crossposted from unbossed
A privatization storm is brewing in your mailbox. And if you live in New Jersey or Florida, that storm will hit you on June 27 in the form of pickets at post offices or neighborhoods where mail is being delivered by non-postal employees.
Where to begin?
This battle involves privatization, and it is being fought on many battlefields - in Congress, union activism, public opinion - and by creating facts on the ground.
Contract Delivery Service
Contract Delivery Service is a USPS initiative to solicit business to use contract delivery services and people to apply for positions as contract carriers.
Contract Delivery Service - Contracting Opportunities
Contract Delivery Service is a contractual agreement between the U.S. Postal Service and an individual or company for the delivery and collection of mail. The typical service required at the local Post Office™ will involve sorting mail for the route, driving to the route, delivering mail to specified addresses, picking up collection mail, and returning to the Post Office. Each contract includes a delivery schedule, a complete route description, and a description of basic responsibilities. The contract route will operate six days per week, Monday through Saturday, and does not include holidays. The carrier is required to use their own vehicle for mail delivery service. The average route will require approximately four to eight hours per day to complete, depending on the size of the route. If you or your company are interested in receiving solicitations for Contract Delivery Service, please complete PS Form 5436, Mailing List Application - Mail Transportation Services and mail it to the contracting officer in your area. This information is available in the back of Publication 33, Mail Transportation Contract Guide at http://www.usps.com/...
On May 23, 2007, Sen. Tom Harkin announced he was introducing legislation to stop this practice:
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today introduced legislation to prevent the United States Postal Service (USPS) from hiring unscreened and untrained contractors to deliver mail to homes across America. Outsourcing mail carriers jeopardizes the reliable and secure delivery of mail because independent contracting firms do not use the same extensive recruiting and screening processes the USPS does in hiring and training mail carriers.
"Since it was created, the United States Postal Service has provided affordable, reliable delivery to tens of millions of households nationwide," said Harkin. "Outsourcing mail delivery to people who have not undergone the Postal Service's extensive screening and training process leaves open the possibility that convicted felons, identity thieves, or other undesirable workers could have access to the sensitive materials that pass through the mail on a daily basis."
On June 13, 2007, Postmaster General John Potter wrote opposing S.1457, the Mail Delivery and Protection Act on several grounds:
- privatizing parts of mail delivery will save mail service
- privatizing promotes the interests of women and minorities who make up a large number of the private contractors
- no work will be taken from existing postal employees. Rather the Post Office is considering giving work delivering mail to the 2 million new addresses each year to private contractors.
- all people delivering the mail must pass security checks.
- not allowing the Postal Service to privatize work will undermine collective bargaining with its unions.
So, let me get that straight.
- Privatizing is good for women and minorities. It will help women and minorities - not by hiring them at good wages and benefits, plus union protection - but in order to get cheaper workers?
2.Privatizing is the only way to protect collective bargaining? Even though the private contractors will have no collective bargaining rights?
- National security and clearances for the contractors? Not to worry, because . . . well, trust us. Trust us even though GAO recently found that background checks and security clearances for contractors are mostly not done?
The National Association of Letter Carriers and National Rural Letter Carriers joined forces to protest actions by the US Postmaster General, John Potter, to contract out mail delivery. On June 18 the NALC and NRLAC responded to the Postmaster General's letter. Here are some excerpts:
The Postmaster General's letter makes a number of outrageous and misleading claims. It claims S. 1457 would "eliminate an important tool needed by the Postal Service to continually introduce greater efficiencies into its operation." The attached slide from a management training program being used to promote contracting out letter carrier work illustrates the kind of "efficiencies" the Postal Service has in mind: "no health insurance, no retirement, no life insurance, no ties to union agreements," etc.
. . .
But perhaps the most outrageous claim in the letter is the assertion that "99 percent of our contract delivery services are performed by small, minority- or women-owned businesses." Combining unlike categories (company size, race and gender) is a cute device to get a large percentage to cloud the issues and to mislead your reader, but it is really beneath the Postmaster General to do so in a communication sent to all 100 members of the Senate.
It is not accurate to assert that the individual contractors who bid on part-time, low-wage, no-benefit CDS contracts to deliver mail in urban and suburban neighborhoods are "small businesses." In fact, they are exploited workers, working in urban and suburban neighborhoods alongside career postal employees who enjoy decent pay and benefits. There are tens of thousands of minorities and women who would love to work as career letter carriers for the U.S. Postal Service. These workers deserve the same pay and benefits as career postal employees.
. . .
Contractors do go through background checks, but to suggest that they are subject to the same level of oversight as career letter carriers is to be blind to reality. Once a contract is signed, very little supervision occurs and the widespread use of sub-contractors leads to a total loss of accountability. It is noteworthy that all three postal management associations - the National Association of Postal Supervisors, the National League of Postmasters and the National Association of the Postmasters of the United States – oppose the expansion of CDS. Dale Goff of NAPUS testified during a recent oversight hearing that "with contractors, you get what you pay for" while Ted Keating of NAPS warned that contracting out delivery "would be the death of the Postal Service."
. . .
Our unions are now preparing for interest arbitration to resolve our collective bargaining agreements. We are seeking to protect the jobs of existing bargaining unit letter carriers, whom we have the legal right and obligation to represent. However, contractors and their associations do not have collective bargaining rights and Congress has the right to place imits on outsourcing as a policy matter. Indeed, during the debate over postal reform, the House of Representatives voted 379-51 against an amendment that would have tested privatized delivery in 20 American cities. Yet the Postal Service ignored this vote and proceeded to expand CDS anyway. It should not be allowed to evade the will of Congress.
I would have liked to have been present when both the NALC and the USPS letters were drafted. In the case of the NALC, a whole lotta sputtering had to be going on as they read through what clearly are, well, misstatements and exaggerations. In the case of the USPS, was it some sort of bull session as they competed to come up with the most outrageous claim put in the most innocent and righteously aggrieved words?
You can see more about the NALC views in its July 2007 newsletter and more from postalreporter.com blog.