Mail Groups Can Live With Delivery Cutback
Feb 21, 2010 3:55 PM, By Larry Riggs
Given the dire state of U.S. Postal Service finances and the possibility of insolvency, mailer groups were open to the idea of eliminating Saturday mail delivery if it could truly cut expenses.
But doing so would require an act of Congress and nobody expected that to happen during an election year. The earliest they see anything happening is 2011.
According to news reports, the USPS said it could go broke if Congress does not give the green light on five-day delivery and change the way it funds retiree healthcare benefits.
Cutting a delivery day would reportedly save the USPS $3 billion a year in expenses. On top of that, the USPS is required every year to pre-pay $5.4 billion to the U.S. Treasury to cover healthcare costs of retired employees until 2016.
“There is a lot of resistance to the idea on Capitol Hill,” said Gene Del Polito, president of the Association for Postal Commerce. The postal service is going to have quite a bit to do to convince Congress that this is not as politically risky a thing to do as some members might fear.”
He commended the USPS for helping allay fears among some mailers that cutting out a day would seriously disrupt postal operations.
“So for the most part they have made it abundantly clear that the operations side of the enterprise will not be overwhelmingly affected by the decision to go to five-day delivery,” he said.
He called for a lifting of the $5.4 billion-a-year obligation and for five-day delivery, which would save $3 billion.
Tony Conway, executive director of the Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, said his members could probably live with a delivery day cutback especially in light of falling mail volume which he doesn’t think will ever get back to its previous levels.
He also cited recent opinion polls indicating the public could accept one less day of delivery in lieu of a postage rate increase.
As with Del Polito, he doesn’t think Congress will act on this issue in 2010.
Hamilton Davison, president of the American Catalog Marketing Association was all in favor of the delivery day cutback scheme for economic reasons.
“It will take costs out of the system and allow us to have lower costs to use the system and we desperately need that,” said Davison. “I don’t think anybody loves the idea of giving up a delivery day because there are some potential problems which we suspect are manageable.”
Those could include people feeling mail is less relevant than in the past.
“I think on balance this is something we need to do and I think we can manage the issues around it,” he said. “The catalogers are by and large in favor of it. We’ve just got to get costs out of the system.”
Jerry Cerasale, senior vice president of government affairs at the Direct Marketing Association, said his organization was not necessarily opposed to the idea but said he had to see a plan from the USPS first.
Del Polito said he hoped the USPS would unveil a plan March 2 when it makes a presentation March 2 in Washington, DC.