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Postal service, Cost accounting, Government corporations, and Presidents of the United States

A concern has been raised by the President of the United States about the United States Postal Service (USPS) charging significantly discounted prices on the packages it ships for Amazon.com, Inc. Also, there were other critics of USPS's special package delivery pricing practices for Amazon, United Parcel Service (UPS), and Federal Express Corporation (FedEx). This paper describes how the USPS uses very sophisticated cost accounting, statistical, and other approaches to make sure its competitive products cover all their relevant costs and make an appropriate contribution towards covering institutional common costs. Market conditions are carefully considered in determining the prices of competitive products, including providing volume and other discounts to high volume customers, such as Amazon, UPS, and FedEx. It does seem that the concern expressed over the pricing of USPS competitive products is more appropriately directed towards the declining market for its market-dominant products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Labor unions -- United States, Privatization -- United States, Postal service -- United States, and Labor arbitration -- United States

The United States Postal Service (USPS), the second largest employer of civilians in the United States, has been the focus of attempts to restructure the workforce and privatize its activities. The four unions which represent those employed by the USPS have been working together to resist these efforts. Recently, results of arbitration and proposed legislation have given some reason for optimism. The rate of union density within the postal service as well as the potential for private-sector profit making, however, means that it is likely that such struggles will continue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scheduling, Postal service, Express service (Delivery of goods), Trucks, and Conveying machinery

The distribution networks of the postal service industry are organized according to the hub-and-spoke paradigm, so that parcel distribution centers play a crucial role to consolidate the parcel flows to full truckloads. In these terminals, inbound trucks are unloaded at gates, shipments are identified, sorted by the central sortation conveyor system, and loaded into outbound trailers, in which they are moved toward their next destination. In this context, the scheduling of inbound trucks, which assigns a gate and a processing interval to each truck, is an essential operational decision problem. We formalize the resulting optimization problem and provide suited solution procedures. Furthermore, we test the impact of truck scheduling on the sortation performance of the central conveyor system with the help of a comprehensive terminal simulation. The online appendix is available at . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postal service, Profitability, Market design & structure (Economics), Quadratic programming, and Liberalization (Finance)

This article contributes to the established strand of literature on post and postal service by providing a quadratic framework under which national postal markets are analyzed and compared from efficiency, profitability, and quality of service standpoints. Sample countries are grouped into four market models based on two attributes of market structure and ownership. The question of which governance-operation postal model performs best is then answered. The policy insight offered by this paper expects to guide the advancement of national posts towards an optimal future design that best meets their specific needs and preferences. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial relations, Postal service, Labor policy, Organizational structure, Labor unions, Labor, and Executive orders

Examining in the concrete the increasingly important labor relations problems of government employees, this article describes labor-management relations in the United States PoStal Service, both historically and as recently affected by the two executive orders of January 1962, relating to personnel and labor relations in the executive branch of the federal government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wage laws, Postal workers, Wage differentials, Minimum wage, and Pay equity

Federal law requires that the U.S. Postal Service pay wages comparable to those paid in the private sector. The authors argue that the appropriate test of that concept is a comparison of the wages paid to all comparably skilled workers, not only to white male workers in the private sector. By that standard, the authors conclude, from an analysis of CPS data, that in 1978 postal workers enjoyed a 21 percent wage advantage. They also point to the low quit rates and long employment queues in the Postal Service as evidence confirming that the wage of postal workers is well above that of comparable workers elsewhere. The authors predict that since the mail transmission market has become increasingly competitive, either the wage advantage of postal workers will decline or postal Jobs will continue to shift to the private sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]