As was reported in the previous issue of Mailers Hub News, a comment by the Postmaster General about reducing the postal workforce brought a quick and confrontational response from Mark Dimondstein, president of the ever-adversarial American Postal Workers Union. However, comments emanating from the union’s recent convention suggest that a challenger to Dimondstein’s re-election may think he’s not been aggressive enough in dealing…
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Details Emerging About Delivery Unit Consolidations
Documents provided by the Postal Service to its labor groups detail the initial moves to implement the network redesign contained in the Postmaster General’s 10-year Plan. Generally, the redesign would impact the mail processing, transportation, and delivery infrastructure; similarly, sweeping changes are not anticipated for retail facilities. SDCs The focus of the documents is the consolidation in specific areas of…
Read MoreMyths & Realities: Sales Tax and State Income Taxes for Direct Mail Producers
This article was produced exclusively for Mailers Hub by Martin I. Eisenstein and Jamie Szal of Brann & Isaacson. Brann & Isaacson is a boutique law firm that represents large and small online and multichannel companies, printers, commercial mail producers, and IT service providers located across the country. The firm advises companies of all sizes, including many in the Internet…
Read MoreTime to Change the Message
Persons who’ve heard Postmaster General Louis DeJoy speak more than once note that he tends to use the same format every time: Along the way, keep referring to (1) anyone who isn’t dogmatically committed to the Plan as “resistance” and “noise,” (2) the PAEA’s ratesetting system as “defective,” and (3) the Postal Service’s trucks as always carrying a lot of…
Read MoreIn His Own Words
It’s hardly news that hard-copy mail volume is shrinking – it has been for fifteen years as the uptake of electronic messaging has accelerated. However, the diversion to electronic media that may work in some applications – personal emails and texts in place of written letters and cards – doesn’t mean all messages translate well. Many individuals still prefer paper bills and…
Read MoreSeeking Equilibrium
The concept of balance is present in many philosophies, operations, and financial considerations, and requires that competing factors and forces be in equilibrium for balance to be achieved. The analogy can be applied to the Postal Service which, financially, has been off balance for many years. The agency was debt-free at the end of fiscal 2005, i.e. until the Postal Accountability…
Read MoreUSPS Files for Second Market-Dominant Price Increase in a Year
In the latest example of how Postmaster General Louis DeJoy defines “prudent and judicious,” he won Board of Governors support to seek the second price increase on market-dominant products in less than a year. As in the prior rate hike, effective last August 29, DeJoy opted to use nearly all available rate authority. If approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission,…
Read MoreUSPS Orders New Delivery Vehicles, Including Electric Version
In a March 24 press release, the Postal Service announced that it had placed an order for 50,000 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles with Oshkosh Defense, the contractor it had selected last year. The total cost of the order was stated to be $2.98 billion, or about $60,000 per vehicle, although that average may include costs other than the “sticker price” of each…
Read MoreWho Needs Mail When They Have Informed Delivery?
Our guest editorial is by Dave Lewis, president of SnailWorks, a Frederick (MD)-based provider of mail tracking services. Dave is a veteran of the mail production industry and an MTAC representative for Mailers Hub. If you don’t already subscribe to Informed Delivery at home, you really should. You will see things you cannot see in the mail – they are digital-only…
Read MoreMailers Hub Joins in Comments Regarding Competitive Product Contribution
In a February 25 filing with the Postal Regulatory Commission, Mailers Hub joined with nine other industry groups (American Catalog Mailers Association, Association For Mail Electronic Enhancement, ANA—Association Of National Advertisers, Continuity Shippers Association, Envelope Manufacturers Association, International Mailers Advisory Group, Major Mailers Association, National Association Of Presort Mailers, and Printing United Alliance) to support a Package Shippers Association recommendation to eliminate…
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