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 One Beltway Center |
President's MessageDecvember 23, 2008 Dear Leaguers, We are deep into the mailing season and I trust that all of you are doing well. I know that many of you are severely understaffed and that the regular season is challenge enough, much less having to perform through the Christmas Season and its heavier load. I have to commend all of you for stepping up to the plate everyday in service of the American People. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor proper staffing… Still you are doing a great job! Using the Mail I have walked the talk. In previous articles and at our Area Conferences, I have encouraged you and all postal employees to help swing our culture back to the U.S. Mail by sending 200 Christmas and holiday cards, shopping online and having your packages delivered through the mail, making sure that all of your own outgoing parcels go U.S. Mail (preferably Priority) and to give magazine subscriptions as Christmas gifts. I should have added another option. Many of you will be traveling by air during the holidays. Rather than pay all of those extra fees by checking your luggage through the airlines, you can plan ahead by sending much of your travel necessities through the mail and have those items waiting for you at your destination when you arrive. My friend, Postmaster O.C. Sanders from Louisiana reminded me (in his Christmas card to me, of course) of my commitment to send out at least 200 Christmas cards. By weeks end, I will have sent out about 450 Christmas cards, ordered gifts through the mail, and sent packages by our own Priority Mail. We certainly can’t expect America to increase its usage of the mails if we don’t use it ourselves. I have heard that in years past that you would only find General Motors vehicles parked in the employees’ parking lots at the General Motors auto plants. I wonder if that is still true, and if it is not, has that contributed to the financial woes of GM? Anyway, it’s not too late for you to get those cards, packages and magazines into the mail stream! Enjoy the season Don’t forget to take some time to enjoy this season. I enjoyed the busyness of Christmas, and always called the week leading up to Christmas Day, Fatten up the Postmaster Week. During that week, my post office was deluged with boxes of Sees candy, lots of homemade cookies and candies, fruitcakes and plenty of other goodies as my customers took advantage of the opportunity to show us their appreciation for our years of serving them. There was a true holiday spirit there that made going to work very special. Do your best to drink in the good things of this magical season! Obama’s transition Last week, the presidents of the management associations were able to meet with part of President-elect Obama’s transition team. Mr. Stephen Crawford from the Brookings Institute met with Naps President Ted Keating, Napus President, Dale Goff, and me to discuss things postal from the point of view of Postmasters and supervisors. We made certain that he knew about the commendable dedication of most of you in giving Americans the best Postal Service in the world. I was careful that he understood the tremendous importance of post offices to communities. We were able to share our thoughts on our consultative process with Postal Headquarters. We expressed our disappointment with some of the workings of the Department of Labor in supporting employees, especially managers. We told Mr. Crawford how important it was to the health of the Postal Service to get Congress to allow the Postal Service to modify its payment schedule (refi the loan) for medical benefits for future retirees and what our own efforts have been on behalf of the Postal Service. I told Mr. Crawford that over $ 5 billion dollar payment in 2008 was the difference between the Postal Service operating in the red and being one of the only financially successful organizations during America’s economic freefall. We thought it very important that Mr. Crawford know about the very long days, weeks and months being worked by so many Postmaster and supervisors in post offices and plants across our nation, and we shared our frustration at trying to get that big problem solved. By and large, it was a very positive meeting and we felt comfortable that Mr. Obama would get an accurate reporting on the state of the Postal Service from Mr. Crawford. Usps.com Over the last week, customers going to usps.com experienced a lot of problems with the site when trying to do Click-N-Ship etc. Last week MarketWatch reported on a study they did to show the ease of use among the different shippers, USPS, FedEx, and UPS. According to the report, even though usps.com had been streamlined for customer convenience, it had some reliability issues. UPS and FedEx, the study said, were easier to use, but UPS got the nod as the best because it did not demand payment information up front, as did the FedEx site. Because I’m not always inclined to take other opinions at face value, especially when the assertions are something I can check out myself, I thought I’d verify those claims myself. I went to the three different websites and conducted my own research. My findings were this. Our site, usps.com, was indeed much easier to use, in fact, I thought it was the easiest. UPS’ site, too, was very easy to use and its costs seemed to be most competitive with the Postal Service’s costs for our Priority Mail. Fed Ex’s site was the hardest to use and its costs were much higher than what the Postal Service charges for similar products. The MarketWatch report’s study may have been done during the time when the Postal service was having trouble with its website, something that PMG Potter assured would be fixed soon. From my ‘research’ I’d have to say that the problem has been fixed as my experience with www.usps.com was good, better than UPS and FedEx. Thank you Jack Potter Christmas is almost here and I want to wish each of you the happiest Christmas and holiday season. I would like to commend the Postal Service and Jack Potter for his commitment to Postal Employees. Yes, things are tough. The economy is down; businesses are going under and our fellow Americans are struggling financially. Tens of thousands of American workers, including thousands of workers at UPS and FedEx, have been laid off. Not one Postal Employee has been laid off. I’d like to repeat that because when things are tough we like to do a lot of finger pointing and blame-setting. Our jobs have gotten tougher for sure, but not one Postal Employee has been laid off. Thank you Mr. Potter for keeping your commitment to America’s Postal Employees. Merry Christmas to all! See you at Forum, January 31, 2009. Respectfully, Charley Mapa President, National League of Postmasters |
League EventsJanuary 30 - February 2, 2010 Crystal Gateway Marriott July 18 - July 22, 2010 National League of Postmasters Convention Town and Country |
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