Editor's Note: The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito for Mailing Systems Technology. The views expressed are solely the author's, and do not necessarily reflect the official views or opinions of this or any other publication.
When the big crystal ball dropped from its mooring atop Times Square Janurary 1st I began my 26th year as the chief staff executive for the Association for Postal Commerce. During the past 25 years, I've been a witness to a great deal of turmoil and change within the postal arena. It all pales in significance when measured against the challenges that face the Postal Service today and the challenges that still lay ahead.
The miseries flowing from today's economy are tough enough, but the Postal Service's fortunes are made all the tougher by: (1) the changes affecting the way we communicate and do business, (2) the resistance of national policy makers to face the postal realities these changes represent, and (3) the seeming utter insensitivity of postal officials to the challenges and changing realities facing the people with whom they do business. Here's what I mean.
Today's economic recession, whatever its cause, has made the business environment tough for everyone. Consumers are convinced they are facing the worst economic environment since the Great Depression. They don't need much convincing of that. All they need to do is to take a gander at every evening's news and listen to the litany of woes that threaten their own livelihoods and well-being. As a consequence, in an economy that is largely dependent on consumer spending, consumers have largely withdrawn from the marketplace. This has affected all kinds of businesses, but it has affected particularly those associated with retail, consumer-based spending such as mail order catalog businesses and brick-and-mortar and online retailers.
This has been particularly evidenced by the significant drop in the 2008 holiday season's mail volume. From a postal perspective, there is the reality that the holiday season is the best the Postal Service usually can look forward to in any fiscal year. If the holiday season proves to be a bust, the Postal Service can look forward to an even more dismal economic outlook in the months ahead.
The Postal Service's fiscal integrity is made even more tenuous by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) requirement that the USPS aggressively fund its anticipated postal retiree health insurance costs. Shouldering this kind of burden in a buoyant economy is one thing; doing it in the midst of the worst economic recession in years is quite another.
Fortunately, the pressing nature of this burden has not been lost on some in Congress, and efforts are underway to lighten this load, at least for the short term. Whatever Congress takes off the Postal Service's shoulders, however, most assuredly will be laid back on some time thereafter. One would think that it would be plain to those who make our nation's economic and postal policies that unless the Postal Service's business fortunes change significantly, whatever funding respite Congress might provide will do little to better the Postal Service's ability to make its way in the years ahead.
Let me make sure that there is no one who misunderstands me. I am absolutely in favor of whatever Congress can do to lessen the PAEA funding burden. I just don't think that doing only that will ensure our ability to continue to enjoy a user-funded, self-sufficient universal mail delivery system.
And here's a thought. Congress finally has come to recognize that simply pouring money into our ailing financial institutions has done nothing to ensure they would organize and operate their businesses in a way that would help lift the economy from its doldrums. It now is asking what the beneficiaries of any federal assistance intend to do to make America stronger economically. Perhaps Congress should ask postal management and the governors what they intend to do to help ensure the Postal Service will thrive (let alone just survive) in the challenging times that lay ahead. After all, why pour money into an institution that already has demonstrated that the manner in which it's managed the nation's postal system for well over two centuries no longer is viable? It's time, I would think, that the governors and management be required to show they know how to shepherd the nation's postal system in a more financially viable and prudent way.
Congress, for that matter, needs to do a little soul-searching of its own. Passing on burdens as it did with PAEA might be tolerable for an enterprise that has nothing but bright days ahead. Doing it with a business that still faces the unresolved challenges confronting a hard-copy message delivery system, such as the Postal Service, is something completely different. And to use political obstreperousness when the need is to change the underlying organizational and operational dynamics of the nation's postal system only makes matters worse. Heaven only knows when Congress is going to come to recognize that the nation no longer can sustain a postal system burdened by political constraints that fail to take into reality the need to reorganize postal human and physical resources to better match the needs of changing times and changing business realities? Whenever someone on the Hill starts to carp about postal facility consolidations, workforce changes, contracting out retail services, and other such changes, they should be asked what alternative plan they'd like to offer to ensure the continuance of universal mail service. Without a viable alternative, silence may prove golden.
There still is the issue of the Postal Service, its management, and its Governors. They do more to hurt themselves than any outside political interference could ever possibly do. While the USPS' top management has been deft at cutting costs, it seems clueless when it comes to devising new products or services that could convince businesses there still is value to committing dollars to doing by mail. About the only thing that passes for new marketing ideas is a stream of new requirements that pass along more postal costs to businesses, requirements that lessen the appeal of mail as a business transactional and communications medium, and an incredible disdain for those of its customers to whom they refer as "suppliers" with the same sort of inflection that one would reserve for epithets.
It seems has never gotten through the Postal Service's head that"suppliers" are the very people who are out there each day selling businesses on the many uses of mail. Those same suppliers are the very people who smooth over the rough spots that are a part of doing business with the Postal Service. These suppliers, by the way, are also the same people who share most acutely the Postal Service's interest in seeing its business grow. Instead, postal managers continue to refer to these private sector interests not as if they were allies but as if they were the institution's enemy.
As for the governors? Well, what can one really say about the governors? You would think that they would be as aghast as postal customers that after more than two centuries of existence as the nation's chief postal shepherd, the USPS still knows very little about why businesses use mail, what they expect from mail, or what could be done to enhance the value of mail. You would think, by now, the governors would recognize the need for a source of information that's independent of the voice and advice they get from management. Indeed, maybe it's time Congress and the White House started holding those it appoints to governing board to an even greater level of accountability for the shortcomings of those whom they oversee.
The U.S. Postal Service is near (if not already poised at) the precipice. Now, just in saying that I can hear the nay-sayers decry that this is not so. As for me, I have no intention of sugar coating the challenges I see that lay ahead. I'll leave that to all those who will be giving the speeches at the next National Postal Forum.
Gene Del Polito, President, Association for Postal Commerce, Arlington, VA 22209-1609, Ph.: +1 703 524 0096, http://postcom.org