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A Voice of Reason From a Business Perspective
Burrus Update #13-05, Nov. 28, 2005
The saga of postal reform has its genesis in the idea that technology would erode the use of hard-copy communication and make the United States Postal Service less relevant. Even though the prediction was untrue, it struck a chord in the mailing community, and became the rallying call for a major restructuring of the nation’s mail service.
David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, speaking in favor of a major reorganization, illustrated the point on numerous occasions by brandishing a cell phone and describing the changing communication habits of the younger generation. Witness after witness, including those from postal management, uniformly began their testimony before Congress and the President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service with dire predictions about the impending demise of hard-copy communication. Despite the failure to present a single reform proposal that would directly affect mail volume, advocates of restructuring continued to advance the argument that unless new legislation was enacted, mail volume was destined to decline and the Postal Service was threatened with collapse.
While postal managers now scramble to distance themselves from those pessimistic projections, they too fed the beast, insisting that technology was the culprit and only legislation could stem the inevitable tide.
The American Postal Workers Union did not join in the predictions of gloom and doom. At every opportunity we strongly contested the popular premise that hard-copy mail was in danger of imminent demise unless there was immediate Congressional intervention.
In testimony before the President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service on Feb. 12, 2003, I presented the following:
Despite common perception and unsupported assertions, the Postal Service has a business model that is NOT BROKEN. In fact, it is far healthier than many large corporations.
Dismissing the claims that new technology and declining volume pose a fundamental challenge to the Postal Service, I testified:
These basic premises are either false or subject to great debate due to the lack of hard evidence. A small and unusual volume decline in a terrible time should not overshadow a strong, long-term, steady increase.
On Feb. 5, 2004, testifying before the House of Representatives Special Panel on Postal Reform, I said the following:
While others are absolutely certain of the future, I offer a note of caution. At this time, the facts simply do not support a conclusion that the Postal Service is in a death spiral.
And on April 14, 2005, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I countered the gloom and doom predictions with the following:
Two generally accepted assumptions have served as the foundation for the debate on postal reform and as justification for significant change to the Postal Service’s structure. First, that electronic communication has and will replace hard-copy communication, and second, that the addition of 1.8 million new addresses annually poses an insurmountable problem for the Postal Service. These assertions have gone largely unchallenged, but they are both false….
The communication habits of a single individual may or may not reflect the behavior of a generation; but while people communicate with each other and with business more often and in new ways, there is no evidence that increased cell phone or e-mail communication will lead to a decline in mail volume. In fact, mail volume is increasing.
Despite these warnings, those who predicted the imminent demise of mail service continued their tirade in support of legislative “reform.” Even today, when total mail volume has reached an all time high, they pause only to say that it is first-class mail that is threatened and can be saved only through a legislative overhaul. While this shift in position is worthy of discussion and thorough review, the debate over the different classes of mail has never been joined because headlines predicting the total collapse of the mail system were much more dramatic.
APWU now has a credible ally in Pitney Bowes, a giant in the postal community. After a series of comprehensive studies, Pitney Bowes Vice President Luis A. Jimenez has presented “Allied Forces,” [PDF] an article that thoroughly examines the effect of new technology on existing mediums, i.e. the Internet’s impact on mail.
This is a voice of reason from a business perspective that challenges the very foundation of postal reform legislation. We congratulate Pitney Bowes for undertaking this comprehensive study and for looking to the future through a clear lens.
William Burrus
President
