News 024

For Immediate Release

Contact: Robert E. McLean

Release No. 02-4

703-418-0390

July 30, 2002

bmclean@mailers.org

Mailers Council Supports Bill Calling for
Presidential Commission on the Postal Service

WASHINGTON, July 30, 2002—The Mailers Council, the nation’s largest coalition of mailers and mailing associations, today urged the Senate to pass S 2754, a bill that calls on the White House to create a presidential commission to evaluate the financially-ailing United States Postal Service (USPS).

Introduced by Senator Susan M. Collins (R-ME), S 2754 calls for the president to create an 11-member commission. To ensure the commission’s independence, the bill would prohibit any postal stakeholders—employees, managers or competitors—from being commission members.

Recognizing the need to ensure that employee concerns are duly considered, the bill would require that at least one commissioner be a union representative (but not one representing postal employees or competitors). The Postal Service employs nearly 800,000 individuals, most of whom are unionized workers covered by negotiated collective bargaining agreements. Postal employees received the right to negotiate pay and benefits agreements, along with a prohibition against strikes, when Congress passed the Postal Reorganization Act in 1970.

In May the Mailers Council called for a presidential commission, in response to rapidly rising postage rates and deficits. The Postal Service reported a loss of $1.7 billion in 2001, will record a deficit of at least $1.5 billion this fiscal year, and predicts a $1 billion loss for FY 2003. According to a recent GAO study, current postal liabilities total $100 billion—most of that being retiree health care and pension payments.

In 1967 the Johnson Administration and Congress worked together to create the Kappel Commission. Its report was the basis of the 1971 legislation that created the USPS to replace the cabinet-level Post Office Department. In a May 13 letter to President George W. Bush, the Mailers Council urged him to create a new postal reform commission similarly constituted, with members including high-level business, business education and organized labor leaders without any direct interest in the mailing industry.

The Mailers Council is a coalition of 36 corporations, nonprofit organizations and major mailing associations. Mailers 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 70 percent of the nation's mail volume.

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NOTE TO MEDIA: For additional background information visit www.mailers.org, or call Joan Worden at 202-337-5411.