Postal Service releases list of proposed facilities to be shut down

[alp227]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN) -- Hundreds of mail-handling facilities have been named in a shutdown list released Thursday by the U.S. Postal Service as the agency tries to cut massive red ink.

The potential closings are the latest chapter in a fundamental overhaul of the agency that may also mean closing thousands of smaller post offices across the country, and cuts in tens of thousands of Postal Service jobs in years to come.

The latest list targets nearly 250 processing facilities and related "network transportation," as the Postal Service calls its distribution system. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe planned a news conference Thursday to explain the changes.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/15/postal.service.cuts/index.html

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. "...massive red ink..."

meme

[tblue]

2. The crisis is CONTRIVED!

"Congressional Republicans mandated that within ten years the United States Postal Service would have to fully fund retirement healthcare benefits for the next 75 years. Or to put it more plainly, the Postal Service had a decade to fully fund the retirement healthcare benefits for future employees that will not even be born until 2057 at the earliest."

http://www.nj.com/hudson/voices/index.ssf/2011/09/how_republicans_crippled_the_u.html

NO OTHER entity is required to have pension funds on hand to cover the next 75 years!!! If not for that, the USPS is in fine fiscal shape!

[defendandprotect]

4. Democrats have been silent on this -- doubt the public has any idea what's going on !!

Where is Obama speaking out against it and informing the public?

Where are Democrats fighting against this corruption?


Can't wait until Democrats control only the House -- then they can run EVERYTHING!!!

[Mr Deltoid]

5. Get used to it

The GOP is systematically dismantling our institutions. Everything will be ruined and liquidated.

[DJ13]

6. .... with the help of a silent Democratic party

[SoapBox]

15. Ditto to the "with the help of a SILENT Democratic Party"

...yup.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

17. Too true. Many Dems are silent on progressive issues. But Wall Street is doing well. n/t

[defendandprotect]

35. Better also get used to the reality that there is NO resistance by Democrats -- !!

[brentspeak]

21. Democrats haven't been silent on this

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) has http://www.apwu.org/news/webart/2011/11-041-hr1351-hr1262-110411.htm">pending legislation that would fix the prefunding scam, but it's unlikely (impossible) that it will be passed by a Tea Puppet Congress.

It's true, though, that the White House has said zip about how the prefunding arrangement is driving the postal service into the ground.

[hack89]

28. Henry Waxman was a co-sponsor. 48 Democrat Senators voted yes.

It will be hard to paint this as a Republican plot.

[defendandprotect]

36. If general public is unaware of it -- then the Democrats have been silent ....

and that's pretty much where we are --

[hack89]

25. Because it was bipartisan legislation. nt

[brentspeak]

26. Because the original legislation stipulated for the unions to be dissolved

Until the minority Democrats managed to get that language stricken from the bill.

With every post, you are living up to your handle.

[hack89]

27. Henry Waxman was one of three co-sponsors. It passed the Senate with unanimous consent.

facts are an awkward thing.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h109-6407

[Occulus]

31. I'm an employee, hack.

The sad fact is the bill that was passed saved my job. As we can see, it only postponed the pain, which may not be there at all but for the general economic downturn. That decimated- in the 'common' sense of the term- the mailing industry along with everyone else.

Waxman saved my union and my job, but that POS law was the best he could do. I think he knew it at the time and hated it.

Now we have to reverse it. Refund the overpayments, adjust the prefunding to reflect the actual number of employees currently covered, and be done with it.

We're told by Donahoe that even that wouldn't help. I don't buy that one bit; postal management sees this as an opportunity to kill the postal unions.

I think the unions should respond by merging.

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[hack89]

43. Do you have a link for that.

can't imagine Henry Waxman signing up for that.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. Phil Rubio says The PO isn't allowed to compete:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/396673/september-14-2011/return-to-sender---phil-rubio


Scooby snack.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. Of course it isn't. It is the standard. The private sector needs to find

niches that compete with IT.

A nation with no government services is not a nation. It is Somalia.

[defendandprotect]

37. Agree -- and good try ... but ...

this is too long a trail to the info if you're trying to inform people --

Got the video but wasn't working --

A little RECAP always helps!!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

45. He said they weren't allowed competive pricing. nt

[harmonicon]

16. doubly contrived

I understand your point, but from the little I've heard even Democrats say about this, the larger point goes unnoticed.

The postal service (what's that second word?) is a government service that we need. We don't expect other government agencies and services to turn a profit, do we? Having a good postal service is part of having a first-world country. While the US isn't exactly that anymore, I don't think we should completely abandon the idea.

[hack89]

29. Henry Waxman was one of three co-sponsor3. 48 Democrat Senators voted yes.

Why are you giving Congressional Democrats a pass?

[Occulus]

32. I'm an employee and I give them a pass because it was that or break the union and lose my job. n/t

[defendandprotect]

38. Then it was blackmail with false choices ... ???

[brentspeak]

47. Would you have preferred that the postal union been obliterated five years ago?

Who was running Congress and the White House back in 2006?

http://home.comcast.net/~l308morr/BMC/localpresidentjohnmacey.htm

In the waning hours of the 109th Congress, H.R. 6407 passed the House and Senate early this morning, and will be sent to the White House for signature. President Bush is expected to sign the legislation, meaning that postal reform legislation has been enacted after more than a decade of debate.

Most of the onerous provisions were taken out of the bill. Gone are attempts to control collective bargaining, reduce retirement annuities, increase the retirement age, privatize portions of the Postal Service, and hand the single-piece parcel business and mail handler jobs over to private competitors.

snip

The bill came up in the final moments of the “lame duck” session of Congress, moving quickly through both the House and Senate. There was overwhelming sentiment among members of Congress that the 1970 law governing the Postal Service needed immediate modernization. For example, the recent spike in oil prices cost the USPS hundreds of millions of dollars because, unlike UPS and Fed Ex, the Postal Service could not immediately add a surcharge to its rates.

After passage, Congress adjourned. It will return on January 3, 2007 , but as an institution controlled by Democrats.

[defendandprotect]

50. I would have preferred that the Dems we did have tell the public what was going on?

Wasn't that possible?

[hack89]

44. Do you have a link for that?

I have a hard time imagining Waxman signing up to co-sponsor such legislation. Are you sure it was not simply the rumblings of the far right that never had any real support?

[lbrtbell]

42. You're 100% correct

I know two postal workers who have confirmed this. Of course, this insanity started under Dumbya and the Repuke Congress, so you know it was a bad idea from the start.

We need to get some REAL Dems back in Congress, and this is one of the things that needs to be changed ASAP.

[Freddie Stubbs]

49. Henry Waxman was a cosponsor of the bill and not one single Democrat voted against it:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:H.R.6407:

[JohnnyRingo]

3. Thanx for posting this.

I have an acquaintance who forks in Youngstown for the post office. He's a vocal Tea Bagger who spent 8 years supporting Bush and repeating Sean Hannity talking points. I'm not sure if it's his facillity, but a post office n Y'Town is closing.

I don't want anyone to lose their job to spite one idiot, but I wish I could rub it in. He broke off communication soon after Obama was elected because I'm "hopeless". I know he keeps up enough to know the Republican congress is behind this, but he has that twisted Tea Bag mind that allows him to blame Obama anyway.

[bongbong]

14. You underestimate them

Teabaggers are given propaganda, which they lap up like starving kittens, to blame every one of theirs & the worlds' misfortunes on "evil libruls". Take a specific example: food poisoning outbreaks increasing because of repig deregulation. The heroes & idols of the brainless, anti-American repig-voting sheep blame that on "over-regulation". Think I'm joking? http://www.google.com/search?q=food+poisoning+blamed+on+over-regulation A number of links from that search, like the forbes.com one, at least partially blame food poisoning on over-regulation (!!!)

Wait, I take that back. It isn't a case of propaganda. They are ORDERED to blame every one of theirs & the worlds' misfortunes on "evil libruls". Since they are brainless sheep with only one organizing principle ("I hate evil liburls!"), they follow those orders like any good obedient Stormtrooper.

[JohnnyRingo]

23. Good point

I always gave O'Reilly and Limbaugh great credit for speaking in a way that gives credence to ridiculous theories. They can talk about how the EPA is destroying America in such a way that if someone just crawled out from under a rock, it makes sense. They can make a convincing argument that the wealthy are struggling to make ends meet while people on welfare are living on Easy Street, eating steak and driving new Cadillacs.

Of course they do this by avoiding real time debate that would shoot holes in their logic, but that's the format they currently enjoy, and the wing nuts lap it up like a saucer of milk.

[defendandprotect]

40. T-baggers are funded by Koch Bros. and run out of a PR firm guaranteeing them publicity ...

I also feel strongly that the idea was to use them to create a more aggressive

and violent political arena --

[JohnnyRingo]

41. It worked.

Few things political are a coincidence, especially when someone can show a profit.

[defendandprotect]

39. Obama is attacking SS/Medicare and public education ... and certainly don't see him defending PO!!

Also betrayed America on universal health care which the nation and its suffering

citizens desperately need -- 66 million Americans now living in poverty!!

That news hasn't reached Obama?

This is an engineered depression just as the first one was -- and Americans should wake up to it --

[DeSwiss]

8. K&R

PERSPECTIVE {per-spek-tiv} (noun) - Example of use: ''The US Postal Service is about $8 billion in the red -- while the http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning">Pentagon spends $20 billion a year just on air-conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan.''

[Sancho]

10. Could they just quit delivering mail to Texas and Alaska?

Let 'em fend for themselves!

[kentauros]

12. They could offset that by cutting the budgets for NOAA and the NHC in Florida.

:eyes:

[struggle4progress]

11. link to pdf list of closures proposed

http://about.usps.com/news/electronic-press-kits/our-future-network/study-list-110915.pdf

[kentauros]

13. Thank you for that!

Did you happen to see if there was a legend for the letters after the location? I think we need to know what P&DF, STC, CSMPC and DDC mean.

It's interesting, too, that almost all of Texas' major cities lost one except for Houston. And I'm surprised. We have quite a few here...

[AngryOldDem]

20. That's my question, too...what do the abbreviations mean? n/t

[AngryOldDem]

22. Here are keys to two of them...

PDC = Processing and Distribution Center
CSMPC = Customer Service Mail Processing Center.

[dtexdem]

18. How about "all junk-mail processing facilities"?

Instead, someday we'll get appointment facilities -- where we call to make appointments for times to go pick up our mail. ;-)

[expatriate2mex]

19. "Junk Mail" is what's been keeping the usps

afloat this long. I retired from there 11 years ago and even before that 1st class was taking a nosedive, if it were not for bulk mail they would probably already be gone long ago.

New people would say junk mail. We would say "it's bulk mail and it's what's keeping us employed". I'm guessing bulk mail has been in a steady decline also, it's cheaper to spam emails.

[lindysalsagal]

24. I still get more bills than ads, but, I want my USPS, at least 5 days a week.

I think personal mail is pretty much limited to care packages to college kids and birthday cards. So, I really only get bills and meds.

I don't want UPS handling my meds. Who do I complain to at UPS when they're lost?
This is like killing generic drugs, which is probably on their list somewhere between killing public schools and tearing up the roads.

[Occulus]

33. I sorted well over 100,000 pieces of first-class mail today.

I know for a fact that many local small businesses use us as their primary, if not only, form of advertising. The large mailers- the ones that send hundreds of thousands of pieces at a time- keep the prices low for the small mailers, the local businesses that depend on those low rates.

[RebelOne]

30. Two in my area in North Georgia are being shut down.

I don't know how this will affect the mail delivery, but it can already be called snail mail, and if this affects my mail, it could be called Pony Express.

[midnight]

34. Just undo that retirement account funding for those not yet born and the

cash crunch that this law, bush ,imposed on the post office would be taken care of right?

[No Elephants]

48. Why, under a Dem POTUS, are Republicans the majority of the Postal Commissioners?