Adapting the Post Office To the Digital Age 299
Hugh Pickens writes "Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui write in the Washington Post that with projected deficits through 2020 of $238 billion, the debate over potential changes at the US Postal Service is like a fight over the dessert bar on the Titanic: email has already supplanted letters, more people will send money via PayPal rather than mail checks, people will download their movies and books, check their bills online, and receive information about their investments electronically. Delivery volume for first-class mail fell 22 percent from 1998 through 2007, tumbled an additional 13 percent last year and was down 3 percent in the first half of this year despite heavy mailings from the Census Bureau. USPS's future lies in things that need to be delivered physically: shoes, computers and other objects, and the USPS has assets that could let it take on UPS and FedEx. 'USPS needs to start with the future and work backward to the present,' write Carroll and Mui. 'It needs to forecast volumes for all types of its business five, 10 and 15 years out and design a business model that will thrive under those scenarios. Only then can it figure out what radical changes need to be made now.'"
Re:Remove the artificial monopoly (Score:3, Funny)
And then remove their union contract that states that they can never decrease their workforce, even if they don't need as many workers due to reduced volume.
Better idea: just negotiate this in their next contract. Any union worth its membership dues will recognize the occasionally necessity of layoffs, and be willing to trade a "no layoffs" policy for a fair layoffs policy. (ideally, one that spells out what criteria are used, and places laid off workers in a "hire back" list.)
NY state workers are almost all unionized, and the only reason that we haven't had any layoffs is that Paterson is a short-sighted moron, who made a dumb deal with the unions last year and tried to do something not addressed in the contract this year. (We ARE making ready for layoffs at the end of the year, when Paterson's moronic deal runs out.)