The U.S. Postal Service

Rate increases have been levied by the Postal Service about every three years since it was created by Congress in 1970. The Postal Service has more than 750,000 employees today, and labor costs represent about 83 percent of its expenditures. The average salary and benefits of postal workers now total more than $40,000 a year, nearly double the total of average privatesector employees. Much of this differential has been attributed to the generous benefits package negotiated over the past 20 years by the postal unions. Direct benefits for postal workers total $5 an hour, compared with $2.15 in the private sector. Postal employment levels have been difficult for management to control because workers are virtually guaranteed lifetime employment under their labor agreements. At the same time, the workload fo

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the diversion of mail from automated equipment to lessefficient machines or manual processing so that employees would be kept busy (Holzinger, 1990, pp. 7-10). The management of the Postal Service faces its problems in an atmosphere of growing competition as a number of alternative delivery systems have developed since the creation of the service, yet 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 dissension between the respective unions for letter carriers and postal clerks. Most agree that the Postal Service has been operating under a corporate culture that is overly authoritarian. Distrust is so strong that some union members believe the Postal Service's "cooperative workplace" plan is actually a union-busting scheme (DeParle, 1989, pp. 44-45). 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 Commerce has poi
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Approximate Word count = 1242
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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