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Enough Is Enough!
Burrus Update #12-06, Sept. 25, 2006
After 15 years of fighting excessive postage discounts for large mailers, the APWU succeeded in 2004 in persuading key legislators, mailers, and other interested parties to include specific restrictions on discounts in pending postal reform legislation. The principle that guided us was simple: Discounts should not exceed the costs the Postal Service avoids when mailers presort their mail or engage in other “worksharing” activities.
The agreement was the result of a long struggle. The APWU had been the lone voice asserting that discounts were often excessive; that excessive discounts rob the USPS of desperately needed revenue; that they shift a disproportionate share of the Postal Service’s “institutional costs” from large mailers to small businesses and individual citizens; and that they amount to a subsidy of private, special interests — a subsidy provided by the Postal Service and the American people.
The agreed-upon compromise, which also was included in postal reform bills introduced in Congress in 2005, provided that worksharing discounts could exceed the postal costs avoided only in limited circumstances; that excessive discounts would be corrected over time; and that the Postal Service would be required periodically to justify the postage discounts it offered.
Before long, however, the large mailers, USPS management, and their White House supporters began to renege on their commitment, offering progressively more watered-down provisions to replace those that had been agreed upon earlier. Their goal was clear — to preserve the excessive discounts for major mailers.
While mailing-industry spokesmen wage a constant propaganda tirade against the salary and benefits received by hard-working postal employees, behind closed doors these phonies demand continued excessive discounts in order to pad their own profits. This is hypocrisy at the highest level.
Some of these discounts are so extreme that if postal employees were paid the same value for the work we perform, our wages would surpass $75 per hour!
The justifications for excessive discounts are hollow at best. They begin with the excuse that corporate entities have made investments that would be put at risk if the discounts were no greater than the Postal Service’s costs. This argument constitutes an admission that some discounts are greater than the cost, but it also raises another important consideration: What about the $17 billion investment in automation the United States Postal Service has made?
According to the industry pundits, it is all right for the Postal Service to absorb the cost of investment, but large mailers and consolidators should be protected against such expenses.
Another stale response is that adjusting the major mailers’ rates to the avoided postal costs would lead to “rate shock,” and would cause corporate advertising mailers to abandon the Postal Service. Concerns about price shock justify ending excessive discounts gradually — as the agreed-upon provisions call for — but they cannot excuse them indefinitely, and cannot justify them in principle.
These excuses are regurgitated from the same mouths that constantly criticize postal wages and benefits. They have the gall to continue demanding postage discounts that cannot be justified, while questioning our negotiated wages and benefits and telling us how lucky we are. They constantly assert that labor costs must be curtailed if the Postal Service is to remain competitive, while ignoring the harm to the financial stability of the USPS caused by excessive discounts.
I am disappointed that the postmaster general has joined forces with these private, for-profit entities at the expense of the American citizens who employ him. As a member of the USPS Board of Governors, he is bound by its credo, which states, “The Governors are chosen to represent the public interest and cannot be representatives of special interests.”
The concept of “uniform rates” cannot be re-interpreted to justify postage rate discounts for large mailers that are below the cost that would be incurred by the Postal Service if the work were performed by postal employees.
Those who profess to want an efficient Postal Service should join with
the APWU in support of rates that absolutely limit discounts to no
more than the cost to the Postal Service. Enough is enough!
William Burrus
President
