National Association of Postal Supervisors
NAPS Legislative & Regulatory Update
March 27, 2009
NAPS Urges USPS to Cut Top Management Ranks
NAPS
President Keating called upon the Postal Service to strip away top
levels of management and take other cost-cutting moves, during testimony before a House subcommittee on Wednesday.
His comments came during a hearing of the House federal workforce and postal oversight subcommittee on
the financial crisis facing the Postal Service, at which Postmaster
General Jack Potter warned that, unless the Congress provides financial
relief, the Postal Service will run out of money by the end of the
year, September 30.
Potter
urged Congress to approve changes that would save billions of dollars
in the way the Postal Service pays for its retiree health benefits and
authorize USPS to move to five-day delivery.
Keating joined the call for urgent action on HR 22,
which would permit USPS to pay its current retiree health benefit costs
differently, but went further and pointed to ways that the Postal
Service could cut significant costs and improve operations.
He
urged the Postal Service to consolidate its nationwide management
structure from ten geographic areas to five, calling the current
framework "far too large, bureaucratic and costly to be allowed to
continue to exist."
"By
reducing and consolidating its top management structure, the Postal
Service would eliminate needless bureaucracy, save costs, and operate
more efficiently," Keating said. "It is time that the Postal Service
apply the same rigorous cost-cutting scrutiny to the numbers of its
upper ranks as it is applying to middle and lower-management."
Keating's call came after the Postal Service last week announced the
closure of six district offices and the elimination of 1,400 processing
supervisor and management positions.
Keating
also criticized the Postal Service's practice of buying the homes of
relocated employees and called for the end of the practice.
"Recruitment and retention incentives can be provided through
sufficient other means, without the need for home purchases that cause
the Postal Service to rack up significant losses," Keating said.
Additionally,
Keating took aim at the practice of USPS district managers detailing
supervisors and managers to positions that, Keating said, don't
officially exist in the USPS personnel structure. Keating said the
practice, which involves hundreds of supervisors in ad hoc positions,
is costly and harms productivity. "This is only one of numerous
problems that NAPS and the postmaster organizations have raised with
USPS, in light of the savings and mangement efficiencies that could be
secured. Like so many of our recommendations, they have been ignored
by USPS top management," Keating said.
Video Coverage
Video of the marathon, seven-hour House hearing is here.
Vdieo of the testimony of NAPS President Keating and other management association and union presidents is here.
Good reporting and analysis of the hearing and the underlying issues:
And as if Washington woes weren't enough:
NAPS Leaders Prepare to Take the Hill
Over
600 NAPS leaders will converge on Washington this weekend for the NAPS
Legislative Conference and Training Seminar, followed by meetings on
Capitol Hill on Monday and Tuesday with lawmakers to press NAPS'
legislative agenda.
"There
has never been a more critical time for postal supervisors and managers
than now," said NAPS Executive Vice President Louis Atkins. "Our
mission is to convince Congress of the need to put the Postal Service
back on track."
NAPS members will promote the passage of HR 22,
financial relief legislation for the Postal Service, along with several
other measures advancing Postal Service and NAPS member interests. The
NAPS Legislative Agenda is covered in the NAPS Legislative Issues Brief.
NAPS leaders at the legislative conference will hear from :
Rep. Stephen Lynch, chairman of the Federal Workforce subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service and government operations;
Bruce Moyer
NAPS Legislative Counsel