Inverted pyramid layoff scheme reduces layoffs

The United States Post Office is in dire straights. They have the same trouble that General Motors and Chrysler had. They entered into agreements, "retirement agreements," with employees that the USPO can not afford. Sometime this week, the  head honcho, the preeminent postmaster  will whine to congress that he is out of money and needs their permission to alter delivery schedules, close post offices and layoff thousands of workers. 


Any layoffs should start with him. A sure way, to get the big honchos thinking of alternative courses of action, is to start all layoffs with the head honcho, then the vice-head honchos. The person delivering the mail should be the last person because he had the least to do with creating the problem in the first place. This layoff method is called the inverted pyramid scheme and is designed to force top management to make sure they manage the business properly.

I have blogged on the post office before. Just for the record, they have 574,000 workers and 218,000 vehicles with annual sales of approximately $70 billion while posting an estimated loss of $10 billion. My numbers may be off a bit, but you get the idea. The USPO is a big operation, with lots of employees that loses money, and has lost money for several years.  Now do not confuse cash with losing money. They have adequate cash to pay all their operating bills, except for their bill from the employee retirement program. As I said, the USPO has same problems that General Motors and other companies had. They lose money because they have overly generous retirement programs that would strangle any typical American corporation, much less an institution operating under the regulations and directions of congress. Whoa Nellie, perhaps that is the problem in the first place. 


I recommend the USPO file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, restructure all their debts, adjust their pricing appropriately and move forward. Email is cheaper and much faster anyway. If they just stop allowing "to the recipient" junk mail or charged the direct mail houses the same postage they charge American citizens, the USPO would do a lot better anyway.

To the point, the USPO has simply made promises to its employees that it can not keep. The default you will hear on CNN and Fox news is not for lack of operating cash, they have the cash, it is default on payments to the employee unions. In other words, the retirement pay is too rich for the USPO to pay. I refuse to chip in to bail out bad management for entering into collective bargaining agreements they can not keep. One way to cut down on the work is stop shipping the Yellow pages to 100 million homes, and raise the price on the magazines that have been free riding into our homes for years. Yes, that is right, the USPO charges less to ship a 50 page magazine, likely printed in Canada, to your home than for you to send a one page letter to your mom.


Write a letter to your congressman and help the USPO sell some stamps.