Postal service has been slipping

Postal service has been slipping

I’ve been watching the news programs and reading The Vindicator about the proposed closings at our local Post Office installation.

I have worked for the United States Postal Service for almost 35 years now. Every time a new piece of machinery was introduced to the postal service production line, we were told there would be a reduction of jobs and faster delivery of the mail. Delivery of the mail on time was always the most important thing. It seems that is no longer the truth.

The powers that be in the postal service have chosen to become part of the problem rather than the solution. When I first started at the Post Office there was 1 supervisor for every 16 to 18 employees. now there is 1 supervisor for every 5 to 6 employees. Bargaining unit positions were eliminated over the years while supervisor positions were increased. Those supervisory positions make a lot more money than the bargaining unit employees positions make.

I’ve heard the postmaster general’s claim of the employees making so much more than employees in the private sector. I can’t understand that, because there isn’t really a private sector to compare with. I do have to cite the way postal managers are able to write up their own step increase awards and promotion chances. Jjust where in the private sector does that happen? Or when a manager continues to cause grievances to be filed over and over again for the same reason that end up costing the USPS millions of dollars and that same manager is promoted to a higher paying position. Where does that happen in the private sector?

Along with the federal government adding military pensions to the USPS responsibilities, the monetary budget required to fund the retirement has increased enormously. A lot of the self imposed costs the USPS has seem to be designed for self-destruction. No business could survive with a plan like that. I really wish someone would look into that and find out why failures by upper management seem to be treated differently.

Each and every time that old machines were replaced with newer machines, the postal service just scrapped all the old machines; that’s right, straight to the junk yards.

The postal service was never designed to be a money-making venue. It was designed to be a service to the public. My feeling is that some very smart people figured if there was a way to eliminate universal delivery, there was money to be made in the heavily populated areas, and that has been their goal over the past few years.

There has been a systematic effort to cut goods and services to the public to raise their dissatisfaction and ire with how the postal service is operated and create bad public opinion.

Now we’re being told by postal officials to expect longer delivery times for first-class mail while paying higher postal rates. One solution could be to go back to the old days, put 2 collection boxes out , 1 for local mail, 1 for out of town mail that could be sent to Cleveland for processing.

James E. Murphy Jr., Austintown