The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the federal government. According to its 2010 annual report, as the government’s largest civilian employer, with a nationwide network that delivers more than 180 billion pieces of mail each year in over 130 million mailboxes across the country, the Postal Service is a vital part of the US’s communication network.
It has a massive infrastructure that includes about 584,000 fulltime workers and 88,000 part-time workers. The compensation and benefits account for almost 80 percent of the Postal Service’s costs.
The Postal Service is so low on cash that may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action. According to NYTimes.com, the agency it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due on Sept. 30.
Consequently, they have announced radical plans to cut one in five jobs, reduce services and water down staff retirement and healthcare deals as the government agency struggles to keep costs in line with plunging demand.
The declining business is brought about by the e-mail revolution, text messaging and other electronic communication tools and competition from private express companies.
Privatization of the Postal Service has to be an option on the table. And a first step would be to introduce competition by ending the Postal Service’s mail monopoly and letting competitors deliver the mail.
One of the most powerful and sincerest forms of communication that we see very little of today is letter writing, a real letter that is written on real paper and dropped in the post boxes down the street.
