History of the United States Postal Service

It handled 161 billion pieces of mail in 1989. Expenditures are also quite high, standing at virtually $38 billion per fiscal course of study.

The postal military service has loosely tried to deal with rising be through appreciate hikes, and each escalation of postal wages and mailing rates has been go with by assurances from postal solicitude that the increase would soon enable the postal Service to get a grip on cost. In 1990 Postmaster General Anthony M. Frank contended that the problem of rising costs could be found in the installation of $11.7 billion price of automated mailprocessing machines. This automation project started in 1989, and the Postal Service claimed that after the first wave of new-fashioned machines was in place, productivity increased as a essence in the last take in of fiscal 1989 and the first quarter of the current fiscal year. Even greater gains were hoped for by management thereafter. However, the General Accounting Office (GAO), a congressional substance that acts as a watchdog over federal spending, was not convinced that the gains claimed by management could be achieved. In 1989, the Postal Service projected savings of $748 million last year through installation of automated sorting machinery and other jobsaving equipment. but as the GAO pointed out, clerk and mail carriage costs exceeded the planned levels so that the projections were not met. The inspection unit of the Postal Service claimed that only about one-third of work-

The problems facing the management of the Postal Service do not take place in a vacuum, and the problems and any solutions affect everyone who uses the U.S. mails. A representative of the U.S. Chamber of transaction has pointed out: "There is no future for an organization whose communication channel strategy calls for being the highestcost/lowestquality supplier of any service" (Holzinger, 1990, p. 24). U.S. Postal Service employees are nonionic and wellpaid, receiving an average of $15 an hour in recompense and $5 an hour in benefits.

solicitude possesses limited permit under its corporatebargaining grantments to use part prison term workers at times of peak mail volume, so postal workers earn a good deal of overtime pay. Postal employees typically earn over $40,000 a year. Postal workers' collectivebargaining agreements provide protection and benefits far exceeding what more or less other privatesector workers receive. According to the Postal Service's 198790 joint agreement with the American Postal Workers Union and the bailiwick Association of Letter Carriers, postal workers receive the following benefits, among others:

Holzinger, Albert G.(1990, November). in high spiritsstakes postal talks. Nation's Business, pp. 28-29.

The management of the Postal Service faces its problems in an atmosphere of growing competition as a numeral of alternative delivery systems have developed since the creation of the service, and the Postal Service cannot effectively compete because it cannot reduce costs sufficiently or raise rates without the assent of Congress. Management has also had to face growing problems with its employees and their unions. Postal management has recently made proposals for a more cooperative workplace, causing strife between the respective unions for letter carriers and postal clerks. Most agree that the Postal Service has been ope
Order your essay at Orderessay and get a 100% original and high-quality custom paper within the required time frame.