[lbo-talk] interesting essay by Moishe Adler on NYT trashing ofpostal workers

Chuck Grimes c123grimes at att.net
Sat Sep 10 00:15:56 PDT 2011


I was reading up on some of the USPS earlier in the week. The postmaster or whatever he is called, and the union head were giving testimony to some oversight committee. At stake was saving somewhere near 220,000 threaten jobs. The USPS needs some supplemental funds from Congress, plus tapping into a an overpaid retirement fund. In order to cover the more of the gap, one or the other wants to close some of the rural and suburban offices, stop delivery on Saturday. Some combination of these will save the labor force and its benefits package.

I got a very suspicious form letter put out on USPS letterhead, but actually from the IBM contractor to spy on my carrier and document times of delivery and a bunch of other things. The basic idea was to rat out my postman.

Gave me the creeps. Moishe Adler needs to do some political journalism on what's behind all this. It was very difficult to sort out who wants what. It sounded like the union and the postmaster are at odds, and Congress is at odds with both of them.

Most people have no idea what the post office does in terms of the variety of services they provide. There are little items like stamps, various rates for bulk, first class, second class, printed matter. I order a lot of books and most ship by USPS. Also you can pick up tax forms, passport applications. You can also pick-up various shiping and packaging materials. I love the post office. The main Berkeley branch, the Farm Building which houses City Hall, the High School and main branch of the library were all built by the WPA.Also the last year I paid taxes, I was late and the main branch had tables outside, stamping the returns until about 10:00pm.

I just got disgusted with the entire country and forgot about it.

CG



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