August 17, 2006

Philly Postal Workers to Rally Over Distribution Center Troubles
PHILADELPHIA - Postal workers plan to protest forced transfers and delivery problems that resulted when the U.S. Postal Service moved its regional mail-sorting center from downtown to a more automated facility. Since the move to Southwest Philadelphia began in November, 600 clerks have had to transfer, while outside workers have been brought in to help with the transition. Meanwhile, there have been problems with mail that has been delivered late or not at all. The Postal Service started moving the distribution operation, which processes about 7 million pieces of mail daily, from the 30th Street post office nine months ago. The new facility became fully operational on Memorial Day. Since operations were never halted during the move, there were some early problems, said Raymond V. Daiutolo Sr., a spokesman for the Postal Service in Philadelphia.

—The Associated Press

USPS Sends Confusing Signals on Service Standards and Measurements
Speaking at the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meeting recently, PMG Jack Potter said he wants to be as transparent as possible when it comes to providing service. "We are competing with Internet and electronic systems and having that transparency is critical if mail is going to be relevant. The idea of measuring the mailsteam and allowing people to view it is critical to the success of the industry," Potter said.

And yet, the recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on service standards and performance measurement said the most important impediment to progress toward implementing delivery performance measurements for all major mail types is "the lack of management commitment and effective collaboration with the mailing industry to follow up on recommendations for improvements and to resolve issues between USPS and mailers."

The GAO report says, "A USPS senior vice president told us that USPS had no plans for implementing additional measures of delivery performance. A second USPS senior vice president explained that although some pieces of mail may be tracked as automated equipment reads barcodes on the mail, enabling more information for management and diagnostic purposes, these pieces are unrepresentative, and USPS has no plans for using mail tracking data to develop representative measure of delivery performance. As for major types of mail that are not measured, USPS has publicly reported that it has no system in place for measuring service performance for Standard Mail on a system-wide basis and currently has no plans for the development of such a system." Likewise, the official said USPS had no plans to develop representative measures for bulk First-Class Mail.

—PostCom