Young Tells Presidential Postal Commission
Six-day Universal Mail Service Must Continue

"The NALC believes that universal service, delivering to every household and business in America six days a week, needs to be preserved," Young said. "It is that delivery network that gives the Postal Service its unique position and is the key to generating the revenue necessary for it to survive. In short, we have to find ways to expand services, not contract them."

Young said for that reason the NALC endorses work sharing and work sharing discounts when appropriate. But he said work sharing must be defined in a far more expansive way than in the 1970s when such discounts began and now must include all technological innovations mailers can deploy to make the processing and delivery of mail more efficient and economical both for mailers and the American public.

"The bottom line is that the Postal Service cannot turn its back on customers who feel that they can reduce mailing costs by taking advantage of work sharing," Young said.

"The nation's letter carriers must remain the trusted couriers of the nation's mail, ensuring its safety and its security – today more important than ever,' Young said. "Work sharing and the full deployment by the mailing community of technology is absolutely necessary to enable letter carriers to complete the essential ‘last mile' of the postal journey."

Young suggested to the panel that it not get bogged down trying to determine the appropriate level for work-sharing discounts and instead leave measuring the appropriate discount for work sharing to whatever rate-making process is part of a restructured Postal Service.

In his remarks, Young noted that the 113-year-old NALC's attitude toward work sharing is married to its long-standing commitment to postal reform. He said the Postal Service today delivers more than twice as much mail to 80 percent more households and business than it did in 1971, when the Postal Reorganization Act created the revamped U.S. Postal Service.

And he said the Postal Service does it with fewer than 5 percent more employees.

"The productivity gains that have made this possible have been broadly shared by the American public and the postal community," Young said. "Taxpayers have saved tens of billions of dollars with the elimination of operational subsidies. The mailing public have enjoyed postage that is among the lowest in the world with overall rates increasing at or below the rate of general inflation."

Young said the crafters of the modern Postal Service could not have anticipated the technological and communications revolutions that have all converged to render obsolete the model under which the Postal Service currently operates, noting that mail volume is declining at a time when the universal service network continues to grow.