Carper: Millions of jobs at risk from continuing delay over US postal reform

The US senator leading efforts to pass vital postal reform legislation in Congress has called on his colleagues to get on board. Half the Senate signed a letter last week demanding a one-year moratorium on any consolidation in the US mail processing network.

The financially struggling Postal Service is currently preparing to close 82 more of its mail processing plants from January 2015 in order to cut its operating costs by $750m a year and reduce losses.

The 42 Democrat and six Republican senators, many of whom face elections this November, said in their letter that a one-year delay on such closures would allow Congress time to pass postal reform legislation to fix the Postal Service’s underlying problems.

However, Tom Carper, the chairman of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said yesterday that instead of lobbying to block reform of the US mail infrastructure, his colleagues should work to pass the postal reform legislation currently awaiting a floor vote.

Carper said if his bill is passed this autumn, it would preserve existing mail standards and protect the 82 mail plants targeted for closure, until other reforms start to take effect.

Commenting on the demand for a moratorium, Carper said: “The Postal Service continues to face severe financial challenges and unfortunately continues to dangle on the edge of collapse. If Congress continues to do nothing, we face a future without the valuable services the Postal Service provides. This would be a devastating blow to our economy.”

Bill

Carper’s bill, the Postal Reform Act of 2014, aims to restructure the Postal Service’s healthcare and pension arrangements to reduce the crippling multi-billion dollar payments it is obliged to make to the federal government each year.

The bill, which also has the backing of Carper’s opposite number on the Government Affairs Committee, ranking member and Republican Tom Coburn, also seeks to open new forms of revenue-generating services for the Postal Service, and to give authority to the USPS to “right-size” its networks so long as “adequate” levels of service are maintained.

The bill would allow the Postal Service to abandon Saturday mail delivery to cut further costs “if that change proves to be necessary”.

Carper said yesterday the bill would prevent collapse of the Postal Service and protect “millions” of mail industry jobs.

The Democrat from Delaware conceded that his bill “isn’t perfect”, but he said it was an “important step in the right direction”.

“This latest round of closures isn’t the first time the U.S. Postal Service has had to implement potentially damaging cost-cutting measures on its own in order to reduce costs. In the absence of comprehensive postal reform, it probably won’t be the last,” he said. “If my colleagues want to address these concerns for the long-haul, I urge them to join me this September as we continue our efforts to fix the serious, but solvable, financial challenges facing the Postal Service.”

Carper’s Senate colleagues are hoping that measures are added to Government budget legislation to ban mail plant closures for a full year. The budget legislation must be passed in some form by Congress so that the federal government can continue to operate beyond 1 October 2014.

As previous years have shown, Congress is much less likely to pass standalone postal reform legislation, despite the mounting risk that an insolvent Postal Service would require a major taxpayer-funded bailout to continue operating.

Unions

The postal unions are backing the one-year moratorium on mail plant closures, although they also oppose any mail plant closures on the grounds that it would impact on mail service quality, and therefore on USPS revenues.

Commenting on the Senators’ letter, American Postal Workers Union president Mark Dimondstein said: “Few people seem to be aware of the devastating effect the plant closures would have on the nation’s mail system. If the plants are closed or consolidated, it will mean the end of overnight mail delivery in this country.

“We must make sure the American people also understand that Postmaster General Donahoe’s reckless cuts in service are jeopardising the future of a public Post Office.”