Two dozen or so members of Occupy Hendersonville came to support the Postal Service and chanted “Save America’s Postal Service” during the gathering. Members of the group said they want to support the 200 postal workers at the Asheville Regional Mail Processing Center, which has been marked for possible consolidation with the center in Greenville, S.C., as a cost-containment measure. “We support local jobs and local jobs for local people, and getting the money and power out of government,” Occupy Hendersonville member Carole Repici said....Read it all.
The U.S. Postal Service ended its 2011 fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2010–Sept. 30, 2011) with a net loss of $5.1 billion, according to a news release from the service.
Postmaster General and CEO Patrick Donahoe stated the service “must reduce our annual costs by $20 billion by the end of 2015” to be profitable....
A couple of points:
- Why were they protesting the closing of the Asheville Regional Mail Processing Center at the Flat Rock post office?
- Think about the statement quoted here: "We support. . .getting the money and power out of government." What does that even mean? We shouldn't pay our taxes (because that will get the money out of government)? Somehow I don't think that's the Occupy philosophy--from everything I've read, the Occupy movement wants more taxes.
- Snail mail is still important, but technology has severely reduced the need to send out physical material. Email, faxes, social networking, etc. have cut drastically into the business of the post office, and that's not going to change. The U.S. Post Office is trying to adjust to these changes--and that's going to require, unfortunately, some hard decisions. From CNNMoney:
USPS mail volume declined 20% in the four year period through fiscal year 2010 resulting in net losses of over $20 billion.
No comments:
Post a Comment