“The Postal Service’s announcement provides new evidence that union members must contact their U.S. representatives and urge them to address postal reform immediately, using the recently-approved Senate bill as a starting point for discussion,” said APWU President Cliff Guffey. “Slashing the postal network will destroy service, drive away customers, and weaken the USPS,” he said.

via ‘Modified’ Consolidation Plan Is More of the Same; Union Members Must Fight Back, House Must Act Now.

Senator Brown, however, told 2 NEWS he is not giving up and is calling on House Speaker John Boehner to get the House moving on legislation since the Senate has already passed a bill with bi-partisan support.

Senator Brown said he spoke with the Postmaster General and no one who currently works at the Dayton facility will lose a job.  He explained that some employees will get to stay in Dayton while others will have opportunities in Cincinnati and Columbus.

via USPS reaction: Sen. Brown not giving up.

“I appreciate that the Postal Service is moving forward with its downsizing in a way that is consistent with the Senate-passed 21st Century Postal Service Act. The PMG assures us that no mail processing centers will be closed this year, which means the House still has time to pass a bill so it can be reconciled with the Senate-passed bill. While the PMG is moving cautiously now, the financial condition of the Postal Service continues to deteriorate, and he will not be similarly restrained next year.  Congress must approve legislation as soon as possible to return the postal service to solid financial ground before essential services are lost for millions of people.”

via Majority Media | Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee | Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee.

Terms of the probation for Joseph E. Clemas Jr. 40, of the Pottsville area, include a prohibition on any kind of gambling, including the state lottery.

via Gambling mailman’s luck soured when inspectors caught him stealing mail » News » The Daily Item, Sunbury, PA.

Harsh Realities

· Nationwide last year, 5,577 postal employees were attacked in more than 1,400 cities. Los Angeles topped the list with 83 postal employees attacked in 2011. Beyond the needless pain and suffering, medical expenses from dog attacks cost the Postal Service nearly $1.2 million last year.

• ●  “Children are three times more likely than adults to be bitten by a dog,” said PTB President Kathy Voigt, whose daughter Kelly, was mauled by a neighborhood dog. “Education is essential to keeping children safe from dog bites.” The attack prompted their creation of Prevent The Bite, a non-profit organization that promotes dog bite prevention to young children.
• ●  AAP President Dr. Robert Block added, “Parents, please don’t ever leave a young child unsupervised around any dog, even a dog well-known to your family. Even very young children should be taught not to tease or hurt animals. And with school almost over for the year, children will be spending more time in parks, at friends’ homes, and other places where they may encounter dogs. They need to know what to do to minimize the risk of being bitten.”
• ●  According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2011 alone more than 29,000 reconstructive procedures were performed as a result of injuries caused by dog bites. Dr. Michael Neumeister, ASRM president said, “Even the friendliest dog may bite when startled or surprised. Be cautious, once a child is scarred they are scarred for life. We hear this line all the time ‘The dog has never bitten anyone before.’ A dog’s reaction to being surprised or angered is not predictable.”
• ●  “Any dog can bite,” said Dr. René Carlson, AVMA president. “If it is physically or mentally unhealthy, is in pain, feels threatened, or is protecting its food or a favorite toy, it can bite. It is important to understand how dogs behave and how our behavior may be interpreted by a dog.”
• ●  “Dog attacks accounted for more than one-third of all homeowner insurance liability claims paid out in 2011,” said Dr. Robert Hartwig, III president and chief economist. 

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employees will be received by some as a mixed message. We are aware that some EAS employees have been

waiting for some time to take advantage of an incentive. On the other hand, there are other EAS employees

who need to have a job, a job where they now work, close to their homes and families.

NAPS has been a leader the in the fight to keep processing facilities and post offices open to serve the

American public. In this fight, we have been successful. As a result there will not be massive job losses in our

ranks. NAPS believes that what we have accomplished is good for our members and good for our country.

Now that the Postal Service has determined there is no need to keep “landing spots” for impacted EAS

employees, NAPS will emphasize the immediate need to fill vacant positions that exist throughout the country.

We can no longer function with the number of vacancies we have in operations and these positions need to be

filled now.

While we will be working to get vacant positions filled, and our members point to the postmasters who can

take advantage of incentives and VERA’s, all must be mindful that there are large numbers of postmasters that

may not be able to take advantage of the incentives and will have to make the hard decisions on where they

will be able to work after their restructuring.

Had the Postal Service implemented their plans to close half of the processing facilities in the country, there

would have been hundreds if not thousands of EAS employees faced with the decision of moving great

distances to keep a job. If the Postal Service’s plans were initiated, our veterans would have been RIF’d

because of the current rules on closure of competitive areas.

NAPS will continue our efforts to minimize the impact of the Postal Service’s consolidation plans on our

members now and in the future. We will continue to do everything in our power to protect the interests of our

members

The U.S. Postal Service today announced plans to move ahead with a modified plan to consolidate its network of 461 mail processing locations in phases. The first phase of activities will result in up to 140 consolidations through February of 2013. Unless the circumstances of the Postal Service change in the interim, a second and final phase of 89 consolidations is currently scheduled to begin in February of 2014.

via NAPUS.

The service, after a loss of $3.2 billion in the quarter ended March 31 and predicting it will temporarily run out of cash in October, intends to close about 140 plants in the next year and about 90 in 2014, Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan told reporters today on a conference call. A first phase will save $1.2 billion a year, she said.

via Postal Service Sticking With Plan to Close Mail Plants – Bloomberg.

At a news briefing, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the agency’s mail processing network had simply become too big, given declining mail volume and its mounting debt. It will now consolidate nearly 250 plants as originally planned, including 48 this summer, but will stretch out the remainder over a longer time frame in 2013 and 2014.

via Post office to begin closing mail processing centers this summer, saying it can no longer wait – The Washington Post.

“Mrs. Landore committed an outrageous breach of trust in this case,” Jones said. “She was able to do this because she held the job of postmaster, which gave her a good income and respect in the community.”

But he stopped short of slapping her with the high end of the sentencing guidelines, which suggested a prison stay between 10 months to a year and four months.

via Former Southwest Virginia Postmaster gets prison time | WSLS 10.

The cuts will be limited in 2012, with 48 plants slated to be consolidated or closed in July and August, which will only impact 5,000 employees. However, when the plan is fully implemented at the end of 2014, 229 plants will be consolidated or closed and 28,000 jobs will be gone.

via Postal plants to shrink, 28,000 jobs at stake | Consumer – Home.

• No closures from September through December, during the election and holiday seasons.

• 92 closures in early 2013.

• 89 closures in 2014.

In all, the cuts will leave the Postal Service with 232 plants, about half of its current network of 461 plants, a step that Postmaster General Pat Donahoe said is necessary to address plummeting first-class mail volume. In all, the reductions are expected to save $2.1 billion annually.

via USPS to eliminate 28,000 jobs, close 229 plants by 2014 – FederalTimes.com.

“Today’s announcement comes a week after the Postal Service announced that it lost a staggering $3.2 billion in the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2012. In fact, the Postal Service is hemorrhaging money at a rate of at least $25 million a day and is on track to lose far more over the course of this fiscal year. Given these dire circumstances it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Postmaster General is moving forward to reduce costs with the limited tools at his disposal, but the reality is that efforts of this scale are not enough to fundamentally fix the Postal Service’s financial problems.

via Press Releases – Newsroom – Tom Carper, U.S. Senator for Delaware.

Myers, a postal worker who delivered mail to rural areas, claimed she was injured back in May, 2009 during the annual letter carriers’ food drive. She said she could no longer physically handle the job of delivering mail and was placed on light duty. She also began seeking workers’ comp benefits.

via Florida Postal Worker Seeking Workers’ Comp Caught Running Boston Marathon – Miami News – Riptide 2.0.

Congress continues to work on legislation that would maintain mail delivery standards, keep postal facilities open and create a new business model for the Postal Service.

The Senate-passed bill addresses the major reason for the Postal Service’s financial troubles – a $5.5 billion annual mandate to pre-fund 75 years of future retiree health benefits in just 10 years.  This onerous requirement, unparalleled by any entity in the private sector or government, is responsible for more than 80 percent of the Postal Service’s debt.  Without that obligation, the Postal Service would have posted a profit of $700 million from 2007-2010, and a $200 million profit in the first quarter of this fiscal year. The Senate-passed bill also addresses the reality that the Postal Service overpaid $11 billion into the Federal Employees Retirement System.

via We Deliver for You – Newsroom: Bernie Sanders – U.S. Senator for Vermont.

The U.S. Postal Service today announced plans to move ahead with a modified plan to consolidate its network of 461 mail processing locations in phases. The first phase of activities will result in up to 140 consolidations through February of 2013.  Unless the circumstances of the Postal Service change in the interim, a second and final phase of 89 consolidations is currently scheduled to begin in February of 2014.

“We revised our network consolidation timeline to provide a longer planning schedule for our customers, employees and other stakeholders, and to enable a more methodical and measured implementation,” said Patrick R. Donahoe, Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer of the Postal Service.

“We simply do not have the mail volumes to justify the size and capacity of our current mail processing network. To return to long-term profitability and financial stability while keeping mail affordable, we must match our network to the anticipated workload,” said Donahoe. “Our current plan meets our cost reduction goals, ensures seamless and excellent service performance throughout the implementation period, and provides adequate time for our customers to adapt to our network changes.”

The Postal Service will begin consolidating operations this summer – which mostly involve transferring mail-processing operations from smaller to larger facilities. Due to the volume of high-priority mail predicted for the election and holiday mailing seasons, no consolidating activities will be conducted from September through December of 2012. Approximately 5,000 employees will begin receiving notifications next week related to consolidating and other efficiency-enhancing activities to be conducted this summer.

“We will be conducting consolidation activities this summer at only 48 locations,” said Megan Brennan, chief operating officer of the Postal Service. “As a result, nearly all consolidating activities in 2012 will occur in August and then will resume again the early part of next year.”

These consolidating activities will reduce the size of the Postal Service workforce by approximately 13,000 employees and, when fully implemented, will generate cost reductions of approximately $1.2 billion annually.

“The Postal Service will be communicating with our customers and employees about these changes in great detail,” said Megan Brennan. “We will work closely with our customers to ensure there are no surprises as we move forward.”

The Postal Service also announced it is working with its unions for an employee retirement incentive, although no final decision has been made.  “The Postal Service has reduced the size of its workforce by 244,000 career employees since 2000 without resorting to layoffs,” said Brennan. “We are a responsible employer and we will work with our employees to ensure a smooth transition to a much leaner organization.”

The Postal Service also announced that it would soon issue a new regulation to modify its existing Service Standard for overnight delivery. The Postal Service said a Final Rule would soon be published in the Federal Register that would initially shrink the geographic reach of overnight service to local areas and enable consolidation activity in 2013. The new rule would further tighten the overnight delivery standard in 2014 and enable further consolidation of the Postal Service mail processing network absent any change to the circumstances of the Postal Service.

“We are essentially preserving overnight delivery for First-Class Mail through the end of 2013, although we are collapsing the distance that we can provide overnight service to the distribution area served by a particular mail processing facility,” said Megan Brennan. Approximately 80 percent of First-Class Mail will still be delivered overnight.

The Postal Service stated its expectation to pursue additional consolidation activities for an additional 89 mail processing locations beginning in 2014 unless its circumstances change. These consolidations would be based on long-term service standards that would significantly revise mail-entry times for customers seeking overnight delivery.

“Given that the Postal Service is currently projecting a $14 billion net loss in FY2012, and continuing annual losses of this magnitude, we simply cannot justify maintaining our current mail processing footprint,” said Donahoe.

When fully implemented in late 2014, the Postal Service expects its network consolidations to generate approximately $2.1 billion in annual cost reductions, and lead to total workforce reduction up to 28,000 employees.

The list of 140 mail processing locations to be consolidated by February of 2013 is available after 3 p.m. ET today at http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/our-future-network/welcome.htm.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

via USPS moves ahead with modified network plan.

When they arrived, they found a little settlement with several buildings and a ford in the river where the Galena to Chicago Stagecoach crossed. Further north, two log cabins stood on either side of the river at McCarty’s Mills (later named Aurora). The village to the south looked much more promising to the brothers as a site for a future city, so they decided to stake their claims in this area. It came to be known as Graystown.

via The Men (and Women) of Letters at the Montgomery Post Office – Montgomery, IL Patch.

The news of late coming out of the House of Representatives has not been good for the federal workforce. Budget proposals put forth would cut the size of the federal workforce and increase the dollar amount that federal workers have to contribute to their retirement benefits, and talk of an extended pay freeze has been floated as well.

via News Articles: House Resolution Would Prevent Increases to Pension Contributions.

There has been much debate and confusion regarding USPS’s financial status. It helps to break the issue down into three questions

via Dead Tree Edition: Is the Postal Service Really Broke?.

“It’s just scary,” she said.

The Cape Girardeau center, with about 100 employees, was one of 220 set to close until the U.S. Postal Service agreed to a moratorium on facility closures through Tuesday to allow Congress time to act on an alternative.

But the day came and went without any action by the House of Representatives, although the Senate approved a plan to delay closings last month. The Postal Service is expected to announce this week a plan for its processing centers, which could have major implications for the Cape Girardeau facility.

via seMissourian.com: Local News: Postal Service deadline for action by Congress passes (05/16/12).

S 1910, the Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, was passed by a voice vote and will now go to the full Senate. It would allow feds to claim family and medical leave to care for their same-sex domestic partners, and would make their partners eligible for group life insurance and long-term care insurance benefits. In addition, after a gay or lesbian retiree dies, his or her surviving partners could receive federal retirement benefits. The bill would not make those benefits available to opposite-sex domestic partners.

via Senate panel approves benefits for same-sex partners – FederalTimes.com.

The USPS letter, which was faxed to the union at approximately 3 p.m., says that postal managers will begin giving “stand-up talks” to employees on Tour 3 on May 16. Copies of the service talks [PDF] were provided.

APWU President Cliff Guffey said, “The Postal Service’s actions are the best evidence there is that union members must contact their U.S. representatives and urge them to address postal reform immediately, using the recently-approved Senate bill as a starting point for discussion.”

Fall Break, Service Changes

There will be a break in consolidation activities from September through December for the election and holiday mailing seasons, the letter says. Following the break, the first phase of consolidations will resume in January 2013. Phase two will be completed by the end of 2014.

The letter says that a new, interim regulation to modify existing Service Standards for overnight delivery will be introduced that “will shrink the geographic reach of overnight service to local areas.

“This new interim Service Standard will enable consolidating activity in 2013, and will be replaced with a permanent Service Standard for overnight delivery in 2014.”

The stand-up talks say that “Actions taken will comply with collective bargaining agreements, Postal Service regulations and policies, and other applicable law.” It also says, “The Postal Service is working with its unions regarding an employee incentive offer and will announce details when final decisions are made,” but the USPS and APWU have not been negotiating about incentives, Guffey said.

The talk for employees who interact with customers says, “Some consolidation activities will begin this summer, but there will be no facilities closures this summer.” The other talks do not include this language, nor does the letter to the APWU. (In fact, the stand-up talks for other employees refer to “closing facility.”)

“The Postal Service’s plans seem to be in constant flux,” Guffey said. “I hope members of Congress are paying attention. They must act quickly to prevent a severe degradation of service and massive cutbacks in the mail processing network.”

via USPS Announces ‘Modified Consolidation Plan’; Implementation to Begin This Summer, No Specifics Provided.

Prosecutors say 51-year-old Jeffrey A. Gogets of Greensburg received over $8,500 in healthcare and workers compensation benefits after he inflicted a wound on himself in April, 2011 and falsely claimed a robbery had taken place.

via Morning briefing: Westmoreland County postal worker pleads guilty to fake attack » Latest News » The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, PA.

via Postal Service Honors Suppliers for Outstanding Performance — WASHINGTON, May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –.

via Going Postal: How Congress Has Failed Its Shareholders – Forbes.

via New USPS Chief Marketing Officer has eclectic, though non-postal background – postalnews blog.

During July and August, the postal service is offering a 2% postage discount on standard mail and first-class mail letters as well as direct mail flats and cards that include a 2-D bar code such as a Quick Response (QR) code, a Microsoft Tag or a SpyderLynk SnapTag.

via Mobile Commerce – U.S. Postal Service gives 2-D bar codes its stamp of approval – Internet Retailer.