Time to Stop the Dance

Those familiar with the paths a legislative proposal takes on its way to congressional enactment often refer to the process as the dance of legislation. When it comes to postal legislative reform, this is a dance with which I’m somewhat familiar. However, what should have been a little minuet has turned into a dance marathon.

Here we are in 1999, and postal legislative reform still is only a matter of discussion. In the meantime, predictions about the transformation in the way America communicates and does business are very close to becoming a reality.

Indeed, with each passing year, the accelerating pace of electronic technology’s development and its impact on the way we communicate virtually guarantees that the U.S. Postal Service-at least as we know it today-is an endangered species.

Over the years, the Advertising Mail Marketing Association has been at the forefront in calling for postal legislative reform. There’s an old saying that you can always tell who the pioneer is by the arrows that are stuck in his back. That’s true.

Critics alternately have characterized us as “Chicken Littles,” “alarmists” and “junk mailers looking for nothing more than a postal rate free ride.” Postal competitors, ideologues and social engineers have totally forgotten that the American postal system is something needed and used by mailers such as AMMA members who pay the postage making it possible to send and receive mail.

They say there are three stages in the dying process: denial, anger and finally, acceptance. We’ve seen our critics pass through all three in their struggle to deny a need for postal reform, anger over the imminence of reform and finally, their acceptance of the proposition that unless something fundamental reshapes the postal reorganization compact, the USPS simply will not be able to survive.

AMMA has been telling postal officials what postal customers need and expect from a postal system. They want a mail service that ensures the delivery of the messages they send to any business or residential address in the nation. They want mail services that are consistent, timely, reliable and priced in recognition of the changing values and needs of the market.

Mailers also made clear that the definition of realistic service performance standards for all classes of mail and the provision of objective and publicly available service performance information is essential to ensuring mail’s continued value as a medium for business communication and commerce.

Today, mail service is still notable for its lack of timeliness and consistency.

While certain elements of first class mail service delivery have shown improvement, delivery of periodicals and the lion’s share of advertising mail remains woefully below the mark.

Mailers have made clear that if mail’s value as a medium of business communication and commerce is to endure, the nature and quality of mail service must become utility-like. When you walk into a room and flip the switch on the wall, chances are you have no doubt the lights will come on. When you turn the faucet on your kitchen sink, you usually don’t have to question whether water will come out.

So, in a time where you don’t have to question when the newspaper will be delivered, when a television or radio commercial will air, or whether your interactive catalog will appear online, there should be no tolerance for having to wonder when mail once tendered ultimately will be delivered.

The power, reach, convenience and cost of alternative ways of doing business improve with each passing year. The same cannot yet be said for the mail. Unless this changes, mail’s value will be lessened, and postal finances will run thin.

Time is running out. Reform of our nation’s postal system should be one of the priorities of the 106th Congress when it convenes this month. However, there’s an old saying: “Congress legislates for those it sees.”

This is not the time for the people in our industry to be shrinking violets. We’d better be prepared to do all we can to make sure our industry and our issues are emphatically among the seen.