posted on October 26, 2001 12:50:49 AM
When they finally figure out that all mail everywhere has to be irradiated before it is safe to process the expense of redoing the whole system is going to GO POSTAL. Rates are going to jump right to a 50¢ letter. They will put the burden on Priority and kill it dead.
UPS and FedEx etc will have huge security costs also.
I think these folks have a big list they are running down to mail out anthrax and are just starting. If you work at anything that is regarded as a cultural icon watch out. Sports teams - Schools - large companies like Walmart - Amusement Parks.
As it unfolds people are going to get less and less tolerant. There will be demands for harsher and harsher penalties for even fake attacks. If the Government links this to the WTC attack they may not even say for fear of the public demands for massive retaliation.
I just hope they don't have plans for another wave of a different organism or chemicals that could use a different delivery method entirely.
posted on October 26, 2001 01:05:53 AM
Gravid, My mom is a postmaster. She has been on edge for a number of years because the real threat has been "privatization". There has been much talk about privatization with opt-out retirement (with of course reduced benefit) in the last few years. Already, some years back, they more or less phased out "career employee" status and gave them an "opt-out retirement". My mom is a "career employee" but most newer postal employees are classified as "part-time flex" with few to no benefits.
My mom and her husband are both looking forward to a postal retirement (hopefully with full benefits) in less than 10 years. She DESERVES it. She has missed 1 day of work EVER in her 25+ year career.
This is a BAD thing for postal workers no matter which way it goes.
Also, USPS already has a "reciprocating" agreement with FedEd and is working on one with UPS. (Or backwards, not sure which is which.)
[ edited by jt on Oct 26, 2001 01:09 AM ]
posted on October 26, 2001 01:25:30 AM
The whole anthrax scare will come to an end in early January, when a joint FBI/ATF/OHD/HHS/FDA/Northern Alliance special forces team conducts a raid on a supposedly abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Hoboken. There, they will find and confiscate the entire remaining stockpile of spores, and arrest the mastermind behind the entire plot: Chandra Levy.
-gaffan-
posted on October 26, 2001 02:36:31 AM"She has been on edge for a number of years because the real threat has been "privatization". There has been much talk about privatization with opt-out retirement (with of course reduced benefit) in the last few years. Already, some years back, they more or less phased out "career employee" status and gave them an "opt-out retirement". My mom is a "career employee" but most newer postal employees are classified as "part-time flex" with few to no benefits".
Inaccurate. Though there's been periodic bluster about privatization of the mails it has not been seriously considered for first class mail. There has not been a single contractual proposal from anyone which would stipulate the universal delivery six days a week offered as a matter of course by the postal service. Also, since time or Ben Franklin began postal employees in several catagories have always entered as part time flexual schedule, either regular or not. The time and seniority to gain regular employee status varies from office to office and job category to category. Such matters are also subject to the agreed contractual obligations to the labor organizations.
The aggreements with outside carriers of parcel mail benefit both and do not in and of themselves create job loss within the service. The postal service has allowed outside entry into areas which are less cost effective in terms of revenue gain per man hour spent.
The current concerns are generating a great deal of internal turmoil because it is new ground. There has never before been a need to irradiate mail in individual piece lots as is called for now. They have been granted a rather niggardly $174,000,000 federal allocation to feed the process of initiating new mail safeguards but it's a difficulty since little equipment has been made to complete the proposed tasks.
Today, after a somewhat slow start, the postal service is addressing this issue with it's full available energy. There may well be interruptions to mail service in areas of the country while these problems are solved. The protection of employees and the elimination of threat possibilities is the highest concern of the U.S. Postal Service now, and in actuality, it always has been.
