Progressive Politics @lemmy.world TokenBoomer @lemmy.world 2d ago

US Postal Service demands rural carriers send back “overpaid” wages right before Christmas season

www.wsws.org US Postal Service demands rural carriers send back “overpaid” wages right before Christmas season

Rural carriers, whose salaries have been slashed by tens of thousands under a new evaluation system, were notified earlier this week that they would be invoiced for overpayment supposedly due to inaccurate accounting for route adjustments.

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This is pretty normal in military / federal positions. It is well known and a part of training that you are responsible for returning overpayments.
- Isn't the postal service a wierd grey area tho? I'll look it up but I think they're not a government department they're a privately held company but answer to the government at the same time. I wanna say it's something fucked up like that where they're a one of a kind operation. I'll edit after I get back from the rabbit hole.
  
  Edit: Oh shit it is wild. Paraphrased from wikipedia: USPS is ran by 11 appointed officials by the president. The postmaster, his #2, then 9 governors chosen by president and approved by senate for 7 year terms. The USPS recieves $0 of taxpayer revenue. All financing is done by USPS produced revenue. The problem is the USPS has reported almost $70billion in losses between 2008-2018.
  
  So they are an independently financed government branch answering to a board of elected officials appointed by the President and Senate. Fuck that sounds like a waaaaaaaay more efficient operation than tax funded government programs. Like health care. It's could be adapted into a revenue producing independently financed industry answering to a a board of elected officials. I know i digress but am I crazy?
  
  I wanna keep an eye on this now to see how federal budget precedents apply to an independently financed program. Do the board of elected officials have any cards at play? I know there are issues with the USPS but as a whole it has operated as efficient and effective as a privately held company subject to the laws of the open market compared to any other government ran program or department. What I mean is, if the operations of rhe USPS are controlled by this postmaster boardroom, are they compensated by salary/stocks/profit sharing? Might have to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, brb.
  
  John Oliver did a great dive into the Post Office, and I think that segment is up on YouTube for free.
  
  It's actually even more impressive than you think. The only reason it looks like it's losing money is that conservatives passed a law that forces them to fully fund the USPS workers' pensions today, rather than investing some money and letting it grow. No private companies fund pensions this way, nor does the rest of the federal government.
  
  In 2022, PSRA was passed which removed this requirement and the postal service has turned a profit ever since. It operates better and more efficiently than any privately held parcel service, because it takes advantage of truely massive economies of scale.
  
  And as an American living in a country that privatized their postal service-- god damn do I miss the USPS. It was both cheaper and more reliable than what we have here.
  
  There are no stocks or profit sharing to make money on via USPS for the board of directors. They receive a salary, and I'm sure they receive bonuses based on performance (not the board level, per se, but postmasters and supervisors can).
  
  USPS is actually a national treasure that we should be very proud of. Representatives of USPS went to Germany several years back to teach them how to efficiently institute 6-day delivery. Our "snail mail" service taught the Germans how to do something more efficiently.
  
  Ass the other commenter said, USPS doesn't receive any taxpayer funding, all of their revenue comes from the sale of postage and their other services like PO boxes and such. They actually used to offer basic banking services too, back in the day, but not anymore.
  
  The retirement funding they referenced was for employees who weren't even hired yet. Thanks to an act passed under Bush Jr, USPS had to pre-fund 75 years worth of pensions, and they were (and are) the only government agency to have that funding requirement levied on them. Simultaneously, USPS cannot change the cost of postage, only Congress can do that, so for almost 2 decades we were forcing USPS to fund 75 years of pensions while not allowing them to set their own postage rates.
  
  If you want to know why USPS is the way it is rather than the Department of Mail like it used to be, I'd start with the Postal Strike of 1970. Thousands of NYC carriers went on strike after being denied a raised while Congress gave themselves one, Nixon called in the national guard to deliver the mail (and they failed spectacularly), and in return for giving up the right to strike, the Dept. Of Mail was reorganized into the USPS. (If I'm remembering all my history right, it's been a few years, I used to be a carrier.)
  
  Based on your comment, you probably don't need this, but this is an excellent and informative book about the history of the post office: https://www.amazon.com/How-Post-Office-Created-America/dp/0143130064/
  
  It's sitting on my bookshelf. 😆 Haven't read it yet, but I do own it.
  
  I recommend checking out ThriftBooks over Amazon, they sell new and used books, and they're not Amazon 😆
  
  Indeed, I'm working on reducing the tech giants in my life, though still focusing on Google. If it's any consolation, I used my browser over the app to get that link so that I could remove the tracking. I appreciate the alternative recommendation; my reading has gone way down since having a kid, so most of my online purchases are no longer books.
  
  However ... I'll try to default to Goodreads for recommendations.
  
  Thanks again!

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