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For Immediate Release |
Contact: Robert E. McLean |
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Release No. 01-5 |
703-418-0390 |
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May 14, 2001 |
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on US Postal Service Productivity
WASHINGTON, May 14, 2001—The Mailers Council, the nation's largest coalition of mailers, today unveiled its first Quarterly Report Card on the US Postal Service. Each Report Card will grade the Postal Service’s productivity relative to its own performance in previous quarters, and to productivity trends in the private sector. The Mailers Council believes that by highlighting such trends the Postal Service can achieve greater productivity growth, thereby reducing the frequency and size of postage rate increases.
The first Quarterly Report Card (click here for the Report Card) includes grades for six different internal productivity measures that range from a D+ to a B+. Grades of four private sector benchmark comparisons were much lower, with the highest grade a C. Grades reflect the Postal Service productivity for each sector. For example, the Delivery rating is not a grade based on whether the Postal Service carrier consistently delivers letters at the expected time each day; it is a grade that indicates whether the Postal Service is improving the productivity of all employees working in the delivery area.
Executive Director Robert E. McLean announced that “Mailers Council members are interested in restraining postal costs to ensure postage rate stability. The Council believes placing an emphasis on productivity is the key to that rate stability. To examine our concern about the poor state of postal productivity since Congress created the USPS over 30 years ago, we published an extensive study in March of 2000: ‘Postal Productivity; Real Improvements Needed Now.’
“We continue to examine postal productivity with this new Report Card. Each quarterly Report Card will help highlight—for postal management, for users of postal services and for the public generally— the status of postal productivity performance, in relation both to recent Postal Service trends and to productivity trends in the private sector.”
McLean stressed that the report cards are not intended to be a reflection on the efforts of postal employees and managers. “We know that postal employees are hard working and dedicated individuals. What the Report Card shows is that the Postal Service must work smarter, not just harder, if its productivity improvements are to be consistent and comparable to those in the private sector. The USPS has shown sporadic periods of productivity since 1970, but never consistent productivity gains.
“We believe the Report Card can be a valuable tool to postal management,” McLean continued. “To help them maintain a more steady approach to its management and to recognize those occasions when it achieves this goal, the Council decided to publish these quarterly reports on postal performance—from the customers’ perspective. The objective is to use the Report Cards both to highlight negative trends as early as possible, and to praise significant improvements.”
The Report Cards are produced by the Mailers Council, a coalition of over 50 corporations, nonprofit organizations and major mailing associations. Council members represent for-profit and nonprofit mailers that use the United States Postal Service to deliver correspondence, publications, parcels, greeting cards and payments. Collectively the Council accounts for nearly 70 percent of the nation's mail volume.
To develop the economic comparisons and resulting grades, the Mailers Council selected the Washington Economics Consulting Group, led by the company's president, Dr. James A. Clifton. An economic consultant and expert witness with more than 20 years experience, Clifton has worked with associations, corporations and government agencies. He has extensive experience examining the Postal Service and its finances. Clifton has testified as an expert witness at numerous hearings before the Postal Rate Commission, the regulatory body that reviews all requests for postage rate increases.
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- For bios of the authors of the Report Card, click here
- For the Mailers Council’s 2000 study on postal productivity, click here
- For a copy of the Report Card, click here
©1999-2003 Mailers Council http://www.mailers.org