Year: 2006

Postal reform update: Bill passes House, Senate

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

The House and then the Senate passed a sweeping postal reform bill that will bring forth significant change in the way that postal rates are set. President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law sometime this coming week.

The bill’s passage culminates 11 years of prior failures to get a postal reform bill through both chambers of Congress.

In brief, what this means to catalogers is as follows:

* Future postal rate hikes will be at or below the inflation rate. A cap for raising rates will be created by linking rate changes to increases in the consumer price index. This will give mailers the chance to know what’d5s coming and be better prepared for rate increases.

* The cumbersome and costly, nine-month-long rate case process will be eliminated, giving the Postal Service the ability to set new rates much quicker, but with oversight from a new government agency, the Postal Regulatory Commission. The commission would be able to alter the cap or the rate system if it sees fit. The USPS will have greater incentive to keep its costs in line.

The new bill contains two key elements that will likely lead to its success:

1. For the first time in U.S. history, the USPS will no longer be required to pay for postal employee pension costs for those employees who previously served in the military. The new bill would eliminate this.

2. The bill repeals the law that forces the USPS to make postal pension payments, which are unwarranted, to an escrow fund, effectively freeing up $78 billion over the next 60 years. This money instead will help keep postage in check, as well as cover retiree healthcare liabilities and postal debts to the U.S. Treasury.

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2007 – The year of UPS

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

Next year will be a special year for UPS as Big Brown turns 100 on Aug. 28. However, it is the other events that could occur in 2007 that will make it an important year for the company and the transportation industry and thus provide a strong incentive for the UPS management and Teamsters leadership to cooperate in an unprecedented manner in the interest of the customers, investors, employees and management.

Teamster cooperation with early contract execution would allow UPS to avert parcel volume diversion and revenue loss to competition, and disruption to shippers operations. By announcing the agreement in 2007, the union would gain by preventing potential job losses that a drawn-out negotiation might bring. UPS gets the opportunity to ramp up its integrated air and ground domestic parcel service from both operational and marketing perspective for a new competitive advantage for market share gain.

Shareholders would also gain. If UPS, with its strong cash flow, is unable to make a large strategic acquisition in 2007, the board of directors could authorize another share buyback on top of two buyback authorizations over the last three years totaling USD4 billion.

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UPS system delivers savings

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

UPS has spent USD600 million to automate package sorting and cut time, miles and cost. For drivers, it’s a real help.

When Rick Schetinski starts his United Parcel Service truck each morning, he no longer worries about overlooking packages during a rapid-fire delivery schedule averaging 17 stops per hour.
Thanks to a huge computer-automation project at the Maple Grove distribution center where his truck is loaded, Schetinski receives a list on his handheld computer of everything in his truck and where it’s going.

UPS says the automation system — akin to putting the Dewey Decimal System in a library to replace random book piles — is a key to handling increasing package volume, up 8 percent this year, and coping with the increased volume of holiday deliveries. The Maple Grove distribution center, one of three serving the Twin Cities, expects a peak volume of 86,000 packages a day around Dec. 20, up from 59,000 packages a day the rest of the year.

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Up to 3,000 UK Post Offices face closure

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

A fifth of Britain’s post offices could be shut under government-backed plans to be outlined by ministers next week. Alistair Darling, trade and industry secretary, is preparing to sanction proposals to shut between 2,500 and 3,000 urban and rural post offices in a bid to stem mounting losses, the Financial Times understands. The decision could provoke a backlash from Labour MPs and rural communities which have campaigned fiercely to protect post offices from closure. However, ministers believe they have struck the right balance between Royal Mail’s demands to shut thousands more and the need to maintain a widespread service. Mr. Darling will also make it clear that the government intends to continue with a public subsidy for rural post offices at about its current level of GBP150m a year, which was due to expire in 2008. The Department of Trade and Industry is due to make a statement next Thursday on the future of the 14,400-strong post office network. The cuts are likely to be implemented over a number of years.

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TNT delivers more than 100 new jobs for North-West

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

A new GBP5.6 million depot built for TNT is set to create more than 100 new jobs for the Merseyside region.
TNT is currently putting the finishing touches to the new depot in Hale Road, Speke, at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, which will handle domestic parcels for the North-West of England as well as international consignments to and from mainland Europe and further afield.

Employing approximately 110 people, the 56-bay depot on the 4.13-acre site is projected to handle almost three million domestic collections and deliveries a year, while the international side expects approximately half a million a year.

The air gateway is scheduled to go operational in the first week of 2007. The new facility will be handling parcels and packages for UK destinations by February, and will be offering full national and international services by April.

Businesses throughout the North-West will now be able to take advantage of the depot’s leading edge technology, including a ‘dolly train’ system for the quickest loading and unloading of TNT aircraft.

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USPS and NRLCA reach agreement

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

The U.S. Postal Service and the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association reached a tentative four-year contract agreement on Dec. 8.

Upon ratification by union members, the agreement will run through Nov. 20, 2010, and affect approximately 66,000 career employees and 52,000 non-career employees who deliver mail to residences and businesses on rural delivery routes.

The USPS and NRLCA formally opened national contract negotiations on Aug. 25. This year was the first time new contracts were negotiated separately at the same time with all four of the postal service’s largest unions.

Earlier this week, the USPS and the American Postal Workers Union also agreed to a tentative four-year contract. Negotiations continue with the National Postal Mail Handlers Union. Negotiations with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) were not successful and the two parties will now enter the dispute resolution process, which may include binding interest arbitration.

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ATMs may open a/c in post offices

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

In a move that is sure to bring smiles to millions of postal savings account holders, the government is proposing to set up ATMs in all major post offices in the country in a phased manner.

This means consumers will no longer have to depend on the manual process of withdrawal during office hours, but can carry out transactions through use of debit cards on a 24×7 basis. The ATM facility will also come as a big relief for customers who receive money from loved ones abroad through Western Union Money transfer.

Postal Department’s services currently span five areas such as mail (letters and parcels), express (SpeedPost), financial services, postal life insurance and philately. The Department has identified Speedpost and financial services as its engines of growth.

The DoP is currently working on a plan to hive off its financial department arm into a stand-alone bank. This is because, the DoP currently passes off its entire collections to the finance ministry in return for a fixed commission, but a stand-alone banking arm will enable the it to make independent investment decisions.

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Less than 10% of direct mail is relevant to recipients

Posted by | Dec 11, 2006 | |

Fewer than one in 10 pieces of direct mail are relevant to the people who receive them, new research has found.

The survey reveals that 47% of direct mail that is sent to post boxes is addressed incorrectly.

Data firm Informatica has undertaken the study to highlight the attention of inaccurate data being used in UK direct marketing campaigns.

It blames poorly-used data for contributing to the 78,000 tonnes of landfill waste each year caused by unaddressed junk mail.

Other findings were that 40% of respondents received more than five pieces of direct mail a week and a quarter of people said that less than 1% of all the direct marketing they received was relevant to them.

Tom Golden, vice-president of marketing for Informatica’s data quality division, said: “Dirty data is a huge problem for the UK’s direct marketing industry and data quality has to be paramount.

“Companies, at the very least, need to get name and address details correct or potentially alienate consumers, flying in the face of their objective to attract people to their brand.

“What’s worse for companies is that inaccurate data produces irrelevant mail that winds up straight in the bin, and equates to an immediate loss of a much-needed marketing budget.”

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