Most people want to cut delivery days or privatize the post office. Neither of those things need to happen, as there are a few ways to save money with minor changes.
Stop giving away shipping boxes/envelopes. Charge a small fee to recoup costs. Currently they are being made, shipped to offices, ordered, delivered, and most times trashed when customers realize they’ve ordered more than necessary. How many people were just paid for free boxes when no cost was recouped? The post office may be a service, but a service still has to have money to operate.
Stop sending multiple trucks to one office. Drop off mail and packages in the morning, pick up the outgoing from the day before at the same time. If mail or packages are left behind at the plant, send it next day. This shouldn’t be a problem, especially for people who want fewer delivery days.
Consolidate small, rural offices that are within a 5 mile radius. Offices with 25+ routes should be left as is, as well as offices that are owned by the postal service, not leased or rented, smaller offices that are in rural towns, close together should only be merged IF there is space for them, AND for the amount of growth for the area. This saves on the amount of trucks going to close proximity areas multiple times a day.
Electric vehicles are a failure. They do not withstand high heat or extreme cold conditions with the amount of stop and go that mail carriers do. Fuel efficient vehicles, or upgrades to the current vehicles would be cost saving in the long run.
Cut out carrier academy. Everything learned in academy can be learned from a career carrier/s in office in a day or two. Four wasted days of pay. Seeing what carriers do daily will weed out the ones who can’t handle the job, and it is a hard job, physically.
Union contracts for all crafts-If management was forced to follow the contracts and not allowed to knowingly violate them, the costs associated with grievances would go down, saving money. If an order is made to an employee, and the employee can prove it violates their contract, the order should be rescinded, and no grievance filed. Multiple grievances for the same violations can cost the post office thousands upon thousands of dollars to one employee.
These are just a few ways I see personally that could save the post office huge amounts of money. The United States Postal Service is just that, a service. Its employees are paid with the postage consumers buy. The increase in postage is turning customers to other (sometimes) cheaper delivery services, and in turn, costing the post office more in lost revenue. Better practices and cost saving measures (that don’t cost millions to implement before making money) would work. Thanks for reading.