Post Office moves to end some Saturday mail delivery

Recent highlights of U.S. Postal Services decisions affecting Dayton

The U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday it plans to eliminate Saturday mail delivery beginning in early August, even though it will continue to deliver packages six days a week.

The cost-cutting move would trim an estimated $2 billion annually from the agency’s troubled budget and helps the agency adjust to declining mail volumes, postal officials said.

Congress must approve the plan, but some officials said the proposal seems to be a reasonable and effective strategy to help remedy the postal service’s large operating deficit. The postal service lost about $15.9 billion in the last fiscal year.

But some union officials and other groups said ending Saturday delivery could burden consumers and companies, and the postal service should consider a different and less drastic approach to addressing its financial woes.

“This will limit the availability of the postal service to consumers,” said Terry Grant, president of the Ohio Postal Workers Union, which represents about 8,000 employees. “I think it will have a very big impact.”

The postal service will stop delivering letters, magazines and large flat envelopes sometime during the week of Aug. 5, said David Van Allen, Ohio spokesman for the postal service.

The agency began delivering mail to homes and businesses in urban areas in 1863, and it began delivering to rural areas in 1891, Van Allen said. The postal service delivered mail seven days a week until 1912, when it stopped Sunday delivery at the request of religious leaders and organizations. Twice-a-day delivery was cut to one in 1950 to save money.

In recent years, the postal service also asked Congress for permission to end package delivery on Saturdays, but its parcel volumes have increased by 14 percent since 2010 because of the popularity of online shopping, officials said. The postal service said it has revised its proposal to keep package delivery at six days a week.

‘Don’t anticipate any layoffs’

Also, consumers with post office boxes will continue to receive mail on Saturdays. Post offices that are open on Saturdays will remain open.

Eliminating Saturday delivery makes sense because Saturday has lower mail volumes than weekdays, and the move will reduce costs related to labor, transportation and fuel, Van Allen said.

“Mail comes more during the beginning of the week and peters out at the end of the week,” he said.

Some postal workers who work Saturdays will be reassigned while some jobs will be eliminated through attrition, officials said.

“We don’t anticipate any layoffs, but we anticipate losing people through attrition, and we’ve been keeping a lot of positions open for quite some time,” Van Allen said. “We are working with our unions to make the process as smooth as possible.”

Wednesday’s announcement comes just weeks after the Postal Service Board of Governors directed postal management to “accelerate the restructuring” of postal operations to get a handle on the agency’s finances, officials said.

The postal service said market research has shown that the vast majority of Americans support scaling back to five-day delivery to reduce operational costs.

“The Postal Service has a responsibility to take the steps necessary to return to long-term financial stability and ensure the continued affordability of the U.S. Mail,” said Patrick R. Donahoe, Postmaster General and CEO.

Congressional decisions

The proposal still requires Congressional approval, and it is unclear whether elected officials will support the measure.

Two Republican lawmakers said they sent a letter to leaders of the House and Senate in support of the elimination of Saturday mail. It’s “common-sense reform,” wrote Darrell Issa of California, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The Senate last year passed a bill that would have stopped the postal service from eliminating Saturday service for at least two years and required it to try two years of aggressive cost cutting instead.

The House didn’t pass a bill.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner, R-West Chester, said Wednesday, “I think trying to act in this postal area is pretty difficult. But I understand where the postal commission is coming from. They’re in charge with running the post office, but yet the Congress, in its wisdom, has tied their hands every which way in order for them to actually run the post office in a revenue neutral way.”

“And so Congress needs to act, there’s no question about that, and I hope we’ll act soon.”

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said he is still studying the proposal, but he supports reforms that will prevent taxpayers from having to bail out the agency.

“Last year alone, the Postal Service ran a deficit of $16 billion, and without cost-saving reforms American taxpayers will be stuck with the bill,” he said in a statement. The postal service does not receive government support.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said the announcement could have been avoided if the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill he supported that would allow the agency to pursue new revenue streams and evaluate alternatives to canceling Saturday delivery.

“I remain committed to modernizing the Postal Service while preventing job loss and preserving service,” he said.

Local impact

Some groups are concerned about the loss of Saturday mail delivery.

Some smaller daily and weekly newspapers in Ohio rely on Saturday delivery to get their products to customers, said Dennis Hetzel, executive director of the Ohio Newspaper Association.

Readers of these publications would not get their news in a timely fashion, and it could impact advertisers who want to promote weekend sales, Hetzel said. “It’s a major hit to some of our members,” he said.

But some companies that depend on direct mail said the change should not hurt their businesses.

“Truthfully, it doesn’t impact a whole lot,” said Sherry Hang, marketing director of Yeck Brothers Company in Moraine, which provides business-to-business and consumer direct mail services. “The majority of our mail goes Monday to Friday anyway, and the best days to receive mail — to really make an impact — are Wednesdays and Thursdays.”

Hang said the biggest impact will be on political mailings, but urgent messages can always be sent via e-mail.

The end of Saturday delivery possibly could be avoided if Congress would lift the postal service’s requirement to pre-fund the future pension obligations of workers, said Grant, with the Ohio Postal Workers Union.

“There is a simple solution to the whole thing, and that is to relieve the (postal service) to its obligations under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006,” he said. “That costs the post office almost $5.5 billion per year.”

Grant said Ohioans receive important mail on Saturdays, such as paychecks and payments related to Social Security and other benefits. He said mail service will suffer because of the change, especially since many postal operations are consolidating into other facilities. Dayton’s mail processing and sorting operations are heading to Columbus this summer, and Grant said consumers should expect mail delays.

About 80 percent of the postal service’s budget problems would disappear if Congress ended the pension requirements, said John Oross, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 182, which represents about 1,600 members, including many in the region.

“We are the only government agency tasked to pre-fund future retiree health benefits, and we’ve got enough money in the coffers to fund future employees who are not even born yet,” he said. “It’s unnecessary and no one else is asked to do this.”

But postal officials claim the agency’s foremost problem is declining first-class mail volumes, which have dropped 50 percent since 2006. Officials claim mail service should not be impacted by the elimination of Saturday delivery, and the agency must adapt to huge reductions in mail volumes.

The Postal Service noted its financial losses for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 were more than triple the $5.1 billion loss in the previous year. Having reached its borrowing limit, the mail agency is operating with little cash on hand.

The Postal Service is in the midst of a major restructuring throughout its retail, delivery and mail processing operations. Since 2006, it has cut annual costs by about $15 billion, reduced the size of its career workforce by 193,000, or 28 percent, and has consolidated more than 200 mail processing locations, officials say.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.