USPS Labor Talks at the Brink

The U.S. Postal Service faces a new deadline Tuesday to reach a new contract with the American Postal Workers Union after failing to reach agreement with that union and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association over the weekend.

The impasse with the NRLC sets in motion a process that could send terms of a new contract to third party for a final ruling.

In the meantime, the USPS and APWU, which represents some 209,000 postal workers, will try again to reach agreement by noon on Tuesday, Nov. 23.

The sides failed to reach agreements by midnight, Saturday Nov. 20, on contracts the USPS hopes will include deep cuts in costs to match declining demand for traditional mail services that has pushed the Postal Service into a steep financial hole.

The USPS said the $67.1 billion in revenue in the 2010 fiscal year ending Sept. 30 was 7.6 percent less than it counted four years ago, and it left the Postal Service with an $8.5 million loss last year.

Mail volume has fallen 20 percent in that time, and the USPS expects mail pieces to fall to 150 billion pieces by 2020, down from 170.6 billion last year.

The USPS did not detail the cuts it is seeking, but said in a statement that it needs to drop Saturday delivery and greater ability to adjust staffing to demand. “To remain strong into the future, the Postal Service needs to control costs through a flexible workforce to adapt to the nation’s mailing trends,” the quasi-governmental agency said.