US Mailers’ Group Urges Sweeping Postal Reform
The U.S. Postal Service is in “financial and systemic distress,” a coalition of mailers said in a letter delivered to four members of the House of Representatives.
“True postal reform can be achieved only through a comprehensive set of measures … that address the difficult, yet crucial, issues of cost control and regulatory oversight,” said Robert Walker, head of Postal Reform in the Public Interest and one of nine members of the President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service last year, in the letter.
Postal Reform in the Public Interest represents First Class and small- volume mailers. Organizing members include the Greeting Card Association, the Newspaper Association of America, the McGraw-Hill Companies, American Business Media, and Reed Elsevier Inc.
The letter was sent to Tom Davis, R-VA, and Henry Waxman, D-CA, of the House Committee on Government Reform, and John McHugh, R-NY, and Danny Davis, D-IL, of the Special Panel on Postal Reform and Oversight.
Walker said that the USPS should be free to optimize its facility network and retail operations, including workforce, without interference by Congress. It also supports a collective bargaining process that includes alternatives to the current binding arbitration process, and that would result in “wage and benefit levels comparable to those in the private sector.”
Because the postal service is “a monopoly provider for most of its products,” Walker urged regulatory oversight that includes subpoena power.
