The direct marketing industry is about to launch a major offensive to keep Secretary of State Madeline Albright from stripping the State Department’s Bureau of International Affairs of its newly assigned role of formalizing international postal agreements.
The industry, led by the Direct Marketing Association, hopes to stop Albright from going along with a request from Federal Express, United Parcel Service and the Air Courier Conference of America (ACCA)–the air shippers trade association–to have another State Department’s office, the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, negotiate and finalize all international postal agreements.
Richard Barton, the DMA’s senior vice president for Congressional affairs, said that “moving international postal agreements from one bureau to another could have a major impact on direct marketers, particularly those with overseas customers and who use the postal service’s Global Package Link to ship orders.”
Barton added that the move by FedEx, UPS and ACCA violates an agreement made last fall when legislation was signed into law naming the State Department as the government’s main representative in negotiating and signing all international postal agreements.
Under that agreement, he said, the Bureau of International Affairs was to “handle all international postal agreements and be the key voice of America in the Universal Postal Union (UPU),” a 114-year-old intergovernmental organization of postal services now under the aegis of the United Nations.
A highly placed State Department source told Direct Newsline that although Albright has not made a decision, unofficially she is “leaning towards leaving things as they are” despite the support of Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) chairman of the House postal subcommittee.
The source criticized McHugh for endorsing the shift saying that he “apparently does not know or realize that the Bureau of International Affairs is deeply involved in all aspects of the UPU.”
The source also explained that FedEx, UPS and ACCA want the change so decisions are tilted in their favor over the USPS.
Calls to FedEx, UPS and ACCA for comment were not returned by deadline.
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