Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
USPS cannot be privatized with it’s current cost structure. If postage rates were increased to assure at least breakeven, mailing letters or packages would be unaffordable.
The element of the USPS cost structure that needs to be fixed in order that USPS be run like a business are their pension fund obligations. The postal unions would never approve such a thing. Maybe the only solution is a bankruptcy filing. The pension obligations would then be equal in seniority with those of all the other unsecured USPS creditors. Everyone would “get a haircut” of what they are owed, including the USPS retirees. The pension benefits offered current employees would also probably be cut by the bankruptcy creditor’s committee and the court.
|
The problem I have with cutting benefits of retirees is that there is no way that you would expect the same from say that of a retiree and their pension from social security.
There are two programs with USPS as well as any other government agency. CSRS or civil service and FERS federal retirement system in which people still pay social security on their wages while those in CSRS can only receive social security on wages they have received (at least 40 quarters) and even that is limited. All employees hired after the mid-eighties fall into the FERS program.