As the agency teeters on the brink of insolvency, leaders of the U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday once again took their pleas for help to Capitol Hill.
The head of the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service says the agency must be allowed to ease the terms of prepayments into a retiree health care fund and eliminate general mail delivery on Saturday.
The head of the financially struggling U.S. Postal Service says the agency must be allowed to ease the terms of prepayments into a retiree health care fund and eliminate general mail delivery on Saturday.
Bending to strong public opposition, the nearly bankrupt U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday backed off a plan to close thousands of rural post offices after May 15 and proposed keeping them open with shorter hours.
More than a quarter-million U.S. Postal Service workers are eligible for retirement, and a restructuring plan proposed Thursday relies heavily on getting many of them to quit.
The U.S. Postal Service lost more than $3 billion during the last three months of 2011 as continued declines in volume of first-class mail wiped out good news about the shipping and packaging business.
The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service announced plans Thursday to target more than 250 mail-processing facilities for potential closure, including eight in Virginia and Maryland, while allowing itself more time to deliver first-class mail in an effort to save billions of dollars and return to profitability.
CAMPAIGN
The Postal Service overstated its potential savings from eliminating Saturday delivery, a proposal that would slow delivery of about 1 in 4 letters, the independent Postal Regulatory Commission said Thursday.
