It didn’t take long. No sooner had the President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service issued its final report than the naysayers’ voices could be heard wailing that one or another of the commission’s recommendations would find its way into law only over their dead bodies. As expected, the one affecting postal labor-management relations brought about the loudest protestations.
The American Postal Workers Union was the first to decry the recommendations — and not just those pertaining to labor — as a travesty. The APWU was joined by the National Association of Letter Carriers, which objected to parts of the report that sought to effect remedies to what the commission contended was a broken labor-management process.
The two unions quickly were joined by postmasters’ representatives over the commission’s proposal to provide the USPS greater flexibility over the configuration of its delivery network structure, including, where appropriate, the closing of post offices deemed not vital to providing universal mail service.
Of course, not much time was spent praising the suggestion to expand the availability of retail postal services in more customer-focused ways, such as offering such services through local retail establishments.
To my great disappointment, the APWU’s objections weren’t limited to proposals having to do with labor and management. Instead, the union slammed the whole of the commission’s work as a giveaway to “junk mailers” — a term I’d hoped never to hear again from those who make a living from such mail.
My guess is that some in the business mailing community will have their complaints too. You can already hear the rumblings of how this or that proposal is “absolutely unacceptable.” In fact, if all goes as it’s gone in the past, I have little doubt that the recent ardor some mailers have expressed for the commission’s plans will turn into the equivalent of postal “piling on” pursued with equal enthusiasm to kill one proposition or another. I can’t help but recall the old adage, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”
It’s enough to make you cry.
GENE A. DEL POLITO is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) in Arlington, VA.
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