-By Warner Todd Huston
Union contracts are killing the U.S. Post Office, making it uncompetitive and driving costs through the roof according to the Government Accountability Office.
The U.S. Post Office lost $12 billion between 2007 and 2009 and has reached its borrowing limit of $15 billion already. On top of that the union pension fund is underfunded. Even as Congress cut benefits by $4 billion the agency faces a $3.8 billion loss.
The GAO report also states that one of the reasons why the Post Office has lost so much cash is because it doesn’t have the freedom to close fiscally inefficient offices. Politicians have stepped in and prevented a logical, financial sensible reassessment of the Post Office’s operations.
But it is union contracts that prevent the proper rearrangement of the work force to reflect the financial situation that faces today’s Post Office.
“Limitations on the workforce mix of full-time and part-time postal employees and workforce flexibility rules contained in contracts with USPS’s unions are key detriments of how postal work is organized and, thus, of its cost,” the GAO report said.
“USPS officials told us that as mail volume declines, it would be more efficient to have a much higher proportion of part-time workers than is currently available under existing agreements,” the report continued.
What we have here is yet another government agency that is run by politics and not efficient business practices. The Post Office is losing billions a year because unions and politics won’t allow it to make common sense business decisions.
And guess where the money for the Post Office’s shortfall will come from, folks? That’s right, your taxes. Politicians will merely pump good tax money after money wasted by a union infested Post Office.
And Democrats want government to take over our healthcare?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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