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NALC President Fredric Rolando issued the following statement today, in response to the USPS Board of Governors’ announcement that the Postal Service will obey the law and comply with the continuing resolution adopted in March that mandates continuation of six-day mail delivery this year. The Board restated its support for a change to 5-day delivery, but effectively conceded that the postmaster general’s claim that he could ignore the CR was wrong.
“NALC is gratified that the Board of Governors has seen the light on the law—but it is time for them to reconsider their entire “shrink to survive” strategy. Degrading the Postal Service’s last-mile network is a losing strategy. Eliminating Saturday service, which more than a third of all business mailers want to keep, will drive millions of customers away and do more harm than good. The Postal Service needs a growth strategy and the Congress must enact comprehensive reform that overhauls the USPS governance structure, provides greater pricing and product flexibility and reduces or eliminates the crushing pre-funding burden that has caused more than 90 percent of this year’s financial loss so far.
“Maintaining Saturday delivery is critical to the Postal Service’s future. Losing this competitive advantage would not only reduce mail volume and revenue—sending the USPS on a death spiral—but also would disproportionately affect small businesses, the elderly, rural communities, the one-half of the public that pays bills by mail and the many millions who lack access to reliable Internet service. And it would cost tens of thousands of jobs.
“The Board’s call to reopen and renegotiate the postal labor contracts is yet another sign that the Postal Service needs new executive leadership. Asking the NALC to renegotiate a contract that was just settled in January is insulting and unnecessary. The new agreement, which reduced starting pay by 25 to 33 percent and allows for major health care savings, provides for several labor-management task forces to work on ways to increase revenues and cut costs.
“Finally, I must credit the hard work of letter carriers, whose efforts to get the message out about Saturday delivery were critical to today’s positive development. We will continue to rely on our members as the fight to protect and preserve the U.S. Postal Service continues.”