Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Progressive Christian
Don't lay off 120,000 postal workers in the middle of a jobs crisis

Don't lay off 120,000 postal workers in the middle of a jobs crisis

Last updated on: August 18, 2011 at 6:11 pm by Fred Clark

Don't lay off 120,000 postal workers in the middle of a jobs crisis 2011-08-18T18:11:26-04:00 Fred Clark

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

First, do no harm.

I appreciate that the U.S. Postal Service is facing a world of reduced revenue due to the Internet. But right now, in the middle of a yearslong jobs emergency, is not the time for talk of layoffs.

Until the jobs crisis is resolved — i.e., for the foreseeable future — the USPS should not be considering 120,000 layoffs. Until the jobs crisis is resolved, the USPS should not be considering 120 layoffs.

It should not even be uttering the L-word out loud.

Slate’s Annie Lowrey reports that:

The fiscal situation at the USPS is bad—really bad. According to its most recent quarterly report, the USPS lost $3.1 billion between April 1 and June 30. Add that to billions of dollars in losses racked up since the recession hit—the USPS has been in the red for 18 of the last 20 fiscal quarters. It has also amassed tens of billions in unfunded liabilities, mostly in pension and retiree health-benefit obligations.

The problem is not mismanagement. The problem is that the USPS has an enormous, expensive physical and human infrastructure. It operates more than twice as many U.S. outlets as McDonald’s. It runs the largest vehicle fleet on Earth. It has a staff of nearly 600,000, despite considerable reductions in the last decade. To pay for all those people, trucks, and buildings, the USPS needs to handle a lot of mail. …

Mail volumes have plummeted more than 25 percent since 2006. Moreover, the mix has gotten cheaper — more bulk mail, fewer first-class letters. … The USPS plunged deep into the red in 2007.

Those are daunting numbers. Almost as daunting as the numbers facing the newspaper industry due to its own struggle to retain revenue in the face of competition from the Internet.

What did the newspapers do in response to those numbers? Mass layoffs. It didn’t work.

It didn’t work at all. It so utterly failed to work that it’s astonishing that anybody would even consider saying, “Hey, I know, let’s try what the newspaper industry tried!” The stupid and cruel approach turned out also to be ineffective.

There’s reason to think it wouldn’t be effective for the USPS either. The Great Recession hit the USPS hard. Just like any other business, they’ve seen their revenues drop along with aggregate demand and the total number of employed people. Whatever savings might be gained from layoffs would also exacerbate the current jobs crisis — further reducing overall demand and thus, also, worsening the USPS’ current revenue problems. The expected cost-savings would thus never fully materialize.

So the timing would be bad for the USPS as well as for the economy as a whole. Layoffs amidst a jobs crisis mean less benefit and less savings for the employer. And layoffs amidst a jobs crisis mean increased hardship for those laid off.

Fortunately, layoffs aren’t the only measure being considered:

To help ease the immediate cash-flow problem, the USPS wants Congress to drop a requirement that it prefund retiree health care benefits — staving off financial apocalypse for a year or two and giving time for other changes to take effect.

Right now, the service is paying for retiree health benefits for letter carriers who haven’t been born yet and who, thanks in part to such accounting rules, might end up born into a world without a U.S. Postal Service to work for.

Devin Leonard’s BusinessWeek cover story, “The U.S. Postal Service Nears Collapse,” looks at some of the innovative steps European postal services have taken to reduce costs and increase revenues, including things like:

… [Creating] digital mail products that allow customers to send and receive letters from their computers. Itella, the Finnish postal service, keeps a digital archive of its users’ mail for seven years and helps them pay bills online securely. Swiss Post lets customers choose if they want their mail delivered at home in hard copy or scanned and sent to their preferred Internet-connected device. Customers can also tell Swiss Post if they would rather not receive items such as junk mail.

Sweden’s Posten has an app that lets customers turn digital photos on their mobile phones into postcards. It is unveiling a service that will allow cell-phone users to send letters without stamps. …

Brad Plumer notes that the service has other options as well:

One thing that doesn’t often get noticed about the U.S. Postal Service is that it has vast — and extremely valuable — real-estate holdings on its books. Many post offices, after all, are in prime positions in the center of town. But no one knows how much the buildings are actually worth. The Postal Service values its properties at their purchase price, rather than their fair market value. The total purchase price value comes to about $27 billion, but since many of these buildings were bought decades ago, their fair market value is presumably much, much higher. …

So, back in July, the USPS Office of the Inspector General came up with a novel idea: “If the Postal Service were to leverage its real property assets at the fair market value, that amount would likely cover the remaining $55 billion of unfunded liability in its retiree benefit funds.”

There are many more possibilities and ideas being considered for revitalizing the USPS and strengthening its fiscal footing. Considering the challenges it faces, everything should be on the table — everything except layoffs.

Not now. Not in the middle of a jobs crisis.

Because the first rule, as always, is do no harm. And 120,000 more public sector layoffs in the middle of a massive jobs crisis would do a great deal of harm.

class warfare

politics

work

Previous Post

August 18, 2011

The 'Battle for the Bible'

Next Post

August 19, 2011 Way Down to A Ways to Go

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category class warfare evangelicals Iraq Left Behind Mammon music Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In 1 Peter, what does Peter say Christ was chosen before but revealed in when?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Before time began, revealed at the resurrection Before the creation of the world, revealed in these last times Before the prophets spoke, revealed at Pentecost Before Abraham was born, revealed at his baptism