Video – USPS May Cut Out Full Day Of Mail Delivery

WASHINGTON DC [NY1] — U.S. Postmaster General John Potter says the post office’s financial situation could force the agency to cut a full day out of mail delivery each week. NY1’s Anthony Pascale filed the following report.

Saying the U.S. postal service is in “acute financial crisis”, the U.S. Postmaster General John Potter is asking members of congress to do away with the law that requires the delivery of mail six days a week. That means a five-day delivery week may be on the horizon.

“We go to every home, six days a week regardless whether we’re delivering one piece of mail or two pieces of mail or no mail we have to go by that home. So what we’re looking to do, again, only in a worst-case scenario, to have the freedom to relax the frequency of delivery, no more than one day a week,” said Potter.

But already, postal customers we talked to are giving mixed reviews to that worst-case scenario.

“We expect our mail everyday, some of us have checks that we get that are important to get deposited. They only way you can get these is if we have prompt delivery everyday,” said one New Yorker.

“It won’t affect me, because most of the time I get junk mail anyways,” said another New Yorker.

As all of us who send email know, the postal service just isn’t delivering as much as it used to. Total mail volume came in at 202 billion pieces last year, nine billion less than the year before — the biggest single year drop in history.

The postmaster general says that, combined with rising costs, has created a deficit that could reach $6 billion this year. The postal service is the nation’s second largest employer and workers fear what the cut would mean for them.
“If they’re going to downsize a day they’re going to maybe downsize me too and I don’t like that because I have a family to support,” said Richard Sykes, a postal employee.

The head of the local union representing postal workers, Clarence Torrence, says cutting a delivery day would be a bad decision. He says it has been several bad decisions by those at the top that have left the postal service in this predicament.

“Mishandling, mismanaging, the workforce has been cut but the number of supervisors and management has stayed the same,” said Torrence.

Right now, there’s no word on what day of the week would be cut. Potter says it would be a day with the lightest volume. Studies have shown those are Saturday and Tuesday.

If the five-day delivery week was to become reality, federal lawmakers would first need to sign off on the plan, as would the postal services governing board.