USPS was essentially bankrupting it's pension plan, and itself along with it, and as we've seen in the private sector that creates other disastrous problems that none off us would have liked to see or to deal with. It needed to be done to 1) save the USPS and 2) to save the pensions of the the 600,000+ workers currently employed at the USPS. Consider the ramifications of any private sector dumping the pensions of over a half-million active workers plus however many retirees.

Bringing it back around to the topic at hand, if the result of this is streamlining operation costs, and if that means closing a half-operational sorting center in Tucson: fine. They clearly needed to get their books in order and that is always painful, but not taking this action, and others, would be more troublesome in the long run.

[LittleGirly]

Baja, I've never read anything of the sort that you posted. Would you care to give us your source for that? Thanks.

[beTucsonan]

Originally Posted by LittleGirly

Baja, I've never read anything of the sort that you posted. Would you care to give us your source for that? Thanks.

No problem:

1) Here's the bill itself: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407 - the stuff we're discussing is in Title VIII, and it's important to read through it so you realize much of what is often stated as "fact" is really not quite so, but for skimmers, here's the Congression Research Service's summary: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bil...hr6407#summary
2) Here's a Wall Street Journal article discussing it, and a plan to help alleviate the mess: 'Prefunding' Benefits, New Services and the New USPS - pay attention to the President of the National Association of Letter Carrier's commentary, being that while $50 billion has been put into the "pre-fund" account it is not enough since they currently carry a $100-billion dollar liability.
3) Here's a CNBC interview with House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa: The Truth About The Post Office's Financial Mess - here, at least, you'll find mention of the OPM financial guidelines which create the "75 year" issue.
4) Here's a NY Times op-ed where the author discusses the timeline a bit, the important bits (to me) being that the USPS pushed for this, that the whole mess is not some new thing but a result of the fact that USPS spending counts against the deficit, and also - very importantly - that the bill wasn't a problem for anybody until USPS shipments starting falling through the floor (in fact, as noted, they were already overpaying on their retirement benefits): http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/op...fice.html?_r=0

There's a ton of this stuff out there. There are a million articles about this going in any political direction you like, but one thing you should take note of - most of the articles debasing the pre-funding came after 2012 as the USPS approached a default on it's required payment. This "6-years hindsight" sort of politicking is not only unfair, but useless - at the time the USPS, the Unions, etc., all supported prefunding. If it needs to be fixed, it can be, just like any other legislation can be. In the meantime, streamlining operations can't really be a bad thing, for USPS or any other organization.