Periodicals Hardest Hit

Despite organized resistance to the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed 8% rate increase for periodical postage, the magazine industry may need to adjust to the new reality of pricing, suggests Postal Regulatory Commission Chairman Ruth Goldway. While periodicals face the stiffest rate hikes among the classes of mail addressed by the USPS plan, “On the face of it now, this 8% increase that they are presenting is something that is justified,” Goldway said.

As the PRC is about to start its 90-day evaluation of the USPS proposal, Goldway says periodicals have fallen behind in covering the actual costs the USPS incurs in handling the class of mail. “The law does require that each class of mail in aggregate cover its attributable costs,” says Goldway. “It does have to pay for what it costs to actually process the mail on the machines and deliver the mail to people’s homes. And periodicals have been a class of mail that throughout the 90s has just barely covered its institutional costs and in the last several years has gone below water as we say.” It is the industry’s case to prove that rates shouldn’t rise considerably now to make up for this shortfall, she says. A more thorough evaluation of the costs of handling magazines is underway, “and we may get different information,” she says. “But the bottom line is that the requirements for now of the law mean that the Postal Service and the Postal Regulatory Commission are supposed to make sure that periodicals cover their cost.”

Tentative PRC Hearings Issued

The Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) has established a docket to conduct a public hearing on the Postal Service’s proposal. The Commission’s decision – to approve or reject the proposal – is due on October 4. The docket establishes the public comment period and highlights the issues to be considered in the proceeding. Click here to view the tentative schedule.

USPS May Split Role of Carrier

The Postal Service believes it can achieve significant savings by having letter carriers spend their entire shift delivering mail while other employees take over the carriers' mail-preparation duties.

The idea is to split the role of letter carrier into two different jobs -- casers who would take on any mail sorting now done by carriers and deliverers who would strictly deliver the mail. Here is what the USPS said about the tactic in a "Flats Strategy" paper it submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission this week:

"Route Optimization 100 Percent Street routes – (2011 and beyond) –– LARGE Opportunity": As total cased volume declines, letter carrier casing will be concentrated on a few assignments, while most carriers will only perform street duties. A “caser” would prepare and pull down all cased mail, while a deliverer would load the mail and deliver it to a greater number of customers. This concentration will produce savings in fixed office time. It is projected that route reductions will result from this initiative. Also, vehicle savings will be generated through street route reductions."

USPS Alphabet Soup

Postal acronyms and abbreviations may be practical. But at USPS, there are lots of them, and it’s difficult for anyone to know them all. Luckily, there’s help. Publication 32, Glossary of Postal Terms, first published in 1974, has been the main source for deciphering common postal terms. Neil Berger, manager, Transformation, Office of Strategic Planning, says Publication 32 is popular with new employees and mailers. “It helps them make better sense of nearly every function within the Postal Service,” he says. There currently are about 2,200 postal terms. Over the years, new terms have been introduced and some have become obsolete. The 140-page publication hasn’t been updated since 1997, so the Office of Strategic Planning has been redrafting the publication and its online version. The plan is to release a new online version before the end of September.