A Challenge Mailers Shouldn’t Refuse

There isn’t much about the Presidential Commission on the Postal Service’s recent report that the American Postal Workers Union approves of. Indeed, it’s hard to find anything at all.

The union has been particularly critical about the commission’s recommendation for expanded work sharing and outsourcing when the economics so justify. As the union would have you believe, both the U.S. Postal Service and the Postal Rate Commission are guilty of indictable offenses for recommending rate discounts in the first place.

Forget that work-sharing discounts are specifically called for in the horribly outdated postal reorganization act the APWU wants to perpetuate. It seems that these days historical revisionism is in high fashion at the union.

The APWU leadership has decried the granting of discounts that seem to be calculated on some percentage greater than the actual cost of work sharing. The union also seems more than willing to dismiss mailers’ calls for a more accurate and up-to-date costing system. After all, why contemplate the possibility of change when you can use bluster and name-calling to help maintain an economically indefensible status quo?

In the course of the many discussions and debates that have followed the commission’s published report, APWU president William Burrus has contended that his union is more than willing to demonstrate that the cost-efficiency of its members’ efforts can best whatever competition the private sector thinks it can muster. That’s a contention postal policymakers should not ignore as the debate over postal reform moves to center stage on Capitol Hill.

Burrus has laid down a challenge mailers would be most eager to accept. If his union membership can provide mail processing services more cost-efficiently than the private sector, then the postal service should opt to keep these functions in-house.

It’s only reasonable to assume from the nature of Burrus’ challenge, however, that he and his union would accept more work sharing and outsourcing if it can be definitively proved that private sector forces can provide these same services at no lesser quality but at greater cost savings.

The only question that remains is whether the APWU is willing to put some money where its mouth is. Let’s have expert economics academics take a look at the relative costs of having certain functions provided by the private sector vs. the postal union.

But I wouldn’t be surprised to find that after some thought, the union and its leadership will find some reason to back away from cost-justifying its claims.

GENE A. DEL POLITO is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) in Arlington, VA.