Postal Worker: No Saturday Delivery, No Surprise

Thanks to Mattituck Post Officer worker Michael Konarski for sending this letter to the editor. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on any issue, please email erins@patch.com.

"I have been working for the Mattituck Post office for over 31 years now and the big news of the day is the Postal Service will be going to five-day delivery starting Aug. 5, eliminating Saturday delivery. This is not too much of a surprise to me, as the Postal Service lost $16 billion in 2012 and has been for some time so something needs to be done.

All this means is people who get their mail delivered along the street will not be able to get mail on Saturday. Packages will still be delivered. You can still come to the post office, buy stamps and mail something. Also people who have post office boxes will not be affected. By doing this, the post office expects to save $2 billion. Some jobs will be lost but much of the savings will come from not having to use it’s fleet of vehicles. This wouldn’t affect me too much because I work as a clerk inside the office, but it means the carriers will have Saturday and Sunday as their scheduled days off instead of a day off during the week.

Much of the problem is the coming of the computer age and automation. When I first started back in 1982 the most high tech tool we had was a calculator. Every piece of mail had to be manually sorted. Now with automation and invention of barcodes much of our mail comes presorted by mechanical equipment. Mail volume on a whole has been decreasing. Many people pay their bills online and get direct deposit for their checks. The handwritten letter has almost become nonexistent with computers and internet. Mail order catalogs have decreased also. FedEx wasn’t even a company yet, and now we face increasing competition from them and UPS.

The postal service is considered a private entity but it’s not allowed to show a profit. However, back around 2005 there was a profit, which prompted Congress in 2006 to pass the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. It’s a law requiring the Postal Service to wholly pre-fund its retirement health care package. That is to cover the health care costs of future retirees at 100 percent. It’s the only government related agency to do it. Congress doesn’t do it. No private businesses do it either. It’s $5.5 billion a year, every year for 10 years. That’s a big thing causing a problem also.

So being that most businesses are closed on Saturday, I don’t see it being a problem. Polls have shown people will not mind if they don’t get any bills on Saturday, and just like anything else we will all get used to it."