December 19, 2008 - Moe Lepore, the General President of the Boston Metro Area Local of the APWU, has asked for the public's support in protecting the Postal Service from being systematically dismantled by a management group intent on following corporate ideology that prioritizes downsizing and outsourcing (even at higher costs) rather than growing our business through dedication to service.
Read the Editorial by Moe Lepore.
October, 2008 - The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released a report determining that Bulk Mail Acceptance Units have not been following proper verification prodecures in performing business mail acceptance, putting $2,518,008 revenue at risk.
November 28, 2008 - Sales and Service Associates across the country have been repeatedly instructed not to offer Parcel Post to our customers, and APWU representatives have been contacted by many SSA's complaining that they have been threatened with discipline and even termination if their supervisor catches them offering Parcel Post. This widely issued message is now denied by a USPS spokesperson on a hidden camera investigation conducted by NBC local news in Washington, DC.
Watch the hidden camera video on NBC local news in Washington, DC
September, 2008 - An anonymous window clerk has sent a tip to The Consumerist web site that they have received instructions from USPS management to stop offering first class, parcel post, and media mail service to customers. Only customers who ask will be told about our lower cost services and products.
Read the letter written by the anonymous window clerk
October 27, 2008 - The case initiated by the Postal Regulatory Commission this past June to address allegations of undue discrimination and other issues raised by Capital One Services, Inc. is still in the discovery phase. The allegations stem from Capital One's interest in obtaining a rate agreement from the Postal Service on terms that are the same as or similar to those another major mailer has received. The motion of the United States Postal Service to dismiss the complaint, filed July 21, 2008, was denied.
(October 22, 2008) - APWU President Bill Burrus has written an open letter to Postmaster General Jack Potter regarding the economic future of the United States Postal Service. President Burrus has called on PMG Potter to evict the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) from postal headquarters.
Read the Letter By President Burrus
(October 17, 2008) - Alexander Lazaroff, head of the United States Postal Inspection Service, announced his retirement two weeks after ABC News aired a report about an OIG investigation of Mr. Lazaroff's postal expenditures.
January, 2009 - Mike Gallagher, Eastern Region Coordinator for the national APWU, wrote an article for the January/February 2009 issue of The Postal Worker about contracting out postal work and taking work away from union postal employees. The USPS strategic plan to contract out parcel-post work to private companies is just part of the back-door privatization the Postal Service has been engaged in over the past number of years, in spite of the higher costs and lower efficiency.
Read Mike Gallagher's Article About Contracting Out
October, 2008 - The Office of the Inspector General has released the audit report of an investigation into the activation of the new Philadelphia P&DC at Lindbergh Boulevard. The report found that delayed mail significantly increased in 2007 after the opening of the new plant in 2006, and gave recommendations to postal management on ways to improve the performance indicators that sagged after the plant moved from 30th Street to Lindbergh Boulevard.
October, 2008 - The APWU Local at the New Lots Station in Brooklyn, New York City, is circulating a petition to protest management's recent instructions regarding the handling of international registered mail. The petition reads as follows:
We, The Undersigned, are all employees of the United States Postal Service, New Lots Station, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11208. We find it objectionable and deplorable that Upper Management is forcing us to commit a Federal offense, when we handle the international Registered mail. The practice of international inbound Registered mail being treated as First Class without securing it, is in direct violation of the International Mail manual, Article 752.13, entitled: Treatment of Registered Items, which reads as follows: “All mail registered by the country of origin must be given the same handling as domestic Registered Mail items.” Clerks are forced to throw international Registered Mail into hampers, mix it with Loop Mail and missents, fish it out of the incoming flats, letters and parcels in the mornings, and toss the "Return To Sender" international Registered Mail into the “bang-bangs.” Carriers numerous times have discovered international Registered items in the D. P. S., while walking their routes. In the mornings, before leaving, when they discover international Registered Mail, this, along with what the clerks find, is when the registry first receives it! We despise and protest this violence against “The Sanctity Of The Mails.”
The APWU clerks in the New Lots Station are hoping other union locals follow suit with circulating this petition. Joy Goldberg, the APWU steward at the station, plans to file grievances each time clerks are asked to ignore IMM Article 752.13.
December 12, 2008 - According to the Federal Times, the USPS may be the next business to ask Congress for financial assistance. Experts say the next Congress will have to make a tough choice: Either allow the Postal Service to operate more like a business, which could mean numerous facility closures and the end of Saturday delivery, or hand out billions of dollars in subsidies to keep the Postal Service solvent. In addition, the agency plans to cut 100 million work hours this fiscal year, its board of governors announced last week.
December, 2008 - The Philadelphia Daily News has published a story every day since December 1, revealing falsified mail counts, delayed and hidden mail, and even mail destroyed to conceal lateness at the Lindbergh Boulevard plant. On December 9, the Daily News editorial called for a congressional investigation into tampering with the mail. The OIG is currently conducting a civil and criminal investigation into the complaints.
August, 2008 - The Postal Service reported a net loss of more than a billion dollars in the third quarter of the fiscal year. Let's see, first there's the $30 million in non-machinable surcharges the USPS failed to collect from Netflix to cover the cost of clerks and carriers manually culling the CD's from collection mail (OIG). Then, there's the $17.8 million overpaid to FEDEX for mail transportation and the $33 million the USPS can't account for in facilities repair and vehicle expenses (OIG). Throw in short-paid bulk business mailings and Click'n'Ship parcels, union-busting outsourcing deals, equipment such as pallets and hampers that contractors take from the post office and never bring back, and the discounts given to bulk business mailers that give service below cost. Do you get the feeling we are the crew on a ship that is deliberately being steered toward the rocks by its captain? Just make sure you take no longer than 1 minute and 27 seconds to get that extra dollar from Grandma mailing a birthday parcel before we sink.
(November 17, 2008) The USPS Board of Governors has hired an outside investigator to look into concerns about discounts the PMG may have received on his mortgage from Countrywide Financial Corporation. This investigation comes on the heels of the retirement of the nation's Chief Postal Inspector, Alexander Lazaroff, following an ABC news investigation into Mr. Lazaroff's postal expenditures.
Read the Associated Press story about the Postmaster General
On Thursday, July 24, 2008, the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia began a hearing entitled, “The Three R’s of the Postal Network Plan: Realignment, Right-Sizing, and Responsiveness.” The hearing will examine the Network Plan’s potential impact on the public, the postal workforce, the mailing industry and the future economic health of the Postal Service.
Read Bill Burrus' Testimony about the USPS Network Plan
JOHN ANASTASI, Bucks County Courier Times, September 14, 2008 - American Postal Workers Union leaders are fighting a U.S. Postal Service proposal to outsource processing work at the nation's 21 bulk mail centers, saying it could hurt service and result in lost union jobs. “We believe that if they get away with this, they could go after the next group [of public postal employees],” said Vince Tarducci. He's president of the APWU Local 7048, which covers the Philadelphia Bulk Mail Center on Philadelphia's Byberry Road. “They could continue to cut out government workers. ... They want to farm it out to people who are not in public service.”