The Goldway Plan
by Steve Albanese, NBA New England Region


    Ruth Goldway is a member of the Postal Rate Commission and was appointed 
to the post in April of 1998 by President Clinton.  Her duties include 
overseeing the postal rates and mail classification systems of the U. S. 
Postal Service.
    It was alarming that someone who has oversight control and 
responsibilities to the Postal Service would unilaterally propose a program 
to dismantle the corporation, privatize its operations and sell it off on the 
open market but that is what she did.
    On January 19, 2000  Ms. Goldway authored an editorial that appeared in 
the Washington Post suggesting the Postal Service be privatized and sold to 
its own employees.  Ms. Goldway claims these actions are necessary to make us 
competitive and to make up for projected mail volume losses caused by the 
Internet.  Ms. Goldway goes on to suggest that her proposal will give 
consumers more protection, better service and subject the Postal Service to 
comply with truth in advertising laws, antitrust laws, local zoning and 
parking laws.
    Apparently, two thirds of the way through her editorial she realized some 
of the weaknesses of her proposal so she threw in that the new Postal Service 
could be regulated by the FCC to insure privacy of the mails, security of the 
mails, and universal service. Her proposal would simply replace one 
government bureaucracy with another bureaucracy, but it would eliminate all 
existing laws that protect the American mail user from corporate greed.  She 
even proposes returning to government subsidies to keep rates low.  That is 
the very thing Congress has expressed opposition to and the main concept 
behind the Postal Reorganization Act is to make the Postal Service self 
sufficient without subsidies from the government.  She even took a slam at 
her own commission claiming it is too bureaucratic and takes up to 10 months 
to act on proposals that come before it.
    It seems clear to me that the only real change she is proposing is to 
create an enterprise that will make some people rich.  The fallacy of her 
proposal is her own admission that any Postal Service must be a system that 
guarantees all Americans a secure mailing process and insures all consumers 
have universal service at a competitive price.  We already have that and she 
should know that as she is currently sitting on the very commission that, by 
law, provides the American mail user with those guarantees.
    Under her proposal high profit areas and services could by siphoned off 
by Wall Street fat cats.  Less profitable services like delivering mail and 
services to rural America would either be cut back or subjected to higher 
rates.  Small post offices in rural America would be nonexistent.  Corporate 
America would squeeze all the profits they can out of mail service and 
delivery and when they became cost prohibitive they would be merged or sold 
off to the highest or lowest bidder.
    She throws a carrot into her proposal by claiming that current employees 
could even buy stocks in the company.  That is Wall Street double talk for 
de-unionizing the workforce.  Think about it.  If we are all stock holders 
who do we bargain against for improving our wages and benefits?  Every nickel 
we get at the bargaining table would reduce our profit shares at the end of 
the year.  In effect, we would become pall bearers at our own funeral.  She 
further insults our intelligence by saying under her proposal we would get 
the right to strike.  If we own the company I guess we would be striking 
against ourselves.
    Thanks, but no thanks, Ms. Goldway.  I like things the way they are.  The 
current system provides all Americans with universal service at a consistent 
and fair price.  I like having the right to bargain with our employer over 
our wages and benefits.  We will continue to adapt to technological changes 
and diversify the types of services we provide.
    We can compete with other companies but sometimes the rules are applied 
unfairly.  When we tried to buy our own fleet of planes to shore up our 
overnight delivery standards all hell broke loose on Capital Hill.  We were 
forced to use the planes of our competitors to deliver our product.  
Recently, we were doing very well delivering parcels for Amazon.com and other 
Internet companies until our success made competitors nervous.  They then 
outflanked us by telling those companies they could deliver the parcels and 
collect postage 60 days later.  Neither the Rate Commission or the Board of 
Governors would approve such a policy for us.  The result is we lost major 
accounts.  If you want to help us out, Ms. Goldway, close that loophole.
    I do agree that costs can be cut but not in the workforce.  We have been 
cut to the bone already.  We can improve service to all Americans when postal 
management properly staffs our operations.  Sure, there is fat and its not 
hard to find our current ratio of supervisors to workers is about 1 
supervisor for every 6 employees.  Stop spending millions on re-doing 
managerial office space and luxuries and start investing money in old post 
offices and depressing work areas.  Eliminate needless layers of management 
bureaucracies and bonuses.  Maybe we don't need a Postal Rate Commission.  
The Board of Governors could absorb those duties.
    I am not afraid of the future.  I am afraid of some of the people 
currently running our industry.  I wonder if decisions are being made to 
insure our demise rather than protect our future.

Received via e-mail 3/3/2000