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pecuniumMaybe not for much longer:
USPS to consider reducing offices by as much as two-thirds
Two-thirds of the over 4,800 postal stations and branches nationwide will be submitted for review, a review process which does not involve public or media notification, involves only a ten-day input period from the public (remember, with no prior notification required), and for which there is no appeals process. These evaluations of post offices in your city will happen over the course of sixty days. Sixty. That is all the time they are going to take to determine how much this will affect the American public and paying USPS customers....
The USPS management also wants to outsource retail and delivery services, completely destroying what is called the "sanctity of the mail," and creating enormous potential for exploitation. Very dangerous exploitation. Without the USPS' rigorous background checks, you would never know who was delivering your mail, including bank statements and official documents and records, personal items, and so on. They would know where you lived, what sort of car you drove, whether you had children, what your names were, all sorts of personal things. They would have a good idea of when you were home, what your cars looked like, how to get into your yard, whether you have a dog.
Have you thought about this? Have you thought about the fact that your mail carriers and in-plant mail handlers have been selected to be safe and trustworthy people? And what it would mean if they were not?
What would it mean if the USPS outsourced these services? What would happen if your mail was being delivered by the lowest bidder? Do you think that the level of service would remain the same? Would it be consistent countrywide? Would it be safe?
Look at how well privatizing, and the associated "slim-lining" and so forth have gone. The US Mail is amazing. It gets greif, but it really is outstanding. How many times have you mistyped an e-mail address (.com, not .net, or inverted a set of digits, etc.). Generally, it bounces.
I had a girlfriend in San Diego. I miswrote her address, and the mail got there. It got there for months. It wasn't until the sixth or seventh letter was sent back that I knew I had it wrong. I sent her an e-mail, asking if she'd missed any letters... nary a one.
Think a contractor is going to be so assidous, as to figure out the address is wrong (there was no such piece of the street) and look to see that a simple inversion gets to a name she recognizes, and then deliver it?
I'm not willing to bet on it. Who, by the way, is going to be making the money? This is a tax. A tax from me and thee, to some corporation. We are being forced to pay them (unless we want to forego the mails). That's a redistribution of wealth,and it's going the wrong way.
USPS to consider reducing offices by as much as two-thirds
Two-thirds of the over 4,800 postal stations and branches nationwide will be submitted for review, a review process which does not involve public or media notification, involves only a ten-day input period from the public (remember, with no prior notification required), and for which there is no appeals process. These evaluations of post offices in your city will happen over the course of sixty days. Sixty. That is all the time they are going to take to determine how much this will affect the American public and paying USPS customers....
The USPS management also wants to outsource retail and delivery services, completely destroying what is called the "sanctity of the mail," and creating enormous potential for exploitation. Very dangerous exploitation. Without the USPS' rigorous background checks, you would never know who was delivering your mail, including bank statements and official documents and records, personal items, and so on. They would know where you lived, what sort of car you drove, whether you had children, what your names were, all sorts of personal things. They would have a good idea of when you were home, what your cars looked like, how to get into your yard, whether you have a dog.
Have you thought about this? Have you thought about the fact that your mail carriers and in-plant mail handlers have been selected to be safe and trustworthy people? And what it would mean if they were not?
What would it mean if the USPS outsourced these services? What would happen if your mail was being delivered by the lowest bidder? Do you think that the level of service would remain the same? Would it be consistent countrywide? Would it be safe?
Look at how well privatizing, and the associated "slim-lining" and so forth have gone. The US Mail is amazing. It gets greif, but it really is outstanding. How many times have you mistyped an e-mail address (.com, not .net, or inverted a set of digits, etc.). Generally, it bounces.
I had a girlfriend in San Diego. I miswrote her address, and the mail got there. It got there for months. It wasn't until the sixth or seventh letter was sent back that I knew I had it wrong. I sent her an e-mail, asking if she'd missed any letters... nary a one.
Think a contractor is going to be so assidous, as to figure out the address is wrong (there was no such piece of the street) and look to see that a simple inversion gets to a name she recognizes, and then deliver it?
I'm not willing to bet on it. Who, by the way, is going to be making the money? This is a tax. A tax from me and thee, to some corporation. We are being forced to pay them (unless we want to forego the mails). That's a redistribution of wealth,and it's going the wrong way.
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 07:53 am (UTC)"A family member of mine is a non union person in a union shop - he has been threatened, has received numerous false accusations of illegal/unethical behavior, and is constantly referred to (inaccurately!) as a 'scab'."
Also, I have direct disproval of your anecdata. I can assure you that USPS personnel can and do treat members of the public like dirt, do write fraudulent 'didn't catch you' notes, and do leave electronics on the stoop, in the rain/snow. All of these have happened to me.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 08:05 am (UTC)If you could, I'd have no trouble at all "disproving" this:
"A family member of mine is a non union person in a union shop - he has been threatened, has received numerous false accusations of illegal/unethical behavior, and is constantly referred to (inaccurately!) as a 'scab'."
As it is, I will content myself with noting that it's not especially common for that to occur, that I have worked in mixed shops and known people in mixed shops quite often, and that I have never seen this behaviour nor anything close to it. It appears to be rare, much like unprofessional and incompetent behaviour on the part of the USPS, which has always favourably impressed me when I have had occasion to deal with it seems to be.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 03:15 pm (UTC)I should have said 'directly conflicting', or 'directly opposing'. Of course, that doesn't do anything more than put two points of anecdata into the ring.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 08:14 am (UTC)I know that, given the choice, my personal experience is the USPS is superior to UPS, and FedEx; in terms of service per dollar. I've never had the USPS leave something which required a signature at the side of my house (a high-end printer, in a clear plastic wrapper), when no one was home.
I've had more than one USPS worker tell me, very clearly, how to make sure my customers would be able to get a valid claim when I was insuring something. Routinely the things I ship USPS arrive before the predicted date of delivery.
On the rare occaisions I've had something sent on a guaranteed delivery date arrive late (twice in 20 years), the refund was grante without question.
I've had to fight FedEx to get a refund on something sent to me, which arrived late (and the only reason I was able to collect it was I'd ended up in hospital. It was three delivery days late (it was supposed to arrive on a Thus, got there on a Monday, I was supposed to be leaving on Saturday... if I'd not been sick, I'd have been chasing it down from 3,000 miles away). I had to fight tooth and nail to get the money back; because they told the company I'd bought it from they delivered it on time.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 03:17 pm (UTC)However, my anecdata is just another point, with just as little statistical relevance.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-27 05:02 pm (UTC)Is the person doing the same job as unionized employees, or is it a different category (that, one would assume, the union would like to get under its umbrella)? If it's the same job, you can see where the resentment would lie, especially if he is (as you said) not served under the collective agreement, being paid significantly less, not having the same benefits, ... He may not be trying to do it, but what the company is doing (if that is the case) is called "trying to break the union". As I said, you could see where the resentment would lie.
If everything's legal, the treatment from co-workers is wrong, and shouldn't happen, whether the company is trying to break the union or not. I'm not saying at all that unions are shining bastions of decency, nor are all their members - far from it. I currently think that union management has picked up all the bad habits of management in general (you know, the stuff that required the unions to form in the first place), and frankly, most unions are blue-collar, and there are some in those industries known to be a little rough, and maybe not the most genteel about airing their grievances.
So no, I can't dispute your data point. Of course, all the experience I have with unions have been closed shops. All I can say is that I am very glad that my friends in union jobs are in union jobs, because they are given the respect and safety they deserve (and, unfortunately, because another problem with union shops is that by nature, there will be an adversarial relationship between management and employees, even if there wasn't B.U., exactly and only what they deserve, and the push to degrade is everpresent).