I just saw this advertisement on television and thought it was interesting that the American Postal Workers Union felt the need to take to the airwaves to tell people that it’s not like those other public sector unions.
I think this says a lot about public sentiment, because the postal workers obviously are feeling the heat, and want it directed elsewhere.
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Blogged this earlier: ‘Postal Workers Union Won’t Take Down ‘Misleading’ Ad’.
I would take Issue with Issa’s characterization. It’s disheartening to see a republican claim that if you receive a tax break, supposedly you’re costing the government money. That attitude sums up everything that is wrong with Washington and it’s about time they learn we are not their subjects.
Issa is 100% correct. When one person is exempted from the taxes that everyone else pays, that is a subsidy, and it’s unfair. If your landlord gives you a break on the rent for your birthday, is that not every bit as much a present as if he’d collected the rent as usual and then cut you a check?
They are different … they may be worse …
I noticed they sort of omitted all the taxpayer bailouts they get to stay solvent.
Well as I understand it they aren’t like other public sector unions because their benefits, pensions, etc. are much more generous than the others.
Two points here. A larger percentage of them interact with “customers” more than most, so they are feeling the heat and trying to “position” themselves as those friendlier guys.
And quite a few SIEU members who formerly worked for me [before my retirement] are pushing back about wearing the purple tee shirts, too. They don’t like being identified as “thugs”, which is now the common appellation ascribed to wearers of that particular identifier. One recent day, I’m told, a job steward wearing her shirt requested time to change after a particularly pointed put polite comment from a customer brought her to tears.
If the Going Postal Union has all this money to throw away, perhaps we should ask Congress to reduce their pay-scale as well as the number of Post Offices and to can the employees who have no work to do as a result of reduced mail volume. Increasing postal rates every year is only hastening the demise of the postal service.
These folks might just as well be manufacturing buggy whips.
Lay off the USPS, guys, an American institution that’s worth supporting and keeping. Do you really want to have to start sending letters via private carriers? I send reams of stuff by FedX, and I love them, but not for a letter that doesn’t have to absolutely positively be there overnight. There is no bargain like a first class stamp. Through rain, through sleet, through hail, and snow (or whatever), and the Pony Express. Drop a piece of mail in the box outside your door and for cheap and easy it goes anywhere in the world. Do you REALLY want to have to stand in long lines to pick up your mail because there’s no delivery any more where you are? Know what? If you have improvement ideas, great, but the Post Office should be like waaaaay down on the priority list. (And no, I’m not with the post office.) (I’m not a public union or USPS lobbyist or janitor either.)
Hell yes, I want to send letters by private carrier. There may be no bargain like a first class stamp, but that’s because it’s being subsidised by other people, without their consent. I call that theft. The Pony Express was a private company, that was forcibly shut down by the Post Office. Delivery to remote areas should cost more, because it costs more to provide; if you choose to live in a remote area, then you and only you should bear the cost.
I noticed the racial and gender makeup of the ‘representative’ postal workers. White men need not apply. The ones who are there have years of seniority. You bet they are different: their ability to slack off and be rude rates them better than most. Nothing like standing in line 10 minutes before closing while one clerk waits on many and another clerk counts her drawer. Or have mail delivered early one day, late another day, and not at all on a third day.
Story is that had the Israelis not invaded southern Lebanon in 1982, Reagan was primed to go after the postal union then. But he didn’t want to take on two major conflicts at one time.
I overheard this comment regarding Obama’s approach to union members and funding NASA during the launch of the shuttle Atlantis, as I was in Orlando on Jetty Point watching it love: OBAMA NEEDED TO SEND THOSE STIMULUS DOLLARS TO UNION EMPLOYEES IN CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK, INSTEAD.
I suspect support for Obama and government unions is a whole lot lower than being reported, as this wasn’t the sole remark of this kind I heard that day.
USPS has lost money 26 out of the last 40 years.
Does anyone think that union rules and benefits aren’t the main cause of that?
Some have stated that the Constitution mandates that we have a Post Office. However that may be, we aren’t required to pay for overpriced and poor service. Nor do we need the Post Office to be run the way it was 100 years ago.
Not once during all the red ink have we heard the unions offering to take a cut in pay or revise costly work rules or change the benefit package.
In fact it could be said that the Post Office union is the blueprint that ALL the other public sector unions strive to achieve.
In the name of efficiency and smaller government we should incorporate Obamacare into the existing post office structure.
@Janitor
I haven’t used the USPS in years. Literally, years. Bills are paid on-line. Birthdays? On-line. Holidays? On-line. Letters? On-line. Any sort of package? UPS or Fed Ex.
Quite honestly, the USPS could fall off the face of the Earth, and it wouldn’t impact me in the least.
And I’m certainly not alone.
USPS not funded by the tax payer? Who is paying the billions they are in the negative each year. I don’t believe it is the tooth fairy. USPS has become irrelevant. They are over paid, over compensated, and are not necessary any longer
I don’t think we should get rid of the postal service, yet, but we should start by getting rid of Saturday delivery. Then phase into 2-3 day a week mail delivery. If you need you mail everyday then get a post office box, or maybe the postal service can charge extra for it.
[…] Postal Workers: Hey America, We’re Not Like All Those Other Unions I considered blogging about this video, then dismissed the idea until I saw that William Jacobson saw it and interpreted the meaning in the exact same way. […]
Oh, that’s a nice commercial they have there. Barring the nice commercial, ALL unions need to be stripped to the bone. Including ones that deliver letters. Look at the cost of using UPS, DHL or Fedex. It’s a lot compared to regular USPS, isn’t it? That’s because the three previously mentioned put the price to mail the package at about what it really costs per pound to mail the item. The reason why the USPS is cheaper is because the government pours money into this enterprise to artificially make it cheaper. The more expensive the competition goes, the more money will pour in to “compete” with the other two. Oh, also, have you ever wondered why you see those ads in Popular Mechanics and the local paper where you can pay a couple of hundred dollars for a course to help you get hired on to the US Mail service? Why would someone pay that much for a flimsy chance to get a job there? Guess. Anybody who thinks about this for a few minutes can’t be fooled. Rip em to the bone financially, and leave them laying in the street.