LOS ANGELES – The financially embattled United States Postal Service (USPS) announced Wednesday that they will no longer do Saturday mail deliveries beginning on the week of August 5, 2013.
Package delivery services will however continue, according to the agency.
For the first time in its history, the USPS will only deliver mail from Monday through Friday – a move that is projected to result in over $2 billion-a-year in savings for the US Postal Service.
Officials of the service said that they have sustained tens of billions of dollars in losses in recent years, due to the rise of the internet and services that offer electronic commerce.
USPS has incurred $15.9 billion in net losses for fiscal year 2012 – an amount that is three times the losses recorded in fiscal year 2011.
In a news conference, Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe said that USPS needs to take measures that would allow it to become financially stable in a long-term basis, and thus ensure that US mail services would remain affordable.
“The American public understands the financial challenges of the Postal Service and supports these steps as a responsible and reasonable approach to improving our financial situation,” Donahoe said.
Package deliveries on Saturdays will continue however, as it remains to be a growing and profitable part of the delivery business.
Customers can still go to post offices on Saturdays to drop off mails and packages, access post office boxes, or buy postage stamps. However, officials said that hours would likely be cut short at thousands of smaller locations.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told the media that President Obama has no opinion on the announcement from USPS.
Carney pointed out that USPS is an independent entity, and that the White House was only informed about the development on Tuesday.
The press secretary said that the White House has already put forward a series of proposals on the overhaul of USPS in 2011. He noted that while the proposals passed the Senate, it has failed to get past the House of Representatives.
Carney also added that the White House “prefers” to have its package of proposed reforms implemented, so that a stronger future can be ensured for USPS by Congress.
USPS has pushed to stop Saturday mail deliveries for many years now. However, it has encountered friction from Congress in the past, as the legislative body had previously included measures to ban a five-day-a-week delivery schedule in its appropriations bill.
Currently, USPS is operating under a temporary spending measure, instead of an appropriations bill.
The agency has asked Congress not to return any restrictions, once the spending measure expires on March 27.
USPS is a quasi-government entity that is self-funding. However, its worker compensation and retirement funds are under the federal budget.
USPS announced its decision without approval from Congress, despite legislators arguing that their consent is needed before USPS takes any drastic steps such as this one.
“It’s hard to condemn the postmaster general for moving aggressively to do what he believes he can and must do to keep the lights on at the Postal Service,” said Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) in a report by the Washington Post.
Sen. Carper was a co-sponsor of a past legislation, which aimed to reform postal services. He is now the chairperson for Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
“Piecemeal efforts like the one the Postal Service announced today will not be enough to solve the Postal Service’s financial challenges for the long haul,” Carper added.
source: asianjournal.com
