1. While the Post office IS part of the federal government, it gets virtually no tax money since the early 1980’s. With the exception of small Federal subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters, the Post Office generates it’s own income.
2. Every year the Post Office is required to pay $5.5 BILLION per year (for 10 years) into a pre-funded retirement account. This account already has enough money in it to full pay for retirement health benefits for 50 years, and will continue to build this fund up until it is able to fully pay for retirement health benefits for 75 years into the future. The Post Office is the ONLY Federal Agency required to have an account that is fully pre-funded for the next 75 years.
3. The Post office is the only government agency that assumes the entire retirement benefit of Military Veterans.
The Post Office basically agreed to the above terms to keep the Federal Government OUT of their pockets.
Now what is going to happen with no Saturday Mail? How does this save money if there is still package delivery on Saturday? While I don’t have ALL the answers, here are the ones that I have.
Yes there will be lay offs. Letter Carrier Contracts negotiations have just completed, and part of the new contract is that all full time employees with 6 or more years have guaranteed jobs. This does not mean that every one under 6 years is automatically out of a job. The Post Office has a LOT of temporary employees that will be the first to go before any full time employees are let go.
Letter Carriers currently only work 5 days a week with rotating days off. There is another carrier that fills in on the days off, and the fill in carrier also only works 5 days a week. Most Post Offices are actually under staffed (in our town anyways) and will be able to place the fill in carrier on their own route.
Post Offices will continue to stay open on Saturdays. It is only the actual delivery of mail that will stop on Saturday. You can still drop off packages and speak to a clerk on the counter on Saturdays if your office is open. This will also create a lot of options for freight claims management.
Packages will still be delivered on Saturday. I do not have a lot of detail on this yet, but hubby is suspecting that they will be using temporary employees to deliver packages on Saturday. The Post Office is already using temporary employees to deliver Priority Packages on Sunday.
Eh, who wants mail on Saturday? just means double the mail on Monday!