USPS: no "new" curbside delivery in Lahaina

[HiloJulie]

If the USPS was a private for profit business, and offered 8,800 mailboxes free to HPP residents, with HPP installing them into 4 mailbox cluster parks and then ran into all the sheer and utter nonsense the last 10 plus years have generated over this single issue, before that private business would have just simply walked away and told HPP to go (insert word one PunaWeb poster loves to use) themselves?

[ironyak]

Edge - In the case of HPP, why have three carriers assigned to deliver mail for 12,000-14,000 people, when you can have those thousands drive ten miles to the PO, circle the parking lot, then stand in line for who knows how long on any particular day.

Like not delivering to "new" Lahaina residences, just all part of the 10-year plan to reduce costs, that started back in June of 2020. Why pay carriers when you can crowdsource it instead?

Pretty akamai tapping into that DIY Puna ethic, and the longer waits on 130 and at the Post Office are just more of the deJoy of deSituation! Gives plenty of time to photograph the interesting "botanical gardens" in the area! ;)

[Punatang]

High margin First Class Mail was historically the big money maker for USPS.  It peaked in 2006 and has roughly halved since then due to email, digital communication, and electronic billing. This is a technological shift and not partisan policy that has obviously, severely affected USPS income.  

USPS has a heavily unionized labor force.  Labor and benefits make up 3/4 of USPS expenses.  Heavy unionization, for better or worse, severely limits flexibility when it comes to common sense management decisions like closing low volume facilities and/or adjusting staffing.  Private companies are able to quickly adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in the modern world (hat tip to The Years of Our Lord, 1700s).

   

The Postal Reform Act of 2022 was the grand solution that codified a six day delivery schedule and was supposed to ease USPS financial burdens while preserving our services. 

How's that working out for Puna & Lahaina?


https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-26-107657.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Ser...ct_of_2022

[MyManao]

If we can afford to go to war.. and jack up the federal debt to a gazillion dollars for whatever whim serves  ******** that tell us about fiscal responsibility while borrowing as if there's no tomorrow.. the USPS should be fully funded at whatever cost it takes to get the job done. Period.

The fact that it isn't suggests we're still just apes in suits.

Same with healthcare.. schools.. retirement. If we don't behave humanely.. we ain't human.

[HiloJulie]

USPS has a heavily unionized labor force.  Labor and benefits make up 3/4 of USPS expenses.  Heavy unionization, for better or worse, severely limits flexibility when it comes to common sense management decisions like closing low volume facilities and/or adjusting staffing.  Private companies are able to quickly adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in the modern world (hat tip to The Years of Our Lord, 1700s).

The Postal Reform Act of 2022 was the grand solution that codified a six day delivery schedule and was supposed to ease USPS financial burdens while preserving our services. 


How's that working out for Puna & Lahaina?

I see Puna “Talking Points” Tang is at it again!

First, unionized Postal Workers have nothing to do with the USPS closing or not closing underperforming facilities. It's called “the law,” or more appropriately, the Universal Service Obligation. 

Further, the USPS faces strict regulatory hurdles, public review processes, and political pressure from Congress when attempting to shutter retail locations that operate at a deficit as well as the public expectations that many small or underperforming post offices serve as vital community lifelines for delivering essential goods, prescriptions, and mail where private alternatives may not operate. 

Now, with respect to the costs of labor as it relates to the USPS, included in that 75% of all costs the USPS incurs being labor, we must remember that the Postal Reform Act of 2022 repealed the archaic Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) of 2006 that required the USPS to pre-fund its retiree health benefits at a cost of around 5 to 6 BILLION a year and ONLY from its gross revenues of services provided. The requirement of this prefunding ONLY applied to the USPS and no other government service or agency or any private employer. It also strictly limited how those retirement funds can be invested, which significantly lowered their potential future values as most private employers would do. All other government agencies' retirement costs are funded through income taxes collected and allocated each budget year to each government agency.

So, instead of asking how this new 4-year-old law is working out for Puna & Lahaina, maybe the question should possibly be how much of the massive costs the USPS was forced to incur under this prior archaic retirement prefunding rule over the last 20 years and how that impacted Puna and Lahaina over those last 20 years and now today.

Just saying.

[ironyak]

Punatang - Heavy unionization, for better or worse, severely limits flexibility when it comes to common sense management decisions like closing low volume facilities and/or adjusting staffing. Private companies are able to quickly adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in the modern world

Oh, it's the unionization (also part of that Nixonian overhaul) that's causing the issues. Given that ~70% of UPS is also unionized, I guess they're not able to adapt well either so that leaves FedEx (only pilots are unionized) as the predicted best shipping provider (although UPS and FedEx are both publicly traded so not private companies either?). With 5 convenient FedEx locations on the east side, everyone can stop complaining and enjoy their new and improved Drive to Hilo/Keaau.

To go beyond the "unions bad" talking points, Brookings recently had a good analysis showing that while letter volume has fallen by half, total revenue has been largely stable due to increased rates and package shipments.
   

The losses are largely from being mandated to serve costly rural areas (like Puna) and service past debt obligations. So possible solutions could be to drop the unprofitable routes (hey wait, that's us) or have the government help subsidize this governmental mandated service (like most countries do, and we did in its entirety until the Nixon-era).

"These services reflect a public good provided by the Postal Service. Congress could fund that mandate explicitly through annual appropriations. Most countries maintain universal service by providing direct public funding to the designated universal service provider for these components. The United States does not."

MyManao - the USPS should be fully funded at whatever cost it takes to get the job done. Period. ... Same with healthcare.. schools.. retirement.
Sorry, best we can do is infinite money for bombing school girls around the world while cost cutting for quality of life services at home. The free market will obviously provide mail delivery, healthcare, education, and more (at the most profitable rates possible).

Maybe there is some other principle other than profitability that might need to be the primary measure for essential services... Oh well, someone will surely think of something at some point. Aloha!

[Punatang]

Sheesh.

Word salads don't explain how The Postal Reform Act of 2022 improved the lot of postal customers in Puna & Lahaina.  May we please have some balsamic vinaigrette and croutons with that?

[MyManao]

Maybe there is some other principle other than profitability that might need to be the primary measure for essential services...

Ain't Democracy great!

Especially the delusion that capitalism works for the common good of all.. coupled with the expectation that our political leaders have morals.. and all we're left with is a crock of kūkae.

That was the trick.. our "founding fathers" expected those that participated in government to do so with moral conviction, right?

[Punatang]

MyMan! Mentioned: USPS should be fully funded at whatever cost it takes to get the job done. Period.

The fact that it isn't suggests we're still just apes in suits.

Same with healthcare.. schools.. retirement. 

(emphasis mine)

MyMan! would you believe that the folks who passed and signed The Postal Reform Act of 2022 eliminated the requirement of fully funding, in advance, our USPS workers' retiree benefits?  It's no wonder our Puna postal providers might be a little grumpy now and then.  Wouldn't you be?

"The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022:

• Enacts the USPS Fairness Act, eliminating the requirement to pre-fund retiree benefits"
  

Hopefully those politicians at least looked good in their suits.


MyMan!: Ain't Democracy great!  Especially the delusion that capitalism works for the common good of all.. 

Would you believe that evil WHITE colonizers have bought up sacred Hawaiian ancestral lands in The Waipio Valley of all places? They are trying to suggest that they somehow own it?  Hawaiians can't even conceive of this.  It brutalizes their souls.  Where is the moral conviction of these capitalist colonizing scum?

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Word salads don't explain how The Postal Reform Act of 2022

Just a note.  “Word salad” is not a synonym for polysyllabic.