 Good morning, Chairman Davis, Ranking Member [Kenny] Marchant [R-TX] and other members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity
to testify today. My name is William H. Young. I am the President of the National Association of Letter Carriers, a union that represents more than 300,000 active and retired city letter carriers across the United States.
Before I begin I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership over the past several years as Congress debated postal reform legislation. Thanks to the bipartisan partnership you and [Oversight and Government Reform Committee] Chairman Henry Waxman established with Representatives Tom Davis and John McHugh, Congress enacted a reform bill in December that is largely positive and fair to all concerned.
I have submitted an extended statement for the record that touches on the need
for additional reforms, but for the moment I want to focus on a single issue that I believe is a serious threat to the future
of the United States Postal Service: the contracting out of letter carrier jobs. In its dealings with the NALC and its management training programs, the Postal Service has signaled its intention to promote
the outsourcing of mail delivery to new addresses whenever and wherever it can. I am here today to sound the alarm on this “penny-wise but pound-foolish” policy and to urge Congress to put a stop to it.
Contracting out an inherently governmental function like the delivery of mail is misguided and wrong. It runs counter to the Postal Service’s basic business strategy and it violates both the intent and the spirit of the nation’s postal laws.
The Postal Service’s key asset is the trust and confidence of the nation’s mailers. Employing part-time, low-wage workers with no benefits will lead to high turnover and poor service over time. This will break the trust Americans have developed with the Postal Service through their long-term contact with dedicated, career letter carriers.
Outsourcing core functions is rarely a successful business strategy. Uniformed, career letter carriers and clerks are the public face of the Postal Service; they represent the brand, so to speak. Outsourcing your brand might save you money in the short term, but it is sure to backfire over the long run. As quality and trust in the
system declines, mail volume and mail
revenue are bound to fall, wiping out any real savings. Beyond that, the Postal Service’s strategy to employ Intelligent Mail technologies in the future will require
even-more-dedicated and better-skilled
letter carriers, a need that will not be met through the widespread use of contractors.
Outsourcing letter carrier work also
contradicts the basic policy outlined in the nation’s postal law, which specifically grants postal employees collective bargaining rights and calls on the Postal Service to “place particular emphasis on opportunities for career advancement” for its employees and to support their “achievement of worthwhile and satisfying careers in the service of the United States.”
Yet the Postal Service appears dead set on a policy of outsourcing new deliveries across the country. Although a very small percentage of total deliveries are contracted out today, with the addition of 1 or 2
million new deliveries each year, it would not be long before a two-tier system of delivery began to undermine the trust and quality of the Postal Service. Congress should act to stop the cancer of contracting out now before it spreads and undermines the most affordable and efficient post office in the world. If this is not stopped now, in 10 or 15 years there could be tens of thousands of contractors out there. When your constituents begin to complain, they will not call me. They are going to call you.
Now the Postal Service would have you believe that contracting out final mail
delivery is nothing new and no big deal. I am sure you read the document it sent to every member of Congress last week—the paper entitled “Contracting by the U.S. Postal Service—Not New!” The central claim of this misleading document is
simply not true. Yes, the USPS has long used contractors on so-called Highway Contract Routes to transport mail between post offices and to do occasional deliveries en route in rural areas. But using contractors to deliver mail in urban and suburban settings is something totally new. The fact is, the Postal Service has embarked on a radical expansion of outsourcing in the delivery area, following the same misguided tactics used by many private companies to suppress wages and destroy good middle-class jobs, replacing them with lower-paid contingent and part-time positions.
In 2004 and 2005, Postal Service headquarters initiated an “HCR Enhancement and Expansion Program.” I have provided for the record a copy of a presentation used by management trainers to explain the program. Its goal was to broaden and transform the use of HCRs to include not just the traditional transportation of mail but also the delivery of mail as well. Of course, the Postal Service knew that its new policy would be controversial. As the last slide of the training program indicates, the USPS saw “Congressional Influence” as the number one “obstacle” or “barrier to success” to the program.
They had good reason to worry about congressional opposition. In the summer
of 2005, the House of Representatives voted 379 to 51 to oppose an amendment offered by Representative Jeff Flake to the postal reform bill—which was eventually adopted—to experiment with privatization and alternative forms of delivery in 20 cities across the country. I note that the current members of this subcommittee opposed the amendment by a vote of 10-1.
In 2006, despite the expressed views of Congress, the Postal Service went even further. It began advocating contract delivery as a “growth management” tool and introduced Contract Delivery Service, or CDS, routes for new deliveries in urban and suburban areas. Such routes are to be considered for all new deliveries. Of course, these CDS routes bear no relation to traditional highway transportation routes. Although the contractors receive the same low pay and no benefits, their main duties involve delivery work, not mail transportation.
Why is the Postal Service doing this? According to another management training presentation used recently in Seattle, which I have also provided for the record, contract routes are “more cost-efficient” because they provide “no health insurance,” “no life insurance,” “no retirement” and “no tie to union agreements.” They call that efficiency. I call it an assault on middle-class living standards.
Mr. Chairman, what the Postal Service is doing is not business as usual. The CDS routes it has established in recent months in urban areas like the Bronx and suburban areas outside of Fresno, California and Portland, Oregon cannot be truthfully described as “nothing new.”
I urge this subcommittee to consider legislation to block the Postal Service from taking the low road that far too many employers in this country have adopted. The Postal Service should not contribute to wage stagnation and add to the tens of millions of workers without health insurance or adequate pension
protection. Indeed, the Postal Service has been and should remain a model employer. It has combined decent pay and wages with ongoing innovation to keep postage rates low and affordable. It does not need to join the race to the bottom with respect to employment standards. And it should not gamble with the trust and support of the American people.
Before I finish, let me address one final issue. You may have heard from postal management that subcontracting is a
bargaining issue and that Congress should stay out of labor negotiations that are
currently underway. NALC does not want Congress to get involved in our collective bargaining. However, we do want Congress to ensure that there is collective bargaining for all postal employees who deliver the mail. By assigning new deliveries to contract workers, the USPS is seeking to avoid collective bargaining. Whether the Postal Service outsources a core function of its mandate is a legitimate public policy issue. You can and should weigh in on this issue. And you can start by enacting H.R. 282, a “Sense of the House” resolution to oppose postal outsourcing.
I know that you did not work a dozen years on postal reform only to see the Postal Service turn around and throw it all away. I didn’t either.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all the members of the committee for this chance to testify. |
