February 8, 2012 

Post & Parcel: The global communications market is now changing much more quickly than ever expected, with postal operators around the world having to adapt at a much more rapid pace. That was a key theme that emerged from this week’s World Mail and Express Americas conference.

BusinessLife: The scope of the universal service in the postal sector in Jersey is appropriate despite declining mail volumes, according to a comprehensive study into the postal market by the Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authorities (CICRA). The wide-ranging report, prepared following a request from the Minister for Economic Development, looked at the future of the postal sector in Jersey in a period of considerable change.

News.am: Armenia’s Transport and Communication Minister Manuk Vardanyan received Wednesday director Jean-Paul Forceville of the International and External Relations Department of France’s La Poste Company and, Mark Lisac, the person in charge of the programs of the Company’s International Affairs Department. The parties discussed the service agreement which La Poste and Armenia’s Haypost Company had signed in 2010.

Redstate: The annual federal budget is a whopping $3.6 trillion, but that figure fails to capture the true burden of government on taxpayers. There are a number of GSEs (government sponsored enterprises) that are considered off budget. Politicians use off-budget entities like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Postal Service to obfuscate the true cost of government.

Federal Times: The Old Post Office building in Washington will become a luxury hotel — courtesy of Donald Trump. The General Services Administration selected the Trump Organization to submit a more detailed plan to turn the building into a 250-room luxury hotel, complete with restaurants and spas. The agency will spend the next year negotiating details on price, how the building will be used, and how the Trump Organization will preserve the historic structure.

CEP News (Courier-Express-Postal), published by the MRU Consultancy, has reported that:

Dutch regulatory authority Opta threatened to impose fines on PostNL should the company fail to meet the quality of service targets.
At the end of January rating agency Standard & Poor’s had bad news for two postal operators in Oceania. Australia Post’s as well as New Zealand Post’s credit outlook were downgraded from ’stable’ to ’negative’. In both cases the agency explained its decision with the development of the mail business.
U.S. American RPost has been in a legal dispute with Swiss Post for about two years (CEP-News 10/10). Now the company, which holds 35 worldwide patents for verifiable proof of e-mail delivery, will open an office in Switzerland soon. According to a press invitation the company plans to announce further details about its market entry at the end of February.
On Thursday last week Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court has stopped the tendering procedures for franchise contracts for post offices by an injunction.

The second edition of the ’Reference Guide CEP and Logistics’ has been published! In months of detailed research undertaken by the editorial team of the CEP News and the German KEP-Meldungen data and facts on the 20 most important express and postal markets and 11 major players have been compiled. Relevant information concerning this global industry has been prepared in comprehensive country and company profiles. The Reference Guide offers market observers, analysts, journalist and everyone interested in this dynamic market a unique and well-founded overview of relevant market partners as well as an insight into the connections linking domestic and international players. The some 400-page paperback Reference Guide is now available and can be ordered at a price of 99 euros (plus tax and postage) on MRU’s website (http://www.m-r-u.de/en).

The MRU, founded in 1992, is the only consultancy in Europe, which has specialised in the market of courier-, express- and parcel services. For large-scale shippers and CEP-services in particular, the MRU provides interdisciplinary advice for all major questions of the market, as there are for example market entry, product design, organisation, and EDP.To learn more about the stories reported above, contact CEP News. (We appreciate the courtesy extended by CEP News to help whet your appetite for more of what CEP offers.)

The Independent: A unit of online brokerage TD Ameritrade will pay $1.5 million to resolve concerns that it violated postal rules and received discounts the company wasn't entitled to. Nebraska's U.S. Attorney Deborah Gilg said Tuesday that TD Ameritrade Clearing had agreed to a settlement in the case involving mailings sent between October 2006 and September 2009. Prosecutors say TD Ameritrade failed to update its addresses with a postal database of change-of-address information before sending out its mailings. So the Omaha company wasn't entitled to the discounted first-class postage rate it claimed.

USA Today: Americans say they love to receive mail, yet send less and less of it. The Postal Service says almost two months pass before the average household gets a personal letter, compared with two weeks 15 years ago. Only 4% of household mail comes from another household. The Internet provides a faster, cheaper and easier way to communicate. This, along with a huge overhead, has plunged the Postal Service into financial crisis. Last year, it lost $5.1 billion. With personal correspondence, periodicals and transactions (bills, statements, payments) now accounting for less than 40% of household mail volume, the mailbox is becoming an advertising channel. It's an effective one; unlike commercial e-mail, almost two-thirds of Standard Mail is read or looked at. Anthony Conway, who lobbies in Washington for an association of non-profits, says mail is still the best way for such organizations to reach supporters. So the Postal Service, which also delivers packages profitably and provides a vital link to the rural, the elderly and others without online service, probably will survive.

The following reports have been posted on the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General website (http://www.uspsoig.gov). If you have additional questions concerning a report, please contact Wally Olihovik at 703-248-2201 or Agapi Doulaveris at 703-248-2286.

• Domestic Mail Manual Preparation and Acceptance Mail Instructions (Report Number CI-AR-12-004). The Postal Service should make every effort, given digital age alternatives, to simplify mail preparation/acceptance and remove unnecessary barriers to entry. Customers and employees must navigate over 2,300 pages of mail preparation/acceptance instructions and mailers must complete postage statements ranging from five to 25 pages. In addition, there are approximately 800,000 mailing permits in PostalOne! Our analysis shows that the Postal Service has an opportunity to reduce the number of active permits from 300,000 to a range of 4,600 to 10,000 by eliminating multiple permits.
• Postal Vehicle Service Transportation Routes – Margaret L. Sellers Processing and Distribution Center (Report Number NL-AR-12-001). Our report determined that Margaret L. Sellers Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) management reviewed and adjusted Postal Vehicle Service (PVS) schedules due to implementation of the Flats Sequencing System (FSS) at the facility. However, P&DC officials could more effectively manage PVS transportation processes and schedules which would reduce driver workhours as well as associated fuel use and damage claims. Additionally, we verified that management cancelled or consolidated underutilized trips from highway contract routes (HCRs) that serve the P&DC.

At the Postal Regulatory Commission: Two employment positions available at the PRC:

• http://www.prc.gov/PRC-DOCS/EMPLOYMENT/Consumer%20Affairs_Dockets%20Asst_FINAL_2478.pdf
• http://www.prc.gov/PRC-DOCS/EMPLOYMENT/Receptionist%200312_FINAL_2479.pdf

National Association of Major Mail Users: In a statement released today, the National Association of Major Mail Users (NAMMU), enthusiastically supported the United States Postal Service (USPS) "2nd Ounce Free" program launched in January on First Class Mail. NAMMU has been seeking the same type of incentive for business mailers in Canada for several years. According to NAMMU President, Kathleen Rowe, Canada Post needs to move swiftly to stem the tide of electronic substitution on Transaction Mail exacerbated by last year's service disruption. "The Transaction Mail product has enormous potential for 'value add' opportunities that pay off for both the mailer and the postal service. The incremental grams return the marketing space taken back abruptly several years ago, and renew the viability of the mail piece as an integrated part of a marketing campaign. Transaction mailers can ramp up fairly quickly, and the Value Add Mailers (VAMs) can really 'sell' this re-opened opportunity," said Rowe.

February 7, 2012 

Post & Parcel: The head of Brazil’s postal service spoke of his company’s ambitious growth plans yesterday, particularly in expanding parcel and logistics services and building a significant presence outside Brazil. Wagner Pinheiro de Olivera, president of the Post and Telegraph Company (ECT/Correios) opened this week’s World Mail and Express Americas conference with the bold declaration that his strategy was to take ECT’s economic value from 0.4% of Brazil’s GDP up to a full one percent.

Save The Post Office: There’s a lot at stake in the battle over postal reform — billions of dollars of corporate profits, the power of unions, the very existence of post offices — so one can’t be surprised that the politics got a little rough this week. Apparently, however, there are people who want to marginalize Goldway by putting her on the defensive. One can’t help but wonder if the whole thing wasn’t orchestrated from within L’Enfant Plaza.

Courier, Express, and Postal Observer: Right now the Postal Service has committed to Congress to hold off closing postal facilities and implementing Network Optimization Initiative (NOI) until mid-May. This date is two months before the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) will close the record on the Postal Service’s NOI proposal and between three to five months before the Commission publishes its opinion. The difference in time between when the Postal Service promised Congress that it would implement Network Optimization Imitative and when the Commission will issue raises an interesting question. (1)  Does the Postal Service have to wait for the Commission’s decision to act? (2) So why would the Postal Service want to change its traditional schedule of not making changes until after an advisory opinion from the PRC? (3) Are there Political consequences if the Postal Service does not wait? (4) Are there legal consequences if the Postal Service does not wait?

The Nation: Republican leaders in Congress are talking about dismembering the U.S. Postal Service by cutting the number of delivery days, shuttering processing centers so that it will take longer for letters to arrive, closing thousands of rural and inner-city post offices and taking additional steps that would dramatically downsize one of the few national programs ordained by the original draft of the U.S. Constitution. At the same time, supposedly "centrist" U.S. Senators Tom Carper, D-Delaware, Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, are trying to build a "bipartisan consensus" for a death by slower cuts. Their "21st Century Postal Service Act," a supposed compromise now being weighed by the Senate, would still force the postal service to close hundreds of mail processing centers, shut thousands of post offices, and cause massive delays in mail delivery and push consumers toward most expensive private-sector services. Their rationale for making the bloodletting, much discussed in the media, holds that radical surgery is necessary because the postal service is in financial crisis. The postal service, we are told, is broke. There's only one problem with this diagnosis. It's wrong. The postal service is not broke.

PRNewswire: Valassis, one of the nation's leading media and marketing services companies, announced today that it has been named as one of the "Top 50 Companies for Executive Women" by the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE).

The Columbian: This may be the golden age of presumptuous ignorance. The most recent demonstrations of that are the Occupy Wall Street mobs. It is doubtful how many of these semi-literate sloganizers could tell the difference between a stock and a bond. Yet there they are, mouthing off about Wall Street on television, cheered on by politicians and the media. If this is not a golden age of presumptuous ignorance, perhaps it should be called a brass age. Presumptuous ignorance is not confined to politicians or rowdy political activists. A recent column that mentioned the “indirect subsidies” from the government to the Postal Service brought the presumptuously ignorant out in force, fighting mad. Because the government does not directly subsidize the current operating expenses of the Postal Service, that is supposed to show that the Postal Service pays its own way and costs the taxpayers nothing. Politicians may be crooks but they are not fools.

Post & Parcel: US postal commissioner Mark Acton yesterday called on America’s lawmakers to act now to pass urgent postal reforms. Although the Postal Regulatory Commission is currently in the process of considering major changes to the US Postal Service network and its First Class Mail service standards to reduce operating costs, the Commissioner said only Congress could make the kind of changes that would actually rescue USPS. Acton was speaking yesterday at the World Mail & Express Americas conference in Miami, in front of more than 200 officials from across the global industry.

Tewkesbury ADMAG: The Government has pledged £1.3 billion over the next few years to halt what it says is the decline of postal outposts – often a hub of the villages where they are located.

2011 was an unprecedented year for all things Postal. Congress, Regulators, the Postal Service, Employees, Service Providers, Foreign Postal Partners, Mailers and Shippers and Customers faced a dizzying swirl of issues that would dramatically alter the way Postal services are provided in the future. And, all now agree that radical change is underway in our nation’s Postal ecosystem and there is a lot at stake!….Like a trillion dollar industry that employs 8 billion and serves every single American almost every day, everywhere! Business is not “as usual” and the PostalVision 2020 Initiative is all about a not “as usual” conversation about the issues facing the Postal industry. PostalVision 2020 has taken life as a deliberately independent, open and inclusive initiative designed to ignite imaginative thinking and to stimulate provocative conversation about what the United States’ Postal Service should do and what it should be in 2020 and beyond.

Senator Patrick Leahy: In every state, the Postal Service is contemplating a wholesale shuttering of mail handling facilities and post offices. To do this, the Postal Service will relax its delivery standards, crippling one of its biggest competitive advantages, and sending the Postal Service into a kind of death spiral. The toll this would take in human terms and on a fragile economy is clear. At a time when we are straining to encourage an expansion of jobs for working families, the Postal Service is looking to push tens of thousands of workers into unemployment. At a time when the President is looking for creative ways to provide jobs for returning veterans, the Postal Service is dramatically reducing its workforce, which is the second-largest employer of veterans in this country. I have come to see the Postal Service as divorced from reality."

Senator Bernie Sanders: "At a time when the U.S. Postal Service is considering deep cuts in services and jobs, an internal watchdog told Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday that a big funding cushion already has been built into the mail service's retirement and health benefit funds. Billions of dollars owed to the funds have been cited by Postal Service managers as a main reason that it must cut 220,000 jobs and close 3,700 post offices and 252 mail processing plants - half of all the current sorting centers. In a letter to Sanders, however, Postal Service Inspector General David C. Williams said the programs are flush with funds. He said the Postal Service has "significantly exceeded" the amount that the federal government and the nation's most profitable corporations have socked away for pension and retiree health care. "Using ratepayer funds, it has built a war chest of over $326 billion to address its future liabilities," Williams told Sanders. Sanders said the Postal Service needs reforms to make it competitive in the e-mail era. He wants a blue ribbon commission to give the Postal Service ideas about how it can substantially increase revenue by offering far more services than today."

Times-Picayune: U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu is backing creation of a blue-ribbon panel to examine how the U.S. Postal Service can make money by offering new services and products to help reduce its huge operating losses. Landrieu, D-La., joined Vermont's two senators, Independent Bernie Sanders and Democrat Patrick Leahy, at a news conference Monday outlining steps they believe can avert the Postal Service's plan to close 3,600 post offices, eliminate Saturday mail delivery and potentially lay off 100,000 workers. Landrieu joined Sanders and Leahy in urging Congress to waive requirements that the Postal Service prepay billions of dollars in retirement costs years before they are needed and get reimbursed for more than $20 billion in payments already made.

St. Louis Today: NALC President Frederic Rolando -- "The U.S. Senate soon will likely debate the 21st Century Postal Reform Act (S. 1789), a deeply flawed bill designed to 'save" the U.S. Postal Service by downsizing it dramatically. Given the high stakes for real people, Congress needs to get this right. But at its core, the current bill blames the Internet and poor management for the Postal Service's financial losses. That's wrong, and the legislation's mandates would do nothing to restore the USPS to profitability. Rather, it is likely to sacrifice quality service and American jobs, and result in a degraded postal service. The legislation as written will drive mail out of the postal system, thereby reducing revenue and requiring yet further cuts to service. The Postal Service receives no tax money to support its operations, and cuts in service amount to a cost increase on the public.

WHP-TV: The United States Postal Inspection Service is investigating The Second Mile, the charity founded by alleged child predator and former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, reports CBS 21 News Sports Director Jason Bristol.

National Association of Letter Carriers: Rep. Dennis Ross, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service, and Labor Policy, introduced H.R. 3813, the Securing Annuities for Federal Employees Act. But it probably comes as little surprise that Ross’ measure, were it to become law, would in fact threaten the retirement benefits of federal workers—including postal workers. Ross’ proposal calls for entirely eliminating the defined benefit component government workers receive under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS). Instead, under the Ross plan, FERS annuitants would be entitled only to the benefits earned through both Social Security and the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). “Ross’ bill is a blatant attack on federal pensions,” NALC President Fredric Rolando said, “yet another front in the war on the middle class being pursued by the right-wing faction that now dominates the national Republican party."

American Postal Workers Union: Postal reform is a hot topic in Congress as the Senate prepares to vote on the 21st Century Postal Service Act, and APWU President Cliff Guffey is urging union members to contact their senators and let them know: Senate bill 1789 is unacceptable in its current form. As lawmakers review the bill, Guffey is asking union members to let their senators know that S. 1789 must be amended. “Supporters of the bill are also weighing in on the legislation, so it is crucial that we get our point across,” he said. In its current form, the bill would give the USPS some short-term financial relief, but also would inflict long-term damage to the nation’s mail system, Guffey said. “The bill would force the Postal Service to close hundreds of mail processing centers, shut thousands of post offices, and cause massive delays in mail delivery,” Guffey said. “By failing to give more substantial financial relief, the bill would weaken the Postal Service, kill jobs, and drive customers away,” he added.

The Hill: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Monday that he hoped Republicans would join him in pushing for changes to a measure overhauling the U.S. Postal Service’s operations. Sanders has led the charge in recent days to alter the bipartisan Senate postal bill, and has said that he has concerns that USPS is pressing to make modifications that would hurt rural communities and eliminate jobs. “Republicans coming from rural areas – they’re experiencing the same problems that we’re experiencing,” Sanders said at a Monday news conference. “I think there’s a whole lot of support, and I hope we can make some of these improvements to the bill before it gets to the floor.” Sanders’s push also underscores the different philosophies that groups are employing when it comes to postal reform.

February 6, 2012 

Toronto Star: The ubiquitous red street letter box in Canada is going the way of the pay phone. They are harder to find because Canada Post has removed more than 1,000 from across the country, in large part because household mail has dropped off 17 per cent in the past five years. In 2009 Canada Post had 31,584 street letter boxes and in 2011 that number dropped to 30,546. “People are not sending as much mail anymore,” Anick Losier, a spokeswoman for Canada Post, told the Toronto Star Monday. Losier said the decline is expected to continue as more people become adept with not only online messaging, but also receiving and paying bills.

Post & Parcel: Danish digital postal mail service e-Boks is expanding to Norway, with plans to expand into Sweden. The joint venture between Post Danmark and electronic payments firm Nets has signed agreements with a number of Norwegian companies to use the service, saying that the country was an obvious market with its high internet penetration rate. The company said once it has become the “preferred” digital distributor in Norway, it will enter the Swedish market.

According to PostCom Vice President Jessica Lowrance, (Revised copy) "Understanding what’s going on and who’s doing what when it comes ot proposing changes to postal law to address the challenges being faced by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) today can be a formidable challenge. To understand, it’s best to view the subject in as systematic a manner as possible.   The challenge facing the Postal Service is a simple one to understand. It’s costs are much greater than its revenues, and the size of its human and physical infrastructures (which are at the base of its costs) are much larger than can be justified by an realistic estimate of future mail volumes and workload demands. The Postal Service know this. Mailers know this. Postal labor knows this. About the only people who appear to be a bit in the dark are the people who are proposing the many changes to the nation’s postal laws."

New audit projects have been started on the external website:    Use of Data within Finance and Planning – 12BG018FF000. For FY 2012, the OIG Office of Audit is embarking on a series of audits related to how the Postal Service uses data to manage their operations. The Data Analysis and Performance Directorate has initiated this audit that will address the use of data within the Finance and Planning (F&P) office. The structure of the F&P office designates seven main groups: Analysis and Reporting, Program and Financial Performance, Corporate Budget, Field Budget, Finance Business Solution, Regulatory Reporting and Analysis, and Statistical Programs. The audit team will first engage in a survey of the data usage, during which we will gather the information required to assess the data need/risk within the F&P office. Based on the assessment, we will then develop an audit plan that only focus on a number of the office’s seven groups. Eventually, we want to identify better ways of using data for decision-making and workforce planning for the audited F& P groups. Our survey objective is to determine if the Postal Service Finance and Planning office is managing and using critical data in a manner that enables managers and assists employees to in achieve strategic and operational goals.

PostalVision 2020 organizers are pleased to announce that the second PostalVision 2020 conference, PostalVision 2020/2.0, will take place on June 12-13 at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C. Building on the success of last year’s event, the second expanded two-day PostalVision 2020 conference will convene experts from the digital, commercial and postal realms to discuss the future of the Postal Service, taking into consideration the incredible challenges stacked up against the organization.

Analytiqa: Logistics Bulletin: Each week, Analytiqa highlights key events across the logistics industry in a concise email. From acquisitions and mergers through to contract wins and supply chain developments, you can keep track of the essential events with this free service. Events and latest developments are updated daily on analytiqa.com.

My Racine County: Town of Waterford residents who think they’re living on County Road L must begin using the Janesville Drive addresses that are listed in letters received from the United States Postal Service (USPS) last week. The letters, dated Jan. 23, inform residents using County Road L as their street name that they, in fact, live on Janesville Drive and need to change their addresses to reflect the correct street name. According to Town Clerk Tina Mayer, this all began with a phone call from Sherry Conroy, a USPS address management systems specialist.

Columbia Missourian: Sen. Claire McCaskill plans to announce proposals Monday to keep rural post offices open and maintain six-day mail delivery for at least the next four years. McCaskill's proposal would allow the independent Postal Regulatory Commission to prevent post offices from being shuttered when the Postal Service did not present communities alternatives to closure, such as reducing hours of operation. Her proposal to continue six-day mail delivery for four years is two years longer than is proposed in the 21st Century Postal Service Act. McCaskill also wants to maintain one- to three-day delivery standards for first class mail. McCaskill's plan also includes cutting costs by reducing agency payments into an account to fund future retiree health benefits. The annual payments into that account currently total $5.5 billion, but McCaskill has proposed cutting them to between $3 billion and $3.5 billion annually. She's also asking that a commission be established that can recommend a new business model for the postal service to "achieve long-term fiscal sustainability within one year. " But if those efforts fail to ensure the Postal Service remained self-sustaining, McCaskill said it would be reasonable for the government to help subsidize it. [EdNote: Someone has finally spoken what many in Washington thought was unspeakable. She knows what she wants, and she's explained how to get it.]

Times Free Press: Did you happen to notice that the price of first-class postage went up by 1 cent recently -- from 44 cents to 45 cents? If you didn't, it may be because, like millions of other Americans, you have been relying more on email and the Internet -- and less on slower, traditional stamp-and-envelope mail -- to pay bills and keep in touch with friends and family. That shift to the Internet has cost the U.S. Postal Service billions of dollars in revenue, which has prompted the increase in stamp prices. But even with that extra revenue, it's doubtful the Postal Service will be able to drop a current proposal to close potentially thousands of post offices nationwide, including Chattanooga facilities in Alton Park, East Brainerd and Highland Park. We regret the jobs that will be lost, but propping up services that the American people simply are not using very much is no alternative.

Financial Times: Dutch express mail company TNT Express has broken into open feud with a group of activist shareholders, rejecting their request to appoint three new directors and accusing them of paying the proposed directors themselves. The rejection marked a new level of acrimony in a long-running battle between TNT Express management and a shareholder group led by American hedge fund Jana Partners.

Post & Parcel: Hungary’s postal service, Magyar Posta has won the chance to become the country’s fourth mobile phone operator in a government auction. Magyar Posta won a five-megahertz block of the telecommunications frequency spectrum around the 900-megahertz frequency, as part of a consortium involving the Hungarian Power Works (MVM) and investment banking group MFB Invest, which put in a bid of around EUR 10bn.

Mashable: Even in the richest countries on the planet such as the United States, not everyone has easy access to this cornucopia of connectivity, the Internet. The Internet is a tremendous growth engine, responsible for 21% of economic growth in the more advanced countries on the planet, according to a McKinsey study. While those of us in the United States complain about how we have to pay more for Internet service that's slower than those of other first-world countries, within the United States there's a gaping chasm between the haves and the have-nots. There are vast gaps between Internet accessibility in cities and rural areas, racial disparities in Internet access (which isn't as pronounced as it was a decade ago), and the growing gap between rich and poor and its influence on who goes without computers or Internet access. Beyond that, you'll see more information about how the U.S. lags behind other countries in Internet technology, broadband speed and access.

Washington Post: Postal Regulatory Commission Chairwoman Ruth Y. Goldway has traveled across the country and around the world since taking leadership of the nation’s postal regulator in August 2009. Costs for her trips top $70,600, according to a Washington Post analysis of her travel. Lawmakers say they plan to look into Goldway’s trips, detailed in a Federal Eye article in Monday’s Post, that found she has traveled to conferences and speeches nationwide and to meetings with international regulators in Scotland, Portugal, Spain, Finland, France and China. Goldway defended her travel schedule during an interview Friday. A transcript of the conversation — edited for clarity and length — appears in the Post.

Washington Post: Days before the U.S. Postal Service announced record-setting losses in September, the nation’s top postal regulator traveled to Scotland for meetings with European envelope manufacturers. A few weeks later, Postal Regulatory Commission Chairman Ruth Y. Goldway visited Portugal, Switzerland and China to meet with international postal regulators. The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service has announced plans to eliminate more than 250 processing centers. Goldway has incurred at least $70,600 in official domestic and international travel expenses during her tenure, outpacing her predecessor, according to commission travel records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Although the commission’s roughly $14.3 million budget is set by Congress and not directly tied to the Postal Service, the frequency and expense of Goldway’s travel is coming under scrutiny from lawmakers who track USPS and its financial woes.

February 5, 2012 

Kansas City Star: Sen. Claire McCaskill plans to announce proposals Monday to keep rural post offices open and maintain six-day mail delivery for at least the next four years. McCaskill wants the proposals added to the 21st Century Postal Service Act, which addresses the U.S. Postal Service's massive revenue problems. She provided details of her plan in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of an appearance Monday in Kansas City.

Attention PostalOne!® Users: The PostalOne! database hardware maintenance scheduled for today, Sunday, Feb 5, 2012 is experiencing some delays and will extend beyond the maintenance window 4:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. A critical incident has been created to document the extension and any system impacts (CI # INC000000124301). There is no impact to PostalOne!, eDoc or Mail.XML. If you are a WebCaps users please be advised that application is impacted and will be unavailable until the maintenance is completed. You will be advised when WebCaps is back online and the maintenance period is complete.

Pushing the Envelope topic: "Why Saturday?" In an effort to reduce costs, the U.S. Postal Service has proposed cutting delivery service to five days per week by eliminating Saturday delivery. Is Saturday the right day to cut? Are there better options? Would it be possible to end Saturday delivery for business addresses while eliminating Tuesday delivery for residential addresses instead? Tell us what you think.

Dead Tree Edition: So far, the Flats Sequencing System seems to be increasing rather than decreasing the Postal Service’s sorting and delivery costs, according to a postal expert. “The FSS has at times been seen as the technological fix that would reduce flats costs” and make the Periodicals class less of a money loser for the U.S. Postal Service, noted Halstein Stralberg in comments Time Inc. submitted Friday to the Postal Regulatory Commission. But based on USPS’s data for fiscal year 2011, “FSS processing was in fact very costly and most likely made Periodicals costs higher than they would have been without FSS.”

Frederick News Post: "Postal workers: Frederick mail piling up Baltimore facility burdened after local plant's closure, trasferred employees say"

PRWeb: EquaShip, which launched in Q4, 2011 as the new “4th Parcel Carrier” catering specifically to small and medium sized e-commerce merchants, announced today that it is temporarily suspending all customers while it re-engineers its transportation network for faster package delivery times, larger geographic coverage and more service options. Ron Wiener, CEO of EquaShip, said “Our customers clearly loved that fact that our prices beat FedEx and UPS by up to 80%, our real insurance coverage bundled with every parcel, and our outstanding customer service. However, in today’s ecommerce environment it’s not good enough for small and medium-sized merchants to offer Free Shipping. Shipping also has to be fast enough to compete with larger competitors like Amazon who ship from multiple distribution centers. What we heard loud and clear from our customers was that they needed faster transit times than we could deliver through our existing network of transportation partners.” “Rather than limit our market only to shippers who could tolerate slower transit times we felt it would be better to stop now, switch out our transportation network providers, and come back with a service that is as fast as today’s online consumer has come to expect, but still priced far below the egregiously high rates that FedEx and UPS charge smaller shippers,” added Wiener. Given the magnitude of systems integration work that is involved in changing out transportation partners EquaShip has elected to suspend customer operations after the final delivery of all remaining parcels in the pipeline, so that its management team can focus 100% of its efforts on bringing EquaShip back online as soon as possible. The company intends to expand its service offerings with new options for same-day, expedited and international services, in addition to its keystone postal consolidation ground service.

The Hill: Senate Democratic lawmakers from rural states are balking at legislation from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that would let the U.S. Postal Service close thousands of offices. The postal reform bill crafted by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) was expected to reach the Senate floor as soon as next week. Now Senate Democratic aides say it is not likely to come up until after the Presidents Day recess, as senators engage in last-minute shuttle diplomacy to avert a nasty and potentially embarrassing floor fight.

February 4, 2012 

Hucknall Dispatch: The Royal Mail sorting and delivery office in Bulwell is to close — despite a campaign to prevent the axe from falling. Royal Mail has blamed a fall in mail volumes for the closure. An official date for the closure has not been announced. [EdNote: Why do the Brits know what to do to try to save a challenged postal system and we Yanks have yet to learn?]

Bangor Daily News: Everyone seems to be worrying about the U.S. Postal Service going into a “death spiral.” The Internet is taking over communications. Fewer people send first-class letters. The remedy proposed by Postmaster Pat Dohanoe, who heads the semi-independent agency, includes closing or consolidating hundreds of “low-activity” post offices, eliminating Saturday service and laying off thousands of postal workers. To Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins, ranking minority member of the committee that oversees the postal service, that’s mostly the wrong idea. The Collins bill would maintain pension pre-funding at 100 percent but reduce health care pre-funding to 80 percent. Sen. Collins says recent analysis puts pension overfunding at $11.4 billion and says there is no overfunding on health care for retirees.

Delaware Online: Two of Delaware's banking giants have joined the lobbying effort to stop the U.S. Postal Service from closing the state's only mail-processing facility at Hares Corner. WSFS and JPMorgan Chase provided comments opposing the closure of Hares Corner in a letter sent Friday to U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe by Delaware's congressional delegation and Gov. Jack Markell.

Newark Post: Sen. Tom Carper, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee that oversees the U.S. Postal Service, along with Gov. Jack Markell, Sen. Chris Coons and Rep. John Carney (all D-Del.) wrote to United States Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe urging him to review the U.S. Postal Service's proposal that would revamp Delaware's only mail processing facility, causing a significant negative impact on Delaware. Specifically, the Postal Service has proposed transferring the mail processing functions from the Delaware Processing and Distribution facility at Hare's Corner in New Castle, Del., to another facility in Bellmawr, N.J.

February 3, 2012 

Attention PostalOne!® Users:  

PostalOne!^® TEM Software Maintenance: On Friday, February 3, 2012 the PostalOne! TEM environment will have a WebSphere patch installed in a rolling fashion with no outage to the PostalOne! TEM environment.  This install will occur at 9:00 p.m. CST and will address a known issue with large XML messages.  This is being done on a Friday evening so that the PostalOne! support team can closely monitor over the weekend and identify and correct any issues before start of business on Monday morning.   

PostalOne!^® Database Hardware Maintenance: On Sunday, February 5, 2012 the PostalOne! database will undergo hardware maintenance installed in a rolling fashion with no outage to the PostalOne! application.  The upgrade will occur during the scheduled maintenance window from 4:00 a.m. through 8:00 a.m.  CST. No system availability or performance issues should be experienced by users.  

PostalOne!^®  Performance Patch Release 29.0.3.4 Maintenance:  On Sunday, February 12, 2012 the PostalOne! application will deploy a software patch release installed in a rolling fashion with no outage to the PostalOne! application.  This patch release (29.0.3.4) will occur during the scheduled maintenance window from 4:00 a.m. through 8:00 a.m. CST and will correct several known performance issues in Release 29.0.   No system availability or performance issues should be experienced by users.  

PostalOne!^® MicroStrategy Reporting Maintenance:  On Sunday, February 19, 2012 the PostalOne! MicroStrategy reporting environment will be unavailable to internal and external users during the scheduled maintenance window of 4:00 a.m. through 8:00 a.m. CST to allow for system maintenance. During the outage internal users will not be able to access Verification and Performance Reports for Business Mail Acceptance, Electronic Mail Improvement Reporting and Service Performance Measurement.  External users will not be able to access the Mail Data Quality Reports.  Other PostalOne! application components  will not be affected. If you experience any issues please contact the help desk for assistance.

CNBC: It’s no secret that the financial crisis and resulting malaise has taken its toll on bank stocks, commodities and Treasury yields. But it may be have triggered another ripple – one that has gone somewhat unnoticed. Pension funds have become seriously underfunded. According to a recent report from Credit Suisse some of the nation’s largest companies owe their pensions more than 25% of their market cap (after taxes).

MSNBC: The U.S. economy is like a flywheel: It takes a lot to get it going. Once it starts moving, it can pick up speed pretty quickly. To see why, look no further than Friday’s jobs report, which offered convincing evidence that the U.S. recovery is finally gaining momentum. After months of subpar growth in their payrolls, American companies added 243,000 new jobs in January, considerably more than the 150,000 that forecasters expected. That drove the unemployment rate down by two percentage points to 8.3 percent, extending a rapid decline from 9.1 percent last August.

Letter to Hill from MPA, et al in support of S. 1789.: "You are to be commended and congratulated for writing and introducing an excellent bill that addresses several key issues that are threatening the stability of our nation’s postal system in a balanced and responsible way. (1) The bill provides the Postal Service with financial breathing room by amortizing the pre-funding of retiree health benefits over time, thereby reducing the $5+ billion retiree health pre-funding payments that the Postal Service is now required to make each year. (2) The bill allows the Postal Service to close facilities and, if found to be financially necessary, eliminate Saturday delivery. While such operational changes may negatively affect the service provided to mailers, they are potential sources of large savings that merit careful consideration. (3) The bill authorizes the Postal Service to offer buyouts and retirement incentives to its employees. This will allow the Postal Service to realign its operations with reduced volumes in a fair way. These buyouts will also be funded responsibly: by directing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to return to the Postal Service more than $11 billion in overpayments that it has made to the Federal Employees Retirement System pension fund. We thank you for stepping forward at this critical moment to provide strong leadership to ensure the Postal Service’s financial stability. We look forward to working with you to quickly pass this legislation." [EdNote: This bill is expected to come up for consideration in two weeks.]

Courier, Express, and Postal Observer: The shrinking Postal Service workforce is currently having some welcome impacts on the Postal Service’s balance sheet. Surpluses have formed in the Postal Service’s Civl Service Retirement System (CSRS) and Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) Accounts. The unfunded liability associated with the Postal Service’s retiree health benefit plan has declined even with the Postal Service not making $11 billion in payments required by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.

The Guardian: The MP for North Norfolk is taking over as minister for employment relations, consumer and postal affairs. Norman Lamb's previous life as an employment lawyer will stand him in good stead as he tackles his in-tray in his new role as minister for employment relations, consumer and postal affairs. The MP for North Norfolk, who takes over the reins from his Lib Dem colleague Ed Davey, who has been promoted to energy secretary, will be responsible for overseeing the review of employment law and implementing the privatisation of the Royal Mail. His new boss, Vince Cable, the business secretary, said it was a fitting appointment in light of the fact it was Lamb who pioneered the Lib Dems' policy to privatise Royal Mail and establish employee share ownership in the business while serving as the party's trade and industry spokesman.

DMM Advisory:  IMb™ Services Update. PostalOne!^® MicroStrategy^® Reporting Maintenance:  On Sunday, February 19, 2012, the PostalOne!^® MicroStrategy^® reporting environment will be unavailable to internal and external users during the scheduled maintenance window of 4 a.m. through 8 a.m. CST to allow for system maintenance. During the outage, internal users will not be able to access Verification and Performance Reports for Business Mail Acceptance and external users will not be able to access the Mail Quality Reports. Other PostalOne! environments will not be affected.

Multichannel Merchant: The U.S. Postal Service, desperate for revenue, is trying to encourage more businesses to send direct-mail first-class by letting them send 2-ounce letters for the rate of a 1-ounce mailing -- an offer cable, satellite and telco operators are greeting with a collective shrug.

Post & Parcel: Austrian Post has opened a new call centre as it works to expand its customer service operations and improve service quality. The new operation in Klagenfurt is the postal operator’s second largest call centre, capable of handling more than 1.1m calls each year, but a further increase from the initial 23 staff is on the cards. Staff have been taken from the operational and retail network, with around 4,000 hours of training provided.

Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service: The U.S. mailing industry today urged Members of the United States Senate to pass the 21st Century Postal Service Act as quickly as possible. The bipartisan comprehensive postal reform bill, introduced by Senators Joe Lieberman, Tom Carper, Susan Collins and Scott Brown, would deliver critical reforms to the U.S. Postal Service which is mired in a financial crisis that could lead to a disruption in mail service as early as mid-summer. “There is no time to waste. Eight million private sector jobs hinge on the future of the Postal Service, and the economy as a whole continues to rely a great deal on paper communications and package delivery, so it’s critical that Congress enact postal reform immediately,” said Art Sackler, coordinator for the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, a group representing the private sector mailing industry. “This bipartisan legislation introduces some long-needed reforms that would help the Postal Service regain financial stability.” The bipartisan Senate legislation includes many provisions supported by the private sector mailing industry. This includes a plan to return overpayments that USPS has made into the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) in order to help the Postal Service encourage early retirements. The bill would also allow USPS to forego prepaying for retiree health care for one year, and then re-amortize these prepayments over the next forty years – saving the Postal Service roughly $5 billion per year. And it would lay the basis for streamlining the system to fit the dramatically reduced amount of mail it handles today.

UNI Global Union: Representatives from nine trade unions in Eastern Europe who will have to liberalise their postal markets by 1 January, 2013 gathered in Bucharest (2-3 February 2012) to discuss postal liberalization. Speakers from trade unions in Western and Northern Europe where postal liberalization has already happened, such as Sweden, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, spoke about how liberalization affected postal workers' jobs and how unions can prepare their members for the upcoming changes and minimize the adverse effects. Participants discussed adding social regulation to postal laws, organizing members in the new competitors and having strong collective agreements.

At the Postal Regulatory Commission:  The audiocast of the February meeting of the Postal Regulatory Commission can be found here:
http://www.prc.gov/prc-docs/home/whatsnew/Monthly_Meeting_02012012.mp3

WPSD: A local woman says someone from Nigeria stole her identity, opened multiple accounts in her name and took out a big loan, all things she says she probably would've caught except she stayed in the dark for weeks because scammers managed to stop her mail. The culprits used a free online change of address service known as "Updater, Inc." That website then forwarded the information to the postal service.

Business Insurance: Investigators who installed a surveillance camera near the home of a former postal worker eventually convicted of workers compensation fraud got more than they expected. The husband of the female postal worker regularly enjoyed sipping his morning coffee while nude, investigators found in reviewing video from the camera placed atop a utility pole outside their Geneva, Ohio, home. “The camera did record that on occasion,” an investigator told a local TV news station. Karen Anderson-Bagshaw, the 49-year-old former U.S. Postal Service worker, recently was sentenced to a year in prison and must pay more than $70,000 in restitution, according to news reports. She was a postal worker in 2002 when she claimed disability and began receiving workers comp benefits.

 
The latest issue of the PostCom Bulletin is available online. In this issue:

• 3 Step Approach to Improving Customer Experience & Driving Engagement Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/545405784
• The Postal Regulatory Commission has denied the Postal Service’s request for the procedural schedule recently established in Docket No N2012-1 Mail Processing Network Rationalization Service Changes, 2012 be reduced by several months. The Commission said, “such a substantial reduction in schedule appears inconsistent with due process afforded all participants when conducting a hearing on the record.”
• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its score of S. 1789 21st Century Postal Service Act of 2011, as ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. It estimated that the bipartisan senate legislation would cost $6.3 billion for the period 2012-2022.
• According to postal commentator, Gene Del Polito, “Postal Washington is abuzz with news that House and Senate postal reform sponsors soon will seek to move their bills through their respective chambers in the hope of crafting a common postal reform proposal in a House-Senate conference that can be sent to the President for his signature. That's the dream of every legislative sponsor. History has shown, though, that sometimes the dream can turn into a nightmare. . . . Here are some things I think every member should be asking about any postal reform measure that is brought before them before they slip their voting card into the machine reader."

• PostalVision 2020 organizers are pleased to announce that the second PostalVision 2020 conference, PostalVision 2020/2.0, will take place on June 12-13 at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C. Building on the success of last year's event, the second expanded two-day PostalVision 2020 conference will convene experts from the digital, commercial and postal realms to discuss the future of the Postal Service, taking into consideration the incredible challenges stacked up against the organization.
• USPS to propose repeat mobile barcode promo. CRS provides USPS 2011 financial update and bill comparison. IRS decision costs the Postal Service millions. Federal spending derailed by Amtrak. UPS alters pension-plan accounting. USPS ‘unsustainable’ situation, leaders says. USPS tries to scare boomers away from online banking. USPS to propose to repeat mobile barcode promo. Enroute adds last mile postal service delivery services. Congressman Carter calls for PO closing review. PostCom’s newest member.
• Updates from the Domestic Mail Manual.
• Updates from the Federal Register that affect the mailing industry.
• An update from the USPS Office of Inspector General.
• A review of postal news from around the world.
• Postal previews.

Hey! You've not been getting the weekly PostCom Bulletin--the best postal newsletter anywhere...bar none?  Send us by email your name, company, company title, postal and email address. Get a chance to see what you've been missing.

The PostCom Bulletin is distributed via NetGram

RIA Novosti: The municipal authorities in a Moscow city district denied on Friday they were forcing school heads to send employees to a rally on Saturday in support of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s presidential election campaign. “The principal position of the prefecture and prefect Valery Vinogradov is that participation in any public events is fully voluntary,” the northeast Moscow prefecture said in a statement on its website.

From the Federal Register: 

Postal Service
PROPOSED RULES
Recognition of Distribution of Periodicals via Electronic Copies ,
5470–5471 [2012–2374]	[TEXT]  [PDF]

Press Release: Husch Blackwell's Postal Service Contracting practice group today released its list of the top 10 U.S. Postal Service suppliers for fiscal year 2011. For the ninth straight year FedEx claimed the No. 1 spot. Another air carrier, Kalitta Air, Inc., which transports military mail bound for Iraq and Afghanistan, claimed the second spot. The list is compiled by David P. Hendel, a partner in the firm who has served clients' postal contracting needs for 30 years. A list of the top 150 suppliers can be found here. First-place FedEx transports Express Mail, Priority Mail and First Class Mail, and earned postal revenues of $1.495 billion in fiscal 2011 – an increase of $122 million from last year. Higher fuel prices may account for the increase. Another postal competitor, United Parcel Service, is the Postal Service's 11th largest postal supplier, earning $102 million in revenue – a $7 million increase from last year. Six of the top 10 postal contractors are in the transportation field.

Bangor Daily News: With 30 rural Maine post offices facing potential closure and nationwide service cutbacks looming, some local postal service employees and activists are attempting to ratchet up pressure on Congress to rescind a law they insist is causing the agency’s financial woes. But at least one member of Maine’s congressional delegation said the U.S. Postal Service will need systemic changes to survive. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is co-sponsoring a bill that would reduce the amount of prefunding by essentially spreading the payments out over additional years. The legislation, Senate Bill 1789, also would allow the postal service to reclaim $11 billion in overpayments to the federal pension system and use that money to offer employees buyouts and early retirement incentives. The goal of that provision is to save the postal service an estimated $8 billion a year by cutting 100,000 positions, or roughly 20 percent of the total staff. But the bill also directs the postal service to explore ways to shift toward more curbside mail delivery rather than hand delivery to people’s doorsteps. Those provisions do not sit well with postal employee unions.

Global Logistics Media: The quality of consumer mail delivery in 2011 has achieved one of its highest in over 20 years scores with 96.1%. By law, PostNL must score at least 95% for the standard overnight delivery services within the Netherlands. This concerns the mail deposited in PostNL’s public postboxes. As a rule, these items must be delivered the next working day. PostNL is content with its performance, especially given the many changes it made to its organisation in 2011 to prepare it for a new delivery structure. Mail delivery is no longer prepared at 300 locations across the Netherlands but instead at just nine central preparation locations. The score shows a marked improvement on 2010.

Folio: The MPA: The Association of Magazine Media came together at the Hearst Tower Thursday to discuss an issue that is plaguing the minds of publishers, lawmakers and individuals across the country: the state (and future) of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and its impact on magazine media, its ads, revenue and distribution.

February 2, 2012 

Media Daily News: Time Inc. is set to close MAGHOUND, dubbed the "Netflix of the magazine industry" early in 2012, the fourth year of its operation. Using MAGHOUND, consumers could buy multiple titles from various publishers each month at discount prices without having to subscribe to any single publication.

Job Mouse: The APWU has learned that the Senate will consider postal legislation in the near future. As currently written, the bill would give the USPS some short-term financial relief, but would also inflict long-term damage to the nation’s mail system, said APWU President Cliff Guffey.

PostCom welcomes its newest member: Intelisent, LLC 880 Marshall Phelps Road Windsor, CT 06095 represented by Mark Mandell Founder, President and CEO

Postal Regulatory Commission Meeting Calendar 3/01/2012 - 3/31/2012
 

Date	Time	Event	Location
03/07/2012	11:00 AM	Monthly Commission Meeting	Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200
03/20/2012	09:30 AM	Hearing in Postal Service's Direct Case - Docket N2012-1	Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200
03/21/2012	09:30 AM	Hearing in Postal Service's Direct Case - Docket N2012-1	Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200
03/22/2012	09:30 AM	Hearing in Postal Service's Direct Case - Docket N2012-1	Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200
03/23/2012	09:30 AM	Hearing in Postal Service's Direct Case - Docket N2012-1	Commission Hearing Room, 901 New York Ave., NW, Suite 200

Now hear this: "This Week In Postal".........the latest podcast posted now! (Link fixed, sorry 'bout that)

Wall Street Journal: The federal government arrested 58 people over the past week in a national crackdown on identity theft led by the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice, the tax agency said Tuesday. The collaboration among several federal agencies and local U.S. attorneys' offices targeted people suspected of using false Social Security numbers or other personal information to file fraudulent tax returns.

Cork Independent: An autistic Cork man who cannot read or write but is a gifted artist, has been chosen as one of eight global artists to feature art on a new range of United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) stamps. Colm Isherwood (25) from Mahon was chosen as the only Irish artist whose work will appear on stamps to celebrate World Autism Day on 2 April.

The Other Russia: Workers at Pochta Rossii, Russia’s federal postal service, are complaining of being forced to take part in a pro-government rally in Moscow this weekend, Kasparov.ru reports. On Wednesday, Novaya Gazeta published a statement by a postal worker that included a letter sent to local Pochta Rossii managers. The letter, signed by a representative of the company’s personel service, demanded a list from each branch of employees who would be taking part in the February 4 protest at Moscow’s Victory Park. The letter then states: “We would like to bring to your attention the fact that worker participation is mandatory!” In addition, another Pochta Rossii worker said on a live broadcast of Russian News Service radio that management had promised to pay each worker 6 thousand rubles (~200 USD) for going to the rally.

Asia News Network: Postal service providers in Brunei must adopt modern technology through sustainable diversification of services in order to meet consumer changes and become relevant in the current century, an expert said. "The most obvious challenge post offices are facing is the challenge from alternative technologies, where consumers today are using other means of communication more than the traditional postal services," said Shailendra Kumar Dwivedi, a lecturer from the Asian Pacific Postal College Bangkok, Thailand.

Wall Street Journal: Facebook Inc. filed for an initial public offering Wednesday that could value the social network between $75 billion and $100 billion, putting the eight-year-old company on track to be one of the biggest U.S. stock-market debuts of all time, even as it tries to keep up with sky-high expectations. [EdNote: In the meantme, the nation's first "social network," the U.S. Postal Service, is facing bankruptcy. Perhaps Wall Street will be kinder to Facebook than Congress has been to the Postal Service.]

Financial Times: Portugal’s government aims to intensify structural economic reforms and regain access to debt markets next year, even though its bond yields are touching perilously high levels, Vítor Gaspar, finance minister, said on Wednesday.The government is promising to speed up its transposition into Portuguese law of liberalising EU initiatives on energy, postal services and the railway industry.

Financial Times: Magyar Posta, the post office, power company Magyar Villamos Muvek and the development bank Magyar Fejlesztesi Bank have clubbed together to buy a licence and compete with the three existing mobile companies – the local affiliates of Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Norway’s Telenor.

BNC.com: Fans of the online literary magazine the Rumpus recently opened their mailboxes to find a missive from its founder, Stephen Elliott. In one way, this was entirely routine - he sends out emails that mix personal stories with links to new website content almost every day. In another way, it was absolutely new: The mailboxes they opened were not on their computers but near apartment lobbies, doorways and the end of driveways. The Rumpus had sent them a traditional letter, on paper, with a stamp, envelope and signature.

Target Marketing: Many catalogers who had backed away from print—or stopped printing entirely— are now refocusing on their print catalog core. In my consulting business, I'm hearing clients (who would prefer not to be identified) say, "Our catalogs are profitable again," "Catalogs are our main sales driver," and "Catalogs are our first-line prospecting vehicle." What's driving the reinvestment in print catalogs? Here are nine emerging techniques and technologies that are largely responsible, and how you can apply them to your marketing.

Courier, Express, and Postal Observer: Yesterday, in its conference call covering its 4th Quarter 2011 earnings, United Parcel Service (UPS) provided strong evidence that the parcel delivery industry is now more closely tied to the growth in e-commerce than to the economy in general. In addition, it provided some idea as to how UPS is changing its operations, pricing, labor relations, and marketing to deal with the change in the mix of parcels that its customers want UPS to deliver.

Practical eCommerce: The free-shipping era squeezes smaller merchants. They must match the shipping policies of larger competitors, but they don't receive the high-volume shipping discounts that the larger companies do. Smaller merchants must pay more, in other words, for offering free shipping. There's a company that offers high-volume shipping discounts to low-volume ecommerce merchants.

Wichita Business Journal: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the United States will add 20.5 million jobs between 2010 and 2020 — a 14.3 percent increase over the decade. The bureau’s list of declining jobs also includes several tied to a single employer — the U.S. Postal Service . Despite the nationwide job losses from the Postal Service, postal employees in Wichita could have a better chance of keeping their jobs. A proposed consolidation of mail processing facilities would bring more work to Wichita while cutting jobs elsewhere in the state.

Charlotte City Buzz Examiner: The Postal Service reported a net loss of $5.1 billion for its 2011 fiscal year and on Tuesday warned that could run out of cash by September of next year if Congress did not offer relief. What we need is a new business model for the post office, much more entrepreneurial. in a rural State, if people would like to walk into a post office and get a letter notarized, they cannot do it today. If people walk into a post office and want to get 10 copies of their letter, they cannot do it today. The United States Congress has said they cannot do that. If somebody walks into a rural post office and wants to get a fishing license or a hunting license or fill out a driver’s license, they cannot do that right now. You can’t send a fax, pay a bill online…You can’t print out stamps with your favorite picture on it? The list of what the post office doesn’t do is endless.

New York Times: Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, received a postal package containing anthrax spores four months ago, his spokesman said Wednesday, adding a new dimension to the security threats faced by the country’s political and military leadership.

Post & Parcel: Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor has downgraded New Zealand Post’s outlook from “stable” to “negative” over concerns about the ongoing decline in mail volumes. The postal service has its credit rating monitored in relation to its $400m debt facilities, with the rating reviewed on a semi-annual basis. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed the Post’s AA- long-term credit rating and A-1+ short term credit rating, but the Post’s outlook was downgraded along with its banking subsidiary Kiwibank The change was based on what the agency saw as a continuing deterioration in New Zealand Post’s core business, letters, and the increasing dependence of the company on the competitive parcels segment for growth.

KUNC: After asking for a five-month moratorium in December, Congress has been relatively quiet so far on how it hopes to fix the economically troubled U.S. Postal Service. The Senate was expected to begin debating postal reform legislation this week. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided instead to prioritize the STOCK Act. Meantime, the USPS is losing $23 million per day.

Post & Parcel: Dutch postal regulatory OPTA has written to ministers suggesting that PostNL face administrative penalties for missing its service quality target in 2010. By law, the universal service provider in the Netherlands must deliver 95% of its standard single-piece overnight domestic mail, as deposited within public postboxes, on the next working day. During 2010, PostNL achieved only a 92.9% rate, but has argued that the low score was the result of “considerable” strike action by trade unions at the end of the year.

Government Executive: An estimate of the latest U.S. Postal Service reform bill to be introduced into the Senate finds that the plan would create a net government loss of $6.3 billion over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office released the assessment of the 21st Century Postal Service Act on Jan. 26, as ordered by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. CBO obtained the loss number by calculating that the bill would result in off-budget savings of $25.6 billion through 2022 and on-budget costs of $31.9 billion during the same time period.
 

♪♫"Oh I heard it -- Heard It -- Yes, I heard it through the grapevine. . . ." ♫♪   Word has it that a revision of S. 1789 is now set for consideration on the Senate floor -- if sufficienct support can be garnered. You might want to look at the Postal Service's "Talking Points" on the bill to get an idea of what's under discussion.

Government Executive: The House on Wednesday passed a bill that would freeze federal worker and lawmaker pay through 2013, in what Democrats and labor union leaders called an overly politicized maneuver. The bill (H.R. 3835), introduced by Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., passed 309 -117 Wednesday. It came to the floor under the House’s suspension calendar, which required a two-thirds majority for passage and allowed for a vote without opportunity for public comment or amendment. Congress typically uses the process on non-controversial bills with bipartisan support. The measure extends the salary freeze for members of Congress and civilian federal employees, with no changes or cost of living adjustments available until the end of 2013. [EdNote: The Postal Service is not covered by this proposed pay freeze.]

Welcome to PostCom Radio A PostCom Postal Podcast Join PostCom President Gene Del Polito, Grayhair Postal Affairs Vice President Angelo Anagnostopoulis, and Bank of America Postal Strategy Senior Vice President Michael Tate in a discussion of the "Postal Box Street Address" (PBSA) pratfall.

February 1, 2012 

PC World: It's been known for some time that there are security issues associated with the increasing use of RFID tags in credit cards, but this past weekend afforded a fresh demonstration of just how easy it is for hackers to take advantage of them.

Congressional Research Service: "The U.S. Postal Service’s Financial Condition: Overview and Issues for Congress"

Wall Street Journal: Paperless Post is known for personalized digital invitations, usually sent by email, that create a paper-like experience. Now the company is expanding its offerings of cards pegged to Valentine's Day, the second-most important greeting-card occasion of the year, after Christmas. An estimated 150 million paper Valentine's Day cards were bought last year, according to the Greeting Card Association. Delivered by email or through social network sites like Facebook and Twitter, Paperless Post's electronic invitations appear on the screen as an image of a paper envelope. Typeface can look as if it is letter-pressed or engraved. The card—usually a digital image of a handcrafted paper card made by Paperless Post designers—pops out of the envelope with adornments that may include a fancy lining and personally selected calligraphy.

Parcel2Go: The UK’s largest online parcel delivery specialist has said it is unsurprised by the results of a recent study highlighting the growing importance of online delivery services. A worldwide survey of 93 members of the Universal Postal Union showed that 70 per cent believe postal e-services are strategically important for the future. The research identified 55 different types of digital services which are now available, including track and trace and online bill payments.

InfoTech: An industry first, the AccuLazr(TM) AL5010 laser barcode scanner from Accu-Sort® Systems, Inc. now offers user access via the iPhone® and iPad®. A smartphone or tablet PC can now be used to remotely monitor and diagnose warehouse operations by accessing a web page hosted on the laser barcode scanner. A cable connection to the scanner is no longer required in order to monitor the performance of the system.

  PR-Inside: Address data experts at Postcode Anywhere have unveiled a new international address auto-complete application for Sage CRM. The free-to-download extension uses rapid postal code look-up, combined with auto-suggest technology which completes address fields as the user types - making address data entry “faster, easier and more accurate.” Postcode Anywhere makes it possible to enter full and validated UK or international contact addresses up to 80% faster in Sage CRM. Multiple postal address formats in international addresses.

The Press Information Bureau: Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and Information Technology inaugurated a Round Table on National Postal Policy here today. Speaking on the occasion Shri Sibal said that in view of IT revolution India Post has to embrace the changes and to be prepared for challenges of tomorrow. Shri Sachin Pilot Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology said that Department of Posts has to revisit and reinvent itself in the light of rapidly changing scenario. Though Department of Posts is already engaged in plethora of activities, it may explore other revenue streams.

CIOL: India Post under the ministry of communications and IT is expected to come up with pan-India rollout of mobile money order service. The pilot program for this project is currently under way in Bihar and Punjab. Manjula Prasher, secretary (Posts), chairman of the postal services Board and director general, India Post, on the sidelines of National Postal Policy 2012 roundtable in New Delhi informed that they chose two states-- Bihar and Punjab-- where a lot of immigrant workers remit money to their states.

The Hindu Business Line: The Postal Department has applied to the Reserve Bank of India for a banking licence. Aimed at modernising postal services, the policy is expected to make the department adopt a more financially viable revenue model. It would also provide affordable services at all points in the country as part of its Universal Service Obligation, the Minister said.

eCommerceBytes: Postal regulators have finalized a new set of rules governing the procedure for closing post offices, seeking to streamline the review process as the U.S. Postal Service looks ahead to the potential closure of thousands of locations. The agency agreed to shelve some of the more controversial provisions that had drawn protests from the Postal Service and direct mailer Valpak, such as a requirement to provide notice to affected mailing customers in the community ahead of the proposal and final determination to close a site, and a provision that would have automatically triggered a suspension of the closing process if the move was opposed by a timely appeal. In both cases, the Postal Service and Valpak argued that the PRC was exceeding its authority with the proposed rulemaking, and the agency agreed to table the measures indefinitely.

CEP News (Courier-Express-Postal), published by the MRU Consultancy, has reported that:

As previously announced the EU-Commission adopted four decisions concerning state aid proceedings against postal operators in Europe. ’In the decisions concerning the Deutsche Post and the Belgian bpost we have concluded that part of the aid received is incompatible with the internal market and ordered its recovery’, said EUCommissioner Joaquin Almunia. In contrast the aid granted to French La Poste and Greek post ELTA were approved by the EU-Commission.
The EU-Commision found that the pension subsidies granted since 1995 on account of the pension costs of civil servants have conferred an economic advantage to Deutsche Post.
Belgian bpost has to repay 417m to the state. The EU-Commission found that the Belgian post was overcompensated by subsidies for the delivery of newspapers and magazines amounting to 5.2bn euros between 1992 and 2010.
The EU-Commission approved subsidies granted to French La Poste despite its market share of over 99%
China’s express and postal industry recorded significant growth last year. While letter mail volume stagnated at 7.38 billion (-0.3%) the express services partially recorded exorbitant growth rates.
InPost, a subsidiary of Polish mail service provider Integer.pl (revenue 2010: 46.1m euros) has bypassed Poczta Polska’s reserved area since November 2010 by adding metal plates to letters weighing less than 50 grammes, to increase the weight of the mail items.
  Last week postal minister Ed Davey confirmed to the parliament that Royal Mail and Post Office Ltd. signed a contract providing certainty that all products of Royal Mail will be available in the post offices for the next ten years. The agreement is considered a prerequisite for guaranteeing Post Office Ltd.’s financial stability.
In an interview with »Financial Times« (30.01) Nick Wells, chief executive of TNT Post UK, announced to operate with TNT mailmen in the UK. A corresponding test in Liverpool has been positive and TNT now plans to launch this service in other urban centres across the UK.
PostNL faces trouble with its subcontractors. A spokesman of the drivers association De Stichting Subcontractors Vervoersbedrijven announced to seek a judicial review of the labour conditions of the around 1.800 subcontractors in the mail and parcel divisions. According to the association the van drivers are only bogus self-employed.
A privatisation of Russia Post isn’t off the table yet. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recommended to privatise Russia Post. The consultants suggested a partial privatisation which could yield up to one billion euros. This cash injection should be used to fund a restructuring programme according to the consultancy.
Despite a decrease in profit Singapore Post (SingPost) probably remained the worlds most profitable postal company in the third quarter of the current business year.
FedEx apparently plans to take over one of Poland’s leading CEP services. »Dziennik Gazeta Prawna« (28.01) reported that the integrator is poised to pay 100m zloty, around 23.5m euros, for the courier service Opek.
Gati, one of India’s large express service providers (revenue 2010/2011: 185m euros) is in deeper financial troubles than originally thought.
DPD and Hermes are pooling their resources in Russia.
Activists in the USA devoted increased attention to FedEx. Several hundred people protested in front of a FedEx facility in Los Angeles and demanded that the company should really pay its corporate tax rate of 35%. The protests were triggered by a report of the left-leaning non profit organisation Citizens for Tax Justice according to which twelve major U.S. corporations - FedEx among them - not only avoided taxes completely, but received tax refunds due to the current law in the USA
European retail companies face problems to establish their online crossborder business.
CTT Expresso, a subsidiary of the Portuguese post, is on the course for growth.
The consumer advice centre in Schleswig-Holstein accused Deutsche Post of selling the addresses of its customers.
TNT Post Germany plans to buy into North German Citipost.
The South African Post Office (SAPO) has to look for a new CEO. Last week a spokeswoman confirmed that SAPO and its former CEO Motshoanetsi Lefoka reached a ’mutually agreed separation’. Lefoka has been on ’special leave’ since October 2011 due to an internal investigation over irregular lease contracts.

The MRU, founded in 1992, is the only consultancy in Europe, which has specialised in the market of courier-, express- and parcel services. For large-scale shippers and CEP-services in particular, the MRU provides interdisciplinary advice for all major questions of the market, as there are for example market entry, product design, organisation, and EDP.To learn more about the stories reported above, contact CEP News. (We appreciate the courtesy extended by CEP News to help whet your appetite for more of what CEP offers.)

The Botswana Gazette: Botswana Post intends introducing the home postal boxes and deliveries. The move follows a study conducted by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), titled ‘Addressing in Botswana’, launched by the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) in September 2009.

Hellmail: Despite Lithuania not being too far from the Nordic regions, its weather is surpisingly moderate. No real need for tennis rackets nailed to shoes here. That said, given an alternative, few in Lithuania would really want to trek to the local post box just to post a letter unless part of some exercise regime or to give the dog a taste of freedom. With much of the world now online, and Hybrid Mail gaining in popularity, Lithuanian Post is now offering its own version of Hybrid to anyone wishing to post a traditional paper letter - from their computer desktop.

Hellmail: Magazine publishers have given top marks for customer satisfaction to mailing firms accredited by the industry’s quality standards scheme. Almost 90 per cent of publishers (89.6%) said they would definitely use a distribution company accredited by the Mail Distribution Accreditation Scheme (MDAS) in future, the 2011 MDAS Customer Satisfaction Survey revealed. The figure is the highest customer satisfaction rating registered since the annual study was first conducted in 2008, and marks a year-on-year increase of 8.9% from the 2010 figure of 82.4%.

Business2Community: "USPS Tries To Scare Boomers Away From Online Banking"

PI World: Congressman Brian Higgins (D-NY) recently held a press conference at Zenger Group, a printing and direct mail service provider, to oppose the scheduled closure of the Postal Service William Street mail processing facility here. The facility is considered to be the postal distribution gateway between the United States and Toronto/southern Ontario, as well as a major radiating point of print and mail services in Western New York.

Postalnews Blog: According to an article in Logistics Management, the “star” of United Parcel Service’s impressive fourth quarter performance was its Sure Post product, which uses the US Postal Service to actually deliver B2C parcels

Direct Marketing News: The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is, for the second year, planning a summertime promotion for direct mailers that use two-dimensional barcodes, USPS VP of domestic products Gary Reblin told Direct Marketing News on Jan. 31. Reblin said last year's barcode promotion — which gave mailers a 3% discount on qualifying Standard and First-Class mail letters, flats and cards — was so successful that the USPS's board of governors urged that another promotional program be developed for this year. The details of this year's promotion will be put before the USPS's board of governors on Feb. 8 for its approval, Reblin said. He declined to discuss specifics, as he said doing so would be premature prior to the board's approval. However, he did say this year's mobile barcode discount promotion will have some different features from last year's. “We've studied best practices; we're going to take what we learned from the last one and be more specific.”

PRNewswire: Enroute Systems Corporation (www.enroutecorp.com) has announced the launch of new last mile postal service delivery service options for its ShipIt! Portal supply chain management software. In addition to existing support of multiple global and regional carrier parcel delivery services, Enroute now offers cost-effective delivery capabilities to businesses and residences in over 220 countries through their partnership with DHL Global Mail. Far different from other shipment execution solutions, ShipIt! Portal enables custom business rules that can recommend or completely automate the shipping processes for retailers, distributors, and manufacturers. Once the appropriate carrier or service is selected, Enroute's software creates the necessary label, documents and manifest, while parcel tracking information is then accessible from any web browser. Detailed analytics enable rapid evaluation of service selection, centered on factors such as cost, speed, and efficiency. A typical Enroute customer saves up to 30% of their shipping costs and regains total control of how they ship.

Next week, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe will host two webinars for managed account customers regarding the Postal Service's proposed changes to service standards and the mail processing network. The attachment to this message contains the invitation that will be sent to managed account customers through the Postal Service's Business Service Network, and instructions for joining the webinars. The PowerPoint presentation used will be posted on RIBBS after the first webinar on February 7. Because there are limited phone lines available to participants in these webinars, Industry Engagement and Outreach (IEO) will schedule and conduct a separate webinar -- using the same PowerPoint deck and covering the same topics -- for Industry Association Executives, the PCC Advisory Committee, and MTAC leadership. IEO will contact you with information about the webinar within the next few days.

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