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February 5, 2012
According
to PostCom Vice President
Jessica Lowrance,
"Understanding what’s going on and who’s doing what when it comes ot
proposing changes to postal law to address the challenges being faced by the
U.S. Postal Service (USPS) today can be a formidable challenge. To
understand, it’s best to view the subject in as systematic a manner as
possible. The challenge facing the Postal Service is a simple
one to understand. It’s costs are much greater than its revenues, and the
size of its human and physical infrastructures (which are at the base of its
costs) are much larger than can be justified by an realistic estimate of
future mail volumes and workload demands. The Postal Service know this.
Mailers know this. Postal labor knows this. About the only people who appear
to be a bit in the dark are the people who are proposing the many changes to
the nation’s postal laws."
Dead Tree Edition: So far, the Flats Sequencing System seems to be
increasing rather than decreasing the Postal Service’s sorting and delivery
costs, according to a postal expert. “The FSS has at times been seen as the
technological fix that would reduce flats costs” and make the Periodicals
class less of a money loser for the U.S. Postal Service, noted Halstein
Stralberg in comments Time Inc. submitted Friday to the Postal Regulatory
Commission. But based on USPS’s data for fiscal year 2011, “FSS processing
was in fact very costly and most likely made Periodicals costs higher than
they would have been without FSS.”
Frederick News Post: "Postal workers: Frederick mail piling up Baltimore
facility burdened after local plant's closure, trasferred employees say"
PRWeb: EquaShip, which launched in Q4, 2011 as the new “4th Parcel
Carrier” catering specifically to small and medium sized e-commerce
merchants, announced today that it is temporarily suspending all customers
while it re-engineers its transportation network for faster package delivery
times, larger geographic coverage and more service options. Ron Wiener, CEO
of EquaShip, said “Our customers clearly loved that fact that our prices
beat FedEx and UPS by up to 80%, our real insurance coverage bundled with
every parcel, and our outstanding customer service. However, in today’s
ecommerce environment it’s not good enough for small and medium-sized
merchants to offer Free Shipping. Shipping also has to be fast enough to
compete with larger competitors like Amazon who ship from multiple
distribution centers. What we heard loud and clear from our customers was
that they needed faster transit times than we could deliver through our
existing network of transportation partners.” “Rather than limit our market
only to shippers who could tolerate slower transit times we felt it would be
better to stop now, switch out our transportation network providers, and
come back with a service that is as fast as today’s online consumer has come
to expect, but still priced far below the egregiously high rates that FedEx
and UPS charge smaller shippers,” added Wiener. Given the magnitude of
systems integration work that is involved in changing out transportation
partners EquaShip has elected to suspend customer operations after the final
delivery of all remaining parcels in the pipeline, so that its management
team can focus 100% of its efforts on bringing EquaShip back online as soon
as possible. The company intends to expand its service offerings with new
options for same-day, expedited and international services, in addition to
its keystone postal consolidation ground service.
The Hill: Senate Democratic lawmakers from rural states are balking at
legislation from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
that would let the U.S. Postal Service close thousands of offices. The
postal reform bill crafted by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe
Lieberman (I-Conn.) was expected to reach the Senate floor as soon as next
week. Now Senate Democratic aides say it is not likely to come up until
after the Presidents Day recess, as senators engage in last-minute shuttle
diplomacy to avert a nasty and potentially embarrassing floor fight.
February 4, 2012
Hucknall Dispatch: The Royal Mail sorting and delivery office in Bulwell
is to close — despite a campaign to prevent the axe from falling. Royal Mail
has blamed a fall in mail volumes for the closure. An official date for the
closure has not been announced. [EdNote: Why do the Brits know what to do
to try to save a challenged postal system and we Yanks have yet to learn?]
Bangor Daily News: Everyone seems to be worrying about the U.S. Postal
Service going into a “death spiral.” The Internet is taking over
communications. Fewer people send first-class letters. The remedy proposed
by Postmaster Pat Dohanoe, who heads the semi-independent agency, includes
closing or consolidating hundreds of “low-activity” post offices,
eliminating Saturday service and laying off thousands of postal workers. To
Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins, ranking minority member of the committee that
oversees the postal service, that’s mostly the wrong idea. The Collins bill
would maintain pension pre-funding at 100 percent but reduce health care
pre-funding to 80 percent. Sen. Collins says recent analysis puts pension
overfunding at $11.4 billion and says there is no overfunding on health care
for retirees.
Delaware Online: Two of Delaware's banking giants have joined the
lobbying effort to stop the U.S. Postal Service from closing the state's
only mail-processing facility at Hares Corner. WSFS and JPMorgan Chase
provided comments opposing the closure of Hares Corner in a letter sent
Friday to U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe by Delaware's
congressional delegation and Gov. Jack Markell.
Newark Post: Sen. Tom Carper, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee that
oversees the U.S. Postal Service, along with Gov. Jack Markell, Sen. Chris
Coons and Rep. John Carney (all D-Del.) wrote to United States Postmaster
General Patrick Donahoe urging him to review the U.S. Postal Service's
proposal that would revamp Delaware's only mail processing facility, causing
a significant negative impact on Delaware. Specifically, the Postal Service
has proposed transferring the mail processing functions from the Delaware
Processing and Distribution facility at Hare's Corner in New Castle, Del.,
to another facility in Bellmawr, N.J.
February 3, 2012

Attention
PostalOne!®
Users:
PostalOne!® TEM
Software Maintenance:
On Friday, February 3, 2012
the PostalOne! TEM environment will have a WebSphere patch installed in a
rolling fashion with no outage to the PostalOne! TEM environment. This
install will occur at 9:00 p.m. CST and will address a known issue with
large XML messages. This is being done on a Friday evening so that the
PostalOne! support team can closely monitor over the weekend and identify
and correct any issues before start of business on Monday morning.
PostalOne!® Database
Hardware Maintenance:
On Sunday, February 5, 2012
the PostalOne! database will undergo hardware maintenance installed in a
rolling fashion with no outage to the PostalOne! application. The upgrade
will occur during the scheduled maintenance window from 4:00 a.m. through
8:00 a.m. CST. No system availability or performance issues should be
experienced by users.
PostalOne!®
Performance Patch Release 29.0.3.4 Maintenance:
On Sunday, February 12, 2012
the PostalOne! application will deploy a software patch release installed in
a rolling fashion with no outage to the PostalOne! application. This patch
release (29.0.3.4) will occur during the scheduled maintenance window from
4:00 a.m. through 8:00 a.m. CST and will correct several known
performance issues in Release 29.0. No system availability or
performance issues should be experienced by users.
PostalOne!®
MicroStrategy Reporting Maintenance:
On Sunday, February 19, 2012 the
PostalOne! MicroStrategy reporting environment will be unavailable to
internal and external users during the scheduled maintenance window of 4:00
a.m. through 8:00 a.m. CST to allow for system maintenance. During the
outage internal users will not be able to access Verification and
Performance Reports for Business Mail Acceptance, Electronic Mail
Improvement Reporting and Service Performance Measurement. External users
will not be able to access the Mail Data Quality Reports. Other
PostalOne! application components will
not be affected. If you
experience any issues please contact the help desk for assistance.
CNBC: It’s no secret that the
financial crisis and resulting malaise has taken its toll on bank stocks,
commodities and Treasury yields. But it may be have triggered another ripple
– one that has gone somewhat unnoticed. Pension funds have become seriously
underfunded. According to a recent report from Credit Suisse some of the
nation’s largest companies owe their pensions more than 25% of their market
cap (after taxes).
MSNBC: The U.S. economy is like a flywheel: It takes a lot to get it
going. Once it starts moving, it can pick up speed pretty quickly. To see
why, look no further than Friday’s jobs report, which offered convincing
evidence that the U.S. recovery is finally gaining momentum. After months of
subpar growth in their payrolls, American companies added 243,000 new jobs
in January, considerably more than the 150,000 that forecasters expected.
That drove the unemployment rate down by two percentage points to 8.3
percent, extending a rapid decline from 9.1 percent last August.
Letter to Hill from MPA, et al in support of S. 1789.: "You are to be
commended and congratulated for writing and introducing an excellent bill
that addresses several key issues that are threatening the stability of our
nation’s postal system in a balanced and responsible way. (1) The bill
provides the Postal Service with financial breathing room by amortizing the
pre-funding of retiree health benefits over time, thereby reducing the $5+
billion retiree health pre-funding payments that the Postal Service is now
required to make each year. (2) The bill allows the Postal Service to close
facilities and, if found to be financially necessary, eliminate Saturday
delivery. While such operational changes may negatively affect the service
provided to mailers, they are potential sources of large savings that merit
careful consideration. (3) The bill authorizes the Postal Service to offer
buyouts and retirement incentives to its employees. This will allow the
Postal Service to realign its operations with reduced volumes in a fair way.
These buyouts will also be funded responsibly: by directing the Office of
Personnel Management (OPM) to return to the Postal Service more than $11
billion in overpayments that it has made to the Federal Employees Retirement
System pension fund. We thank you for stepping forward at this critical
moment to provide strong leadership to ensure the Postal Service’s financial
stability. We look forward to working with you to quickly pass this
legislation." [EdNote: This bill is expected to come up for consideration
in two weeks.]
|
 
THE ULTIMATE TEST OF ANY POSTAL REFORM MEASURE
(1) It must ensure the fiscal viability of the U.S. Postal Service,
(2) It must ensure the Postal Service is set up to operate on a self- sufficient basis, and
(3) It must ensure the ability of the Postal Service to satisfy the nation's postal needs.
ANY legislative proposal that cannot do this is insufficient.
Will Congress pass the test? |
Courier, Express, and Postal Observer: The shrinking Postal Service
workforce is currently having some welcome impacts on the Postal Service’s
balance sheet. Surpluses have formed in the Postal Service’s Civl Service
Retirement System (CSRS) and Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS)
Accounts. The unfunded liability associated with the Postal Service’s
retiree health benefit plan has declined even with the Postal Service not
making $11 billion in payments required by the Postal Accountability and
Enhancement Act.
The Guardian: The MP for North Norfolk is taking over as minister for
employment relations, consumer and postal affairs. Norman Lamb's previous
life as an employment lawyer will stand him in good stead as he tackles his
in-tray in his new role as minister for employment relations, consumer and
postal affairs. The MP for North Norfolk, who takes over the reins from his
Lib Dem colleague Ed Davey, who has been promoted to energy secretary, will
be responsible for overseeing the review of employment law and implementing
the privatisation of the Royal Mail. His new boss, Vince Cable, the business
secretary, said it was a fitting appointment in light of the fact it was
Lamb who pioneered the Lib Dems' policy to privatise Royal Mail and
establish employee share ownership in the business while serving as the
party's trade and industry spokesman.
DMM
Advisory: IMb™ Services Update. PostalOne!®
MicroStrategy® Reporting Maintenance: On Sunday,
February 19, 2012, the PostalOne!® MicroStrategy®
reporting environment will be unavailable to internal and external users
during the scheduled maintenance window of 4 a.m. through 8 a.m. CST to
allow for system maintenance. During the outage, internal users will not be
able to access Verification and Performance Reports for Business Mail
Acceptance and external users will not be able to access the Mail Quality
Reports. Other PostalOne! environments will not be affected.
Multichannel Merchant: The U.S. Postal Service, desperate for revenue,
is trying to encourage more businesses to send direct-mail first-class by
letting them send 2-ounce letters for the rate of a 1-ounce mailing -- an
offer cable, satellite and telco operators are greeting with a collective
shrug.
Post & Parcel: Austrian Post has opened a new call centre as it works to
expand its customer service operations and improve service quality. The new
operation in Klagenfurt is the postal operator’s second largest call centre,
capable of handling more than 1.1m calls each year, but a further increase
from the initial 23 staff is on the cards. Staff have been taken from the
operational and retail network, with around 4,000 hours of training
provided.
Coalition for a 21st Century
Postal Service: The U.S. mailing industry today urged Members of the
United States Senate to pass the 21st Century Postal Service Act as quickly
as possible. The bipartisan comprehensive postal reform bill, introduced by
Senators Joe Lieberman, Tom Carper, Susan Collins and Scott Brown, would
deliver critical reforms to the U.S. Postal Service which is mired in a
financial crisis that could lead to a disruption in mail service as early as
mid-summer. “There is no time to waste. Eight million private sector jobs
hinge on the future of the Postal Service, and the economy as a whole
continues to rely a great deal on paper communications and package delivery,
so it’s critical that Congress enact postal reform immediately,” said Art
Sackler, coordinator for the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, a
group representing the private sector mailing industry. “This bipartisan
legislation introduces some long-needed reforms that would help the Postal
Service regain financial stability.” The bipartisan Senate legislation
includes many provisions supported by the private sector mailing industry.
This includes a plan to return overpayments that USPS has made into the
Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) in order to help the Postal
Service encourage early retirements. The bill would also allow USPS to
forego prepaying for retiree health care for one year, and then re-amortize
these prepayments over the next forty years – saving the Postal Service
roughly $5 billion per year. And it would lay the basis for streamlining the
system to fit the dramatically reduced amount of mail it handles today.
UNI Global Union: Representatives from nine trade unions in Eastern
Europe who will have to liberalise their postal markets by 1 January, 2013
gathered in Bucharest (2-3 February 2012) to discuss postal liberalization.
Speakers from trade unions in Western and Northern Europe where postal
liberalization has already happened, such as Sweden, Belgium, Germany and
the Netherlands, spoke about how liberalization affected postal workers'
jobs and how unions can prepare their members for the upcoming changes and
minimize the adverse effects. Participants discussed adding social
regulation to postal laws, organizing members in the new competitors and
having strong collective agreements.
At the
Postal Regulatory
Commission: The
audiocast of the February meeting of the Postal Regulatory Commission can be
found here:
http://www.prc.gov/prc-docs/home/whatsnew/Monthly_Meeting_02012012.mp3
WPSD: A local woman says someone from Nigeria stole her identity, opened
multiple accounts in her name and took out a big loan, all things she says
she probably would've caught except she stayed in the dark for weeks because
scammers managed to stop her mail. The culprits used a free online change of
address service known as "Updater, Inc." That website then forwarded the
information to the postal service.
Business Insurance: Investigators who installed a surveillance camera
near the home of a former postal worker eventually convicted of workers
compensation fraud got more than they expected. The husband of the female
postal worker regularly enjoyed sipping his morning coffee while nude,
investigators found in reviewing video from the camera placed atop a utility
pole outside their Geneva, Ohio, home. “The camera did record that on
occasion,” an investigator told a local TV news station. Karen
Anderson-Bagshaw, the 49-year-old former U.S. Postal Service worker,
recently was sentenced to a year in prison and must pay more than $70,000 in
restitution, according to news reports. She was a postal worker in 2002 when
she claimed disability and began receiving workers comp benefits.
The latest issue of
the PostCom Bulletin is available online. In this issue:
-
3 Step Approach to Improving Customer Experience & Driving Engagement
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/545405784
-
The Postal Regulatory Commission has denied the Postal Service’s request for
the procedural schedule recently established in Docket No N2012-1 Mail
Processing Network Rationalization Service Changes, 2012 be reduced by
several months. The Commission said, “such a substantial reduction in
schedule appears inconsistent with due process afforded all participants
when conducting a hearing on the record.”
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The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its score of S. 1789 21st
Century Postal Service Act of 2011, as ordered reported by the Senate
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It estimated that
the bipartisan senate legislation would cost $6.3 billion for the period
2012-2022.
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According to postal commentator, Gene Del Polito, “Postal Washington is
abuzz with news that House and Senate postal reform sponsors soon will seek
to move their bills through their respective chambers in the hope of
crafting a common postal reform proposal in a House-Senate conference that
can be sent to the President for his signature. That's the dream of every
legislative sponsor. History has shown, though, that sometimes the dream can
turn into a nightmare. . . . Here are some things I think every member
should be asking about any postal reform measure that is brought before them
before they slip their voting card into the machine reader."
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PostalVision 2020 organizers are pleased to announce that the second
PostalVision 2020 conference, PostalVision 2020/2.0, will take place on June
12-13 at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C. Building on the success
of last year's event, the second expanded two-day PostalVision 2020
conference will convene experts from the digital, commercial and postal
realms to discuss the future of the Postal Service, taking into
consideration the incredible challenges stacked up against the organization.
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USPS to propose repeat mobile barcode promo. CRS provides USPS 2011
financial update and bill comparison. IRS decision costs the Postal Service
millions. Federal spending derailed by Amtrak. UPS alters pension-plan
accounting. USPS ‘unsustainable’ situation, leaders says. USPS tries to
scare boomers away from online banking. USPS to propose to repeat mobile
barcode promo. Enroute adds last mile postal service delivery services.
Congressman Carter calls for PO closing review. PostCom’s newest member.
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Updates from the Domestic Mail Manual.
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Updates from the Federal Register that affect the mailing industry.
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An update from the USPS Office of Inspector General.
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A review of postal news from around the world.
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Postal previews.
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RIA Novosti:
The municipal authorities in a Moscow city district denied on Friday they
were forcing school heads to send employees to a rally on Saturday in
support of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s presidential election campaign.
“The principal position of the prefecture and prefect Valery Vinogradov is
that participation in any public events is fully voluntary,” the northeast
Moscow prefecture said in a statement on its website.
From the Federal Register:
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Postal Service
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PROPOSED RULES |
|
Recognition of Distribution of Periodicals
via Electronic Copies , |
|
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5470–5471 [2012–2374] |
[TEXT] [PDF] |
Press
Release: Husch Blackwell's Postal Service Contracting practice group today
released its list of the top 10 U.S. Postal Service
suppliers for fiscal year 2011. For the ninth straight year
FedEx claimed the No. 1 spot. Another air
carrier, Kalitta Air, Inc., which transports military mail bound for Iraq and
Afghanistan, claimed the second spot. The list is compiled by David P. Hendel, a
partner in the firm who has served clients' postal contracting needs for 30
years. A list of the top 150 suppliers can be found here. First-place FedEx
transports Express Mail, Priority Mail and First Class Mail, and earned postal
revenues of $1.495 billion in fiscal 2011 – an increase of $122 million from
last year. Higher fuel prices may account for the increase. Another postal
competitor, United Parcel Service, is the Postal
Service's 11th largest postal supplier, earning $102 million in
revenue – a $7 million increase from last year. Six of the top 10 postal
contractors are in the transportation field.
Bangor Daily News: With 30 rural Maine post offices facing potential
closure and nationwide service cutbacks looming, some local postal service
employees and activists are attempting to ratchet up pressure on Congress to
rescind a law they insist is causing the agency’s financial woes. But at
least one member of Maine’s congressional delegation said the U.S. Postal
Service will need systemic changes to survive. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine,
is co-sponsoring a bill that would reduce the amount of prefunding by
essentially spreading the payments out over additional years. The
legislation, Senate Bill 1789, also would allow the postal service to
reclaim $11 billion in overpayments to the federal pension system and use
that money to offer employees buyouts and early retirement incentives. The
goal of that provision is to save the postal service an estimated $8 billion
a year by cutting 100,000 positions, or roughly 20 percent of the total
staff. But the bill also directs the postal service to explore ways to shift
toward more curbside mail delivery rather than hand delivery to people’s
doorsteps. Those provisions do not sit well with postal employee unions.
Global Logistics Media: The quality of consumer mail delivery in 2011
has achieved one of its highest in over 20 years scores with 96.1%. By law,
PostNL must score at least 95% for the standard overnight delivery services
within the Netherlands. This concerns the mail deposited in PostNL’s public
postboxes. As a rule, these items must be delivered the next working day.
PostNL is content with its performance, especially given the many changes it
made to its organisation in 2011 to prepare it for a new delivery structure.
Mail delivery is no longer prepared at 300 locations across the Netherlands
but instead at just nine central preparation locations. The score shows a
marked improvement on 2010.
Folio: The MPA: The Association of Magazine Media came together at the
Hearst Tower Thursday to discuss an issue that is plaguing the minds of
publishers, lawmakers and individuals across the country: the state (and future)
of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and its impact on magazine media, its ads,
revenue and distribution.
February 2, 2012
Media
Daily News: Time Inc. is set to close MAGHOUND, dubbed the "Netflix of
the magazine industry" early in 2012, the fourth year of its operation.
Using MAGHOUND, consumers could buy multiple titles from various publishers
each month at discount prices without having to subscribe to any single
publication.
Job Mouse: The APWU has learned that the Senate will consider postal
legislation in the near future. As currently written, the bill would give
the USPS some short-term financial relief, but would also inflict long-term
damage to the nation’s mail system, said APWU President Cliff Guffey.
 |
PostCom welcomes its newest member:
Intelisent,
LLC 880 Marshall Phelps Road Windsor, CT 06095 represented by Mark
Mandell Founder, President and CEO
|
Postal
Regulatory Commission Meeting
Calendar 3/01/2012
- 3/31/2012
|
Date |
Time |
Event |
Location |
|
03/07/2012 |
11:00 AM |
Monthly Commission Meeting |
Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200 |
|
03/20/2012 |
09:30 AM |
Hearing in Postal Service's Direct Case - Docket N2012-1 |
Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200 |
|
03/21/2012 |
09:30 AM |
Hearing in Postal Service's Direct Case - Docket N2012-1 |
Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200 |
|
03/22/2012 |
09:30 AM |
Hearing in Postal Service's Direct Case - Docket N2012-1 |
Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200 |
|
03/23/2012 |
09:30 AM |
Hearing in Postal Service's Direct Case - Docket N2012-1 |
Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200 |
Now hear this: "This Week In Postal".........the latest podcast posted now!
(Link fixed, sorry 'bout
that)
Wall Street Journal: The federal government arrested 58 people over the
past week in a national crackdown on identity theft led by the Internal
Revenue Service and the Department of Justice, the tax agency said Tuesday.
The collaboration among several federal agencies and local U.S. attorneys'
offices targeted people suspected of using false Social Security numbers or
other personal information to file fraudulent tax returns.
Cork Independent: An autistic Cork man who cannot read or write but is a
gifted artist, has been chosen as one of eight global artists to feature art
on a new range of United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) stamps. Colm
Isherwood (25) from Mahon was chosen as the only Irish artist whose work
will appear on stamps to celebrate World Autism Day on 2 April.
The Other Russia: Workers at Pochta Rossii, Russia’s federal postal
service, are complaining of being forced to take part in a pro-government
rally in Moscow this weekend, Kasparov.ru reports. On Wednesday, Novaya
Gazeta published a statement by a postal worker that included a letter sent
to local Pochta Rossii managers. The letter, signed by a representative of
the company’s personel service, demanded a list from each branch of
employees who would be taking part in the February 4 protest at Moscow’s
Victory Park. The letter then states: “We would like to bring to your
attention the fact that worker participation is mandatory!” In addition,
another Pochta Rossii worker said on a live broadcast of Russian News
Service radio that management had promised to pay each worker 6 thousand
rubles (~200 USD) for going to the rally.
Asia News
Network: Postal service providers in Brunei must adopt modern technology
through sustainable diversification of services in order to meet consumer
changes and become relevant in the current century, an expert said. "The
most obvious challenge post offices are facing is the challenge from
alternative technologies, where consumers today are using other means of
communication more than the traditional postal services," said Shailendra
Kumar Dwivedi, a lecturer from the Asian Pacific Postal College Bangkok,
Thailand.
Wall Street Journal: Facebook Inc. filed for an initial public offering
Wednesday that could value the social network between $75 billion and $100
billion, putting the eight-year-old company on track to be one of the
biggest U.S. stock-market debuts of all time, even as it tries to keep up
with sky-high expectations. [EdNote: In the meantme, the nation's first
"social network," the U.S. Postal Service, is facing bankruptcy. Perhaps
Wall Street will be kinder to Facebook than Congress has been to the Postal
Service.]
Financial Times: Portugal’s government aims to intensify structural
economic reforms and regain access to debt markets next year, even though
its bond yields are touching perilously high levels, Vítor Gaspar, finance
minister, said on Wednesday.The government is promising to speed up its
transposition into Portuguese law of liberalising EU initiatives on energy,
postal services and the railway industry.
Financial Times: Magyar Posta, the post office, power company Magyar
Villamos Muvek and the development bank Magyar Fejlesztesi Bank have clubbed
together to buy a licence and compete with the three existing mobile
companies – the local affiliates of Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Norway’s
Telenor.
BNC.com: Fans of the online literary magazine the Rumpus recently opened
their mailboxes to find a missive from its founder, Stephen Elliott. In one
way, this was entirely routine - he sends out emails that mix personal
stories with links to new website content almost every day. In another way,
it was absolutely new: The mailboxes they opened were not on their computers
but near apartment lobbies, doorways and the end of driveways. The Rumpus
had sent them a traditional letter, on paper, with a stamp, envelope and
signature.
Target Marketing: Many catalogers who had backed away from print—or
stopped printing entirely— are now refocusing on their print catalog core.
In my consulting business, I'm hearing clients (who would prefer not to be
identified) say, "Our catalogs are profitable again," "Catalogs are our main
sales driver," and "Catalogs are our first-line prospecting vehicle." What's
driving the reinvestment in print catalogs? Here are nine emerging
techniques and technologies that are largely responsible, and how you can
apply them to your marketing.
Courier, Express, and Postal Observer: Yesterday, in its conference call
covering its 4th Quarter 2011 earnings, United Parcel Service (UPS) provided
strong evidence that the parcel delivery industry is now more closely tied
to the growth in e-commerce than to the economy in general. In addition, it
provided some idea as to how UPS is changing its operations, pricing, labor
relations, and marketing to deal with the change in the mix of parcels that
its customers want UPS to deliver.
Practical eCommerce: The free-shipping era squeezes smaller merchants.
They must match the shipping policies of larger competitors, but they don't
receive the high-volume shipping discounts that the larger companies do.
Smaller merchants must pay more, in other words, for offering free shipping.
There's a company that offers high-volume shipping discounts to low-volume
ecommerce merchants.
Wichita Business Journal: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects
that the United States will add 20.5 million jobs between 2010 and 2020 — a
14.3 percent increase over the decade. The bureau’s list of declining jobs
also includes several tied to a single employer — the U.S. Postal Service .
Despite the nationwide job losses from the Postal Service, postal employees
in Wichita could have a better chance of keeping their jobs. A proposed
consolidation of mail processing facilities would bring more work to Wichita
while cutting jobs elsewhere in the state.
Charlotte City Buzz Examiner: The Postal Service reported a net loss of
$5.1 billion for its 2011 fiscal year and on Tuesday warned that could run
out of cash by September of next year if Congress did not offer relief. What
we need is a new business model for the post office, much more
entrepreneurial. in a rural State, if people would like to walk into a post
office and get a letter notarized, they cannot do it today. If people walk
into a post office and want to get 10 copies of their letter, they cannot do
it today. The United States Congress has said they cannot do that. If
somebody walks into a rural post office and wants to get a fishing license
or a hunting license or fill out a driver’s license, they cannot do that
right now. You can’t send a fax, pay a bill online…You can’t print out
stamps with your favorite picture on it? The list of what the post office
doesn’t do is endless.
New York Times: Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, received
a postal package containing anthrax spores four months ago, his spokesman
said Wednesday, adding a new dimension to the security threats faced by the
country’s political and military leadership.
Post & Parcel: Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor has downgraded New
Zealand Post’s outlook from “stable” to “negative” over concerns about the
ongoing decline in mail volumes. The postal service has its credit rating
monitored in relation to its $400m debt facilities, with the rating reviewed
on a semi-annual basis. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed the
Post’s AA- long-term credit rating and A-1+ short term credit rating, but
the Post’s outlook was downgraded along with its banking subsidiary Kiwibank
The change was based on what the agency saw as a continuing deterioration in
New Zealand Post’s core business, letters, and the increasing dependence of
the company on the competitive parcels segment for growth.
KUNC: After asking for a five-month moratorium in December, Congress has
been relatively quiet so far on how it hopes to fix the economically
troubled U.S. Postal Service. The Senate was expected to begin debating
postal reform legislation this week. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
decided instead to prioritize the STOCK Act. Meantime, the USPS is losing
$23 million per day.
Post & Parcel: Dutch postal regulatory OPTA has written to ministers
suggesting that PostNL face administrative penalties for missing its service
quality target in 2010. By law, the universal service provider in the
Netherlands must deliver 95% of its standard single-piece overnight domestic
mail, as deposited within public postboxes, on the next working day. During
2010, PostNL achieved only a 92.9% rate, but has argued that the low score
was the result of “considerable” strike action by trade unions at the end of
the year.
Government Executive: An estimate of the latest U.S. Postal Service
reform bill to be introduced into the Senate finds that the plan would
create a net government loss of $6.3 billion over 10 years. The
Congressional Budget Office released the assessment of the 21st Century
Postal Service Act on Jan. 26, as ordered by the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. CBO obtained the loss number by
calculating that the bill would result in off-budget savings of $25.6
billion through 2022 and on-budget costs of $31.9 billion during the same
time period.
 | ♪♫"Oh I heard it -- Heard It -- Yes, I heard it through the grapevine. . . ." ♫♪
Word has it that a revision of S. 1789 is now set for consideration on the
Senate floor -- if sufficienct support can be garnered.
You might want to look at
the Postal Service's "Talking Points" on the bill to get an idea of
what's under discussion. |  |
Government Executive: The House on Wednesday passed a bill that
would freeze federal worker and lawmaker pay through 2013, in what
Democrats and labor union leaders called an overly politicized maneuver.
The bill (H.R. 3835), introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., passed 309
-117 Wednesday. It came to the floor under the House’s suspension
calendar, which required a two-thirds majority for passage and allowed
for a vote without opportunity for public comment or amendment. Congress
typically uses the process on non-controversial bills with bipartisan
support. The measure extends the salary freeze for members of Congress
and civilian federal employees, with no changes or cost of living
adjustments available until the end of 2013. [EdNote: The Postal
Service is not covered by this proposed pay freeze.]
Welcome
to PostCom Radio
A PostCom Postal Podcast
Join PostCom President Gene Del Polito, Grayhair Postal Affairs
Vice President Angelo Anagnostopoulis, and Bank of America Postal
Strategy Senior Vice President Michael Tate in a discussion of the
"Postal Box Street Address" (PBSA) pratfall. |
February 1, 2012
PC World: It's been known for some time that there are security issues
associated with the increasing use of RFID tags in credit cards, but this
past weekend afforded a fresh demonstration of just how easy it is for
hackers to take advantage of them.
Congressional Research Service: "The U.S. Postal Service’s Financial
Condition: Overview and Issues for Congress"
Wall Street Journal: Paperless Post is known for personalized digital
invitations, usually sent by email, that create a paper-like experience. Now
the company is expanding its offerings of cards pegged to Valentine's Day,
the second-most important greeting-card occasion of the year, after
Christmas. An estimated 150 million paper Valentine's Day cards were bought
last year, according to the Greeting Card Association. Delivered by email or
through social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, Paperless Post's
electronic invitations appear on the screen as an image of a paper envelope.
Typeface can look as if it is letter-pressed or engraved. The card—usually a
digital image of a handcrafted paper card made by Paperless Post
designers—pops out of the envelope with adornments that may include a fancy
lining and personally selected calligraphy.
Parcel2Go: The UK’s largest
online parcel delivery specialist has said it is unsurprised by the results
of a recent study highlighting the growing importance of online delivery
services. A worldwide survey of 93 members of the Universal Postal Union
showed that 70 per cent believe postal e-services are strategically
important for the future. The research identified 55 different types of
digital services which are now available, including track and trace and
online bill payments.
InfoTech: An
industry first, the AccuLazr(TM) AL5010 laser barcode scanner from
Accu-Sort® Systems, Inc. now offers user access via the iPhone® and iPad®. A
smartphone or tablet PC can now be used to remotely monitor and diagnose
warehouse operations by accessing a web page hosted on the laser barcode
scanner. A cable connection to the scanner is no longer required in order to
monitor the performance of the system.
PR-Inside: Address data experts at Postcode Anywhere have unveiled a new
international address auto-complete application for Sage CRM. The
free-to-download extension uses rapid postal code look-up, combined with
auto-suggest technology which completes address fields as the user types -
making address data entry “faster, easier and more accurate.” Postcode
Anywhere makes it possible to enter full and validated UK or international
contact addresses up to 80% faster in Sage CRM. Multiple postal address
formats in international addresses.
The Press
Information Bureau: Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and
Information Technology inaugurated a Round Table on National Postal Policy
here today. Speaking on the occasion Shri Sibal said that in view of IT
revolution India Post has to embrace the changes and to be prepared for
challenges of tomorrow. Shri Sachin Pilot Minister of State for
Communications and Information Technology said that Department of Posts has
to revisit and reinvent itself in the light of rapidly changing scenario.
Though Department of Posts is already engaged in plethora of activities, it
may explore other revenue streams.
CIOL: India Post under the ministry of communications and IT is expected
to come up with pan-India rollout of mobile money order service. The pilot
program for this project is currently under way in Bihar and Punjab. Manjula
Prasher, secretary (Posts), chairman of the postal services Board and
director general, India Post, on the sidelines of National Postal Policy
2012 roundtable in New Delhi informed that they chose two states-- Bihar and
Punjab-- where a lot of immigrant workers remit money to their states.
The Hindu Business Line: The Postal Department has applied to the
Reserve Bank of India for a banking licence. Aimed at modernising postal
services, the policy is expected to make the department adopt a more
financially viable revenue model. It would also provide affordable services
at all points in the country as part of its Universal Service Obligation,
the Minister said.
eCommerceBytes: Postal regulators have finalized a new set of rules
governing the procedure for closing post offices, seeking to streamline the
review process as the U.S. Postal Service looks ahead to the potential
closure of thousands of locations. The agency agreed to shelve some of the
more controversial provisions that had drawn protests from the Postal
Service and direct mailer Valpak, such as a requirement to provide notice to
affected mailing customers in the community ahead of the proposal and final
determination to close a site, and a provision that would have automatically
triggered a suspension of the closing process if the move was opposed by a
timely appeal. In both cases, the Postal Service and Valpak argued that the
PRC was exceeding its authority with the proposed rulemaking, and the agency
agreed to table the measures indefinitely.
CEP News
(Courier-Express-Postal), published by the MRU Consultancy, has reported that:
As previously announced the EU-Commission adopted four decisions
concerning state aid proceedings against postal operators in Europe. ’In
the decisions concerning the Deutsche Post and the Belgian bpost we have
concluded that part of the aid received is incompatible with the
internal market and ordered its recovery’, said EUCommissioner Joaquin
Almunia. In contrast the aid granted to French La Poste and Greek post
ELTA were approved by the EU-Commission.
The EU-Commision found that the pension subsidies granted since 1995 on
account of the pension costs of civil servants have conferred an
economic advantage to Deutsche Post.
Belgian bpost has to repay 417m to the state. The EU-Commission found
that the Belgian post was overcompensated by subsidies for the delivery
of newspapers and magazines amounting to 5.2bn euros between 1992 and
2010.
The EU-Commission approved subsidies granted to French La Poste despite
its market share of over 99%
China’s express and postal industry recorded significant growth last
year. While letter mail volume stagnated at 7.38 billion (-0.3%) the
express services partially recorded exorbitant growth rates.
InPost, a subsidiary of Polish mail service provider Integer.pl (revenue
2010: 46.1m euros) has bypassed Poczta Polska’s reserved area since
November 2010 by adding metal plates to letters weighing less than 50
grammes, to increase the weight of the mail items.
Last week postal minister Ed Davey confirmed to the parliament that
Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. signed a contract providing certainty
that all products of Royal Mail will be available in the post offices
for the next ten years. The agreement is considered a prerequisite for
guaranteeing Post Office Ltd.’s financial stability.
In an interview with »Financial Times« (30.01) Nick Wells, chief
executive of TNT Post UK, announced to operate with TNT mailmen in the
UK. A corresponding test in Liverpool has been positive and TNT now
plans to launch this service in other urban centres across the UK.
PostNL faces trouble with its subcontractors. A spokesman of the drivers
association De Stichting Subcontractors Vervoersbedrijven announced to
seek a judicial review of the labour conditions of the around 1.800
subcontractors in the mail and parcel divisions. According to the
association the van drivers are only bogus self-employed.
A privatisation of Russia Post isn’t off the table yet. Boston
Consulting Group (BCG) recommended to privatise Russia Post. The
consultants suggested a partial privatisation which could yield up to
one billion euros. This cash injection should be used to fund a
restructuring programme according to the consultancy.
Despite a decrease in profit Singapore Post (SingPost) probably remained
the worlds most profitable postal company in the third quarter of the
current business year.
FedEx apparently plans to take over one of Poland’s leading CEP
services. »Dziennik Gazeta Prawna« (28.01) reported that the integrator
is poised to pay 100m zloty, around 23.5m euros, for the courier service
Opek.
Gati, one of India’s large express service providers (revenue 2010/2011:
185m euros) is in deeper financial troubles than originally thought.
DPD and Hermes are pooling their resources in Russia.
Activists in the USA devoted increased attention to FedEx. Several
hundred people protested in front of a FedEx facility in Los Angeles and
demanded that the company should really pay its corporate tax rate of
35%. The protests were triggered by a report of the left-leaning non
profit organisation Citizens for Tax Justice according to which twelve
major U.S. corporations - FedEx among them - not only avoided taxes
completely, but received tax refunds due to the current law in the USA
European retail companies face problems to establish their online
crossborder business.
CTT Expresso, a subsidiary of the Portuguese post, is on the course for
growth.
The consumer advice centre in Schleswig-Holstein accused Deutsche Post
of selling the addresses of its customers.
TNT Post Germany plans to buy into North German Citipost.
The South African Post Office (SAPO) has to look for a new CEO. Last
week a spokeswoman confirmed that SAPO and its former CEO Motshoanetsi
Lefoka reached a ’mutually agreed separation’. Lefoka has been on
’special leave’ since October 2011 due to an internal investigation over
irregular lease contracts.
The MRU, founded in 1992, is the only
consultancy in Europe, which has specialised in the
market of courier-, express- and parcel services. For large-scale shippers and
CEP-services in particular, the MRU provides
interdisciplinary advice for all major questions of the market, as there are
for example market entry, product design,
organisation, and EDP.To
learn more about the stories reported
above, contact CEP News. (We appreciate the courtesy extended by CEP News
to help whet your
appetite for more of what CEP offers.)
The Botswana Gazette: Botswana Post intends introducing the home postal
boxes and deliveries. The move follows a study conducted by the Universal
Postal Union (UPU), titled ‘Addressing in Botswana’, launched by the
Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) in September 2009.
Hellmail: Despite Lithuania not being too far from the Nordic regions,
its weather is surpisingly moderate. No real need for tennis rackets nailed
to shoes here. That said, given an alternative, few in Lithuania would
really want to trek to the local post box just to post a letter unless part
of some exercise regime or to give the dog a taste of freedom. With much of
the world now online, and Hybrid Mail gaining in popularity, Lithuanian Post
is now offering its own version of Hybrid to anyone wishing to post a
traditional paper letter - from their computer desktop.
Hellmail: Magazine publishers have given top marks for customer
satisfaction to mailing firms accredited by the industry’s quality standards
scheme. Almost 90 per cent of publishers (89.6%) said they would definitely
use a distribution company accredited by the Mail Distribution Accreditation
Scheme (MDAS) in future, the 2011 MDAS Customer Satisfaction Survey
revealed. The figure is the highest customer satisfaction rating registered
since the annual study was first conducted in 2008, and marks a year-on-year
increase of 8.9% from the 2010 figure of 82.4%.
Business2Community: "USPS Tries To Scare Boomers Away From Online
Banking"
PI World: Congressman Brian Higgins (D-NY) recently held a press
conference at Zenger Group, a printing and direct mail service provider, to
oppose the scheduled closure of the Postal Service William Street mail
processing facility here. The facility is considered to be the postal
distribution gateway between the United States and Toronto/southern Ontario,
as well as a major radiating point of print and mail services in Western New
York.
Postalnews Blog:
According to an article in Logistics Management, the “star” of United Parcel
Service’s impressive fourth quarter performance was its Sure Post product,
which uses the US Postal Service to actually deliver B2C parcels
Direct Marketing News: The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is, for the second
year, planning a summertime promotion for direct mailers that use
two-dimensional barcodes,
USPS
VP of domestic products Gary Reblin told Direct Marketing News on Jan. 31.
Reblin said last year's barcode promotion — which gave mailers a 3% discount
on qualifying Standard and First-Class mail letters, flats and cards — was
so successful that the USPS's board of governors urged that another
promotional program be developed for this year. The details of this year's
promotion will be put before the USPS's board of governors on Feb. 8 for its
approval, Reblin said. He declined to discuss specifics, as he said doing so
would be premature prior to the board's approval. However, he did say this
year's mobile barcode discount promotion will have some different features
from last year's. “We've studied best practices; we're going to take what we
learned from the last one and be more specific.”
PRNewswire: Enroute Systems Corporation (www.enroutecorp.com)
has announced the launch of new last mile postal service delivery service
options for its ShipIt! Portal supply chain management software. In addition
to existing support of multiple global and regional carrier parcel delivery
services, Enroute now offers cost-effective delivery capabilities to
businesses and residences in over 220 countries through their partnership
with DHL Global Mail. Far different from other shipment execution solutions,
ShipIt! Portal enables custom business rules that can recommend or
completely automate the shipping processes for retailers, distributors, and
manufacturers. Once the appropriate carrier or service is selected,
Enroute's software creates the necessary label, documents and manifest,
while parcel tracking information is then accessible from any web browser.
Detailed analytics enable rapid evaluation of service selection, centered on
factors such as cost, speed, and efficiency. A typical Enroute customer
saves up to 30% of their shipping costs and regains total control of how
they ship.
Next
week, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe will host two webinars for managed
account customers regarding the Postal Service's proposed changes to service
standards and the mail processing network. The
attachment to this message contains the invitation that will be sent to
managed account customers through the Postal Service's Business Service
Network, and instructions for joining the webinars. The PowerPoint
presentation used will be posted on RIBBS after the first webinar on
February 7. Because there are limited phone lines available to participants
in these webinars, Industry Engagement and Outreach (IEO) will schedule and
conduct a separate webinar -- using the same PowerPoint deck and covering
the same topics -- for Industry Association Executives, the PCC Advisory
Committee, and MTAC leadership. IEO will contact you with information about
the webinar within the next few days.
January 31, 2012
Docket No.
N2012-1: On January 18, 2012, the Postal Service filed a motion
which “requests that the Commission reconsider the current procedural
schedule and establish a new procedural schedule that will ensure issuance
of its Advisory Opinion by mid-April, 2012.”1 The Presiding Officer has
certified this issue to the Commission for consideration.2 This request
effectively asks that the procedural schedule recently established after
hearing and considering the scheduling concerns of all participants,
including the Postal Service, be reduced by several months. Such a
substantial reduction in schedule appears inconsistent with due process
afforded all participants when conducting a hearing on the record under
sections 556 and 557 of title 5. The Motion is denied.
U.S. Postal Service:: Mailing Industry Stakeholder: We invite you to take
part in our latest testing for our Every Door Direct Mail/Standard Mail TV
animatics. Below is a link that will allow you to view the animatics for the
commercials and be a part of the testing. To access this survey, please
press the “CTRL” key on your keyboard as you left-click the link below with
your mouse.
http://t2.ktrmr.com/surveyr.aspx?i.project=CQMMP&s=GEN24&id=1&chk=na&pid=auto

The
following report has been posted on the U.S. Postal Service Office of
Inspector General website (http://www.uspsoig.gov).
If you have additional questions concerning a report, please contact Wally
Olihovik at 703-248-2201 or Agapi Doulaveris at 703-248-22
Revenue, Pieces, and Weight
Inputs into the Cost and Revenue Analysis Report (Report Number
CRR-AR-12-003). Our
report determined the U.S. Postal Service could significantly reduce manual
data collection for revenue, pieces, and weights estimation by modifying
existing automated processes to collect mailpiece images for analysis and
moving sampling from delivery units to supporting processing plants. The
Postal Service could make the hardware changes needed with existing
technology, which would benefit both operational needs and statistical
sampling efforts. We estimate the Postal Service could save about $13
million in annual data collection costs.
Postal Employee Network: Congressman John Carter is asking the U.S. Post
Office for a review of the considerations used in determining which post
offices to close in the agency’s cost-cutting decisions this month.
Reuters: United Parcel Service posted a better-than-expected
quarterly profit on Tuesday and forecast 9 percent to 15 percent growth this
year as solid U.S. demand and growing e-commerce activity offsets an uneven
global economy. UPS reported its fourth-quarter profit was down sharply as
the result of a change in how the world's largest package-delivery company
accounts for its pension expenses. Factoring that change out, profit would
have risen, helped by strong growth in the company's consumer business --
driven by online shopping during the recent holiday season -- which offset
less-robust growth outside the United States, analysts said.
Postal
Technology International: Swiss Post is expanding its presence in
Scandinavia, with Swiss Post International opening a branch in Norway at the
beginning of the year. This provides Swiss online dealers with the
possibility of greatly reducing customs clearance costs when exporting to
the non-EU country of Norway and cutting costs for Norwegian consumers.
Tonawanda News: We’ve been inundated with news reports about the fiscal
woes of the U.S. Postal Service. Why is it that we never hear anything about
another federal enterprise facing ongoing losses -- Amtrak? The only reason
that Amtrak stays alive is subsidies by taxpayers. Since the start of the
2000s, the United States has dedicated more than $1 billion per year to the
broken system, and matters were only made worse by the Rail Safety
Improvement Act signed into law in 2008 by President George W. Bush. The Act
guarantees annual funding of $2.6 billion through 2013. Even with the cash
flow of such charity, Amtrak continues to string together losses. Despite
the glaring weaknesses of commuter rail (and the federal government’s
business acumen), Washington is insistent on spending our money — and lots
of it — on its ethereal demand. Sadly, there’s no end in sight. Thinking the
concept of high-speed rail is the silver bullet that will win over the
masses when it comes to the continued socialization of our means of travel,
the White House announced a year ago that it will be “investing” $53 billion
over the next six years to build such a network. That money will be used
almost entirely by government entities, including state-run operations and
Amtrak, alike. Only government officials could see a winner in high-speed
commuter rail, having never learned a lesson from what ails the current
system. Promoting and sustaining entities like Amtrak — with broken,
irreparable operational systems and a market that won’t bear the investment
— now and into the future has us speeding to fiscal destruction by adding to
the unconscionable deficits and debts that burden us at the federal level.
BBC:
Jersey Post said they would be ending the two-tier postal service from
March. It introduced a priority and a delayed post at a reduced rate in
November 2010. Chief executive Kevin Keen said: "It has been clear for some
time many islanders were unhappy with the two-tier service." The company
will end the split in March bringing the price of posting a letter in the
island to 37p.
The Baltic
Course: The council of Estonian state-owned postal company Eesti Post
chose Aavo Kärmas as the new board chairman of the company.
WebWire:
The UK’s largest online parcel delivery specialist has said it is
unsurprised by the results of a recent study highlighting the growing
importance of online delivery services. A worldwide survey of 93 members of
the Universal Postal Union showed that 70 per cent believe postal e-services
are strategically important for the future. The research identified 55
different types of digital services which are now available, including track
and trace and online bill payments.
Caspionet: National postal services of Russia and Kazakhstan are
planning to increase online commerce. According to both sides, the countries
have all the necessary conditions for this. Electronic commerce will be
given a new impetus for development. KazPost and Russian Post intend to
attract a wide audience even from rural areas in online commerce within the
framework of the Common Economic Space.
January 30, 2012
Federal Times: Seldom does one federal agency save money at another’s
expense. But that’s how it’s looking more than a year after the Internal
Revenue Service opted to stop delivering millions of income tax forms by
mail. The IRS announced the decision in September 2010 as part of a push to
economize on its annual printing and postage budget. As of this past August,
the savings on postage costs just from not mailing Form 1040 packages
amounted to about $4.1 million, according to a recent report by the Treasury
Inspector General for Tax Administration. That was money lost to the U.S.
Postal Service, which is in financial crisis driven exactly by this kind of
shift to e-mail and electronic commerce. The Postal Service, it should be
noted, recouped about half of that amount because the IRS used postcards to
notify taxpayers of the change. But as the report notes, that was a one-time
expense. And the report doesn’t attempt to quantify what the Postal Service
will lose from the additional taxpayers who go with the IRS’ advice to
“e-file” their annual returns.
The Oklahoma Daily: The U.S. Postal Service cut 50 full-time employees
from OU’s staff Monday, a 28 percent decrease. Cuts were given to
instructors and technical staff at the National Center for Employee
Development of University Outreach, said Richard Little, the associate vice
president of University Outreach. The U.S. Postal Service primarily made
this decision, and OU was forced to terminate several contracts from the
Norman-based training location. OU has been administering contracts to
employees at the center for over 22 years, and this is the largest number of
cuts in one decision, Little said in a press release. OU was notified two
weeks ago about the need for cuts and administered notifications that Monday
would be the last day for cut employees. Prior to Monday, OU employed 180
full-time support staff and instructors. This cut comes at the heel of a 46
percent drop in national revenue for the postal service last year, according
to a press release.
Press Release: Satori Software
today launched EasyTrack, a mail stream monitoring add-on service for its
Bulk Mailer and MailRoom ToolKit mailing preparation solutions. Mailers and
their clients can now benefit from increased visibility into the USPS mail
stream to more accurately predict mail delivery windows and identify
possible delivery issues. USPS automation equipment scans First-Class Mail®
and Standard Mail® letters and flats as they pass through. When the mail
pieces are marked with a properly encoded Intelligent Mail® barcode, the raw
scan data is made available to the mailer. EasyTrack transforms this raw
scan data into valuable and easy-to-understand information Satori Software
customers can use to track and analyze their mail from the time it is
deposited at USPS through its predicted delivery.

The U.S. Postal Service Office
of Inspector General invites you to comment on this
week’s “Pushing the Envelope” blog topic:
U.S. Mail: A Perpetual Duty.
In 1789, our founding fathers provided the necessary infrastructure
to “bind” the nation together through communication, and thus the Post
Office Department (now the U.S. Postal Service) was born. Our needs for a
secure national communications system have obviously evolved since the
1700s. Do you think America needs secure universal digital postal services?
Share your thoughts on our
blog. New
audit projects have been started on the external website:
-
Processing of Meter Activity –
12BG017FT000.
Postage meters and PC Postage systems generate indicia imprinted on or
affixed to a mailing to evidence payment of postage. The services generate
provide a convenient postage payment option for Postal Service customers to
print postage labels and account for postage.
The Postal Service regulates these services and their use to protect
postal revenue. Only authorized manufacturers or product service providers
may design, produce, and distribute the systems, also known as postage
evidencing systems. We are conducting an
audit, and seeking customer feedback, to determine the effectiveness of the
management of various meter activities such as meter movement, setting,
customer information, and meter history related to customer and postal meter
activity.
-
Accuracy of data contained in
the eFMS – 12YG006DA000.
We are reviewing the integrity of data maintained in the electronic
Facilities Management System (eFMS). The eFMS is used to manage the Postal
Service’s real property inventory and administer all property-related
projects, such as acquisition, construction, repairs, and disposal. In
addition, eFMS manages all aspects of the property leasing program including
lease preparation and out-leasing/sub-leasing excess space.
-
Efficiency Review of the Los
Angeles NDC – 12XG010NO000.
The Office of Inspector General has issued at least 20 reports on the
efficiency of mail processing operations. These reviews revealed that Postal
Service management had not evaluated operational efficiency by assessing
performance against productivity targets and other plants and adjusting
staff and equipment resources in response to workload changes. Consequently,
more workhours than necessary were used to process the mail.
Our audit objective is to evaluate the efficiency of the Los Angeles
Network Distribution Center and provide specific recommendations to improve
the plant’s operattional efficeincy. Are there opportunities to increase
the use of automation to process the mail? Can schedules be adjusted to
better match the flow of mail? What role does mail preparation play in the
ease of processing the mail? What changes are likely to occur in operations
if the Postal Service moves forward with plans to relax delivery standards?
-
Enterprise Data Warehouse
Infrastructure Security Assessment – 12RR004IT000.
The Postal Service’s Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) provides a single
source of data across the organization to a wide variety of users. The data
can be modified in a variety of ways for a deeper analysis, which could lead
to additional revenue, reduced costs, and improved business practices.
Several Postal Service organizations actively use EDW, including Retail,
Supply Chain Management, Finance, Network Operations, and Facilities. The
system was implemented in February 2001 and can be assessed by any Postal
employee with corporate information security access. Our project objective
is to identify the controls and assess the risk associated with EDW
-
Postal Service Use of Source
Evaluation Tools in the Purchasing Process – 12YG012CA000.
The Office of Audit, Supply Management plans to conduct a review of the
Postal Service’s use of source evaluation tools in the purchasing process.
Best Value, expressed through solicitation evaluation factors, is the basis
of all Postal Service sourcing decisions. Past Performance and supplier
capability are mandatory evaluation factors and some form of price analysis
is required for every purchase. Do you believe the evaluation factors
currently used in requests for proposals properly achieve a determination of
best value for the Postal Service? Also, please share your concerns or
comments about the current evaluation process?
Reuters: The following are some of the leading stories in Russia's
newspapers on Monday. . . . The government could sell a stake in Russian
Post to raise up to 40 million roubles ($1.32 million) to implement a
220-billion-rouble ($7.27 billion) project to reform postal services in the
country.
4-Traders: Singapore Post Limited ("SingPost") today announced its
unaudited results for the third quarter and nine months ended 31 December
2011. Group revenue saw a marginal increase to S$149.4 million in the third
quarter of FY2011/12 against the backdrop of a slowing economy. Logistics
revenue rose by 5.2% to S$57.0 million with the growth in Speedpost
business, e- fulfilment activities in Quantium Solutions and vPOST shipping
business. The Retail segment posted an increase in revenue of 5.1% to S$17.6
million as higher contributions from retail products and online store Clout
Shoppe offset the drop in agency services and financial services. Mail
revenue dipped 3.4% to S$98.0 million due to declines in domestic mail and
international mail volumes.
PRNewswire: Cenveo, Inc. today announced that it has agreed to sell its
Forms and Business Documents Group ("Documents Group") to Ennis, Inc.,
manufacturer of printed business products & apparel headquartered in
Midlothian, Texas. This divestiture allows Cenveo to focus on our core
operations including labels, specialty packaging, envelopes, print and
content management. Statements made in this release, other than those
concerning historical financial information, may be considered
"forward-looking statements," which are based upon current expectations and
involve a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties that could cause
actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements.
Factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from management's expectations include, without limitation . . .
factors affecting the United States postal services impacting demand for our
products . . . the availability of the Internet and other
electronic media affecting demand for our products . . . .
TVNZ: New Zealand Post Group, the state-owned postal service, is
increasing its postage rates for domestically self-wrapped parcels and
introducing an additional charge for rural deliveries in March, to cover
rising petrol costs and inflation. The postage rates will increase from five
to 11%, while parcels destined for rural delivery addresses will incur an
addition charge of $2.80, effective March 1.
Financial Times: TNT Post, Royal Mail’s largest private sector rival,
plans to go head-to-head with the state-owned postal operator by launching
its own delivery service for bulk and direct mail. The move would break
Royal Mail’s near monopoly of the “final mile” of delivery of letters to
homes and offices and could create thousands of jobs at TNT. The company has
trialled the service in Liverpool and is looking at launching it in other
urban centres.
Save the Post Office: Contract post offices look like a cheap and easy
way for the Postal Service to outsource its retail postal business. Just put
the post office in a private business or community center, and don't worry
about paying rent or postal employees. There's still a post office in town,
the Postal Service has met its universal service obligation, and a lot of
money has been saved. But contract post offices are not the panacea that
postal management, big mailers, and advocates of privatization would like to
think they are. They have many problems, and their numbers just keep
declining.
The
Hindu: Corporates and government departments keep its services going,
but the Postal Department is clearly losing its individual customers. A
postmaster who did not want to be named said: “The number of individual
customers has reduced to 50 per cent compared to two decades ago.
January 29, 2012
Mailing
Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual
January 28, 2012
TheIsMoney: Companies have attacked Royal Mail for axeing compensation
for packages lost in transit. Changes introduced this month mean firms with
a contract to use the Royal Mail standard business service can no longer
claim for lost parcels. If they want guaranteed compensation, they must pay
extra, either for special delivery – at upwards of £5.45 – or for Royal
Mail’s tracking service.
Business Standard: The department of posts will formulate a detailed
project report for setting up a bank, in the XII Plan. The department will
apply for a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India. Post Bank of
India may be set up with the required authorised capital of Rs 700 crore,
the official added.
Austin YourNewsNow: For the last 20 years Brent Martin and his family
run what is called the ‘contract postal unit.’ Last year, Martin said he
first received word their location was among 20
contract offices to be closed down as part of an agreement made between the
United Postal Service and the American Postal Workers Union.
Martin said that was the last he heard of the situation until several weeks
ago when they received notice that their location was to be closed down at
the end of March. American Postal Workers Union President Cliff Guffey said
they do not want to see the location closed either. However, the union does
take issue with contract employees staffing the facility. Instead, they want
postal workers to take over. Guffey said the contracts are typically given
to businesses like stores to provide some postal services as a convenience
to their customers. The fact that there are P.O. boxes at the location makes
it an 'improperly opened contract postal unit'. The news was a blow to
Martin who has become a part of the community over the years.
Courier, Express, and Postal Observer: The Plum Line in the Washington Post provides another example how mail outshines broadcast media in political campaigns. Mitt Romney's campaign is currently running a mail campaign challenging Newt Gingrich's emotional stability. As Greg Sargent Points out This the sort of attack that's probably too hot for the Romney campaign to be directly associated with on the airwaves, which may explain why it's being pushed via mail, which is relatively under the radar.
eGov Monitor: Alan Pickering CBE has been appointed the independent chair of the Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme (RMSPS) by Postal Affairs Minister Edward Davey. His appointment is a key step towards the transfer of Royal Mail's historic pension liabilities from Royal Mail to Government. Subject to the European Commission's approval of state aid, the RMSPS – a new public sector pension scheme – will assume the bulk of Royal Mail's historic pension liabilities.
 | ♪♫"Oh I heard it -- Heard It -- Yes, I heard it through the grapevine. . . ." ♫♪
Senate action on S. 1789 most likely will be put off until the
week of February 6. |  |
Post & Parcel: Poland's national postal service Polish Post has lost a key court battle against a private sector competitor it claimed was delivering mail in violation of the country's monopoly protections.
Post & Parcel: The UK government has taken a step towards taking on Royal Mail's historic pension liabilities by appointing a new independent chair of the Royal Mail Statutory Pension Scheme. Postal Affairs Minister Ed Davey appointed pension industry stalwart Alan Pickering to chair the scheme, which will assume the bulk of Royal Mail's historic liabilities if the European Commission approves the proposal under EU state aid rules. The government wants to take over Royal Mail's historic pension liabilities as it shapes up the organisation for privatisation. Royal Mail will be left with a smaller, fully-funded pension plan, ministers have said.
Wall Street Journal: United Parcel Service Inc. has become the latest big U.S. company to change its pension accounting to a methodology considered more transparent but that can add volatility to corporate profits from year to year. Atlanta-based UPS said it will record an $827 million pretax charge for the fourth quarter as it changes to a mark-to-market system of accounting, in which it recognizes significant gains and losses in its pension plans on an annual basis instead of spreading the effect over time. It said the move has no impact on benefits paid to plan participants or its pension funding.
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THE ULTIMATE TEST OF ANY POSTAL REFORM MEASURE
(1) It must ensure the fiscal viability of the U.S. Postal Service,
(2) It must ensure the Postal Service is set up to operate on a self-sufficient basis, and
(3) It must ensure the ability of the Postal Service to satisfy the nation's postal needs.
ANY legislative proposal that cannot do this should go back to the drafting table.
"Do it once and do it nice, otherwise you'll do it twice." -- Sister Maria Cortilia
(Parochial School Teacher) | | | |