Costco Connection

pieces projected for this year. Although postal employment (accounting for 80 percent of the service’s expenses) has been reduced from 804,000 in 2000 to 574,000 today (all through attrition, according to Donahoe), more positions will have to be dropped. He noted that another 215,000 employees will be in a position to retire in the next five years.

Interestingly, one of Donahoe’s first steps in that direction was his announcement in late March (after our interview) that 7,500 middle- and upper-management positions

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 25

to the rank and file ratification of a tentative agreement that gives the USPS more flexibility in dealing with workplace issues.

Moreover, the APWU has urged Congress to repeal the health benefits pre-funding sections of the law. “No other private company or government agency is forced to bear such a burden,” an APWU statement noted in February.

Another big part of the necessary rightsizing of operations will be closing some of the remaining 32,000 post offices it owns

“The key thing for us,” he said, “is to still provide universal service at a universal price … and dependable service.”

—Patrick Donahoe

offices based only on financial performance.
“People think we are making this stuff up,”
Donahoe said, “but we aren’t.”
Of course, another controversial opera-
tional step, originally floated by Donahoe’s
predecessor, is moving from six days of deliv-
ery service to five. Donahoe seems to be put-
ting less emphasis on that idea than Potter
did, but he did point out this could eliminate
as many as 50,000 of the current 574,000
postal positions.

Regardless of the steps to be taken, Donahoe’s optimism, albeit after just three months in his current role, remains unshaken. “The key thing for us,” he says, “is to still provide universal service at a universal price … and dependable service. And I think we can do that.” C

would be cut and several district offices (not post offices) would be consolidated. This after a large reduction in the number of his own direct reports, something he announced immediately on taking office.

Perhaps it is that kind of signaling to the vast employee workforce (after Wal-Mart’s, still the second largest in the country) that helped accomplish another important step. In late March, the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) leadership and collective bargaining negotiation team recommended

and operates. “All of those are under consideration for some type of consolidation,” Donahoe says.

“The major focus has been on the offices that don’t generate enough revenue to generate more than an hour or so of work in a day,” he explained. Makes sense. But another one of those legislative glitches sits in the way. Because of its Constitutional mandate for universal service and the fact that the postal budget is part of the federal budget, the Postal Service is legally prohibited from closing