Still, it may have served to bring more voices to the table. More importantly, it might have been able to focus on the broad public policy and consumer issues that the current leadership of the Postal Service has intentionally ignored in their unrelenting effort to outsource and degrade postal infrastructure.
At this point, there are really no mechanisms in place to attend to the broader public interest. So who looks out for the broad public interest in postal matters? The sad fact is that there is no institutional entity that has the statutory power or wherewithal to fill what is perhaps the most essential task in determining how we use and maintain our critical postal infrastructure. There has been one recent interesting development, however. The attempts of the APWU and its president Mark Dimondstein to create a grand alliance of consumer and labor groups might have an impact on how we protect, restore, and renew our postal infrastructure.
This alliance is the subject of an excellent article by David Morris on Alternet. Unfortunately, I think the answer has to be a qualified maybe. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. This is a basic responsibility of a union. Just as capital assembles itself in the form of a corporation in order to benefit its shareholders at least that is the modern view, one worth disputing , labor assembles to defend and protect its interests.
Whether the APWU can pull off the sort of broad-based alliance that genuinely attempts to address the broad public interests at stake in the future of postal infrastructure is open to question.
I recently participated in a conference call of those interested in postal banking. I was disappointed to hear some of the participants so focused on their own pet issue that they were unable to understand the current problems related to the degradation of the postal network.
They seemed to see an opportunity to advance their cause without seeing the broader picture. Simply layering new services on top of a crumbling foundation is a prescription for failure. Still, I think that Mark Dimondstein is right in the general vision he expresses. Someone needs to speak out in the interest of the general public on postal issues.
Someone needs to be accountable for the investment we, as a nation, have made in postal infrastructure. Corporations have come to view the world through the prism of the next quarterly report, and to some extent labor and unions, while fighting a holding action, have come to view the world through the prism of the next contract. Dimondstein seems to understand that our future lies in the restoration of an ethic that views common purpose and public goods as a positive good, that sees beyond the next bonus or contract.
The state of the Postal Service is an almost perfect reflection of the state of American society. The Founders sought to balance our inherent drive for individual initiative with the need for a larger civic engagement and commitment. A necessitous people are not a free people. An economy that ignores public goods like infrastructure is a prescription for special interest, limited advantage, and civic isolation.
The postal infrastructure was built by and for the American people. It remains essential and useful, and it possesses tremendous possibility for the future as a conduit for additional services that both support and maintain legacy systems that millions still rely on.
We must think about renewing and restoring the capacity and capability of the network. It has been undermined and degraded by an empty and self-serving ideology that disdains public goods and common purpose. We have seen the same sort of degradation to our physical infrastructures like roads, bridges, and water and sewer, often in the name of privatization. Our schools are threatened by an increasing corporate encroachment that sees revenue potential not public utility.
After a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy, we think it perfectly appropriate to do more than clean up, to do more than settle. We talk about rebuilding and restoring, about renewal. Well, there was nothing natural about the disaster of Hurricane Donahoe, but our response has to be the same as it would be to a natural disaster: Rebuild, Restore, Renew. The postal network, its capacity, and capability, the standards, the jobs, the infrastructure — they are all in need of our commitment.
In order to do that, we must have a postal management and administrative structure that is accountable to the American people. Mark Jamison is a retired postmaster. He can be reached at [email protected]. Image source: B. Free Franklin post office in Philadelphia.
The Post Office is a business which really matters. A business which has had a key role in UK life for centuries. One which millions of people depend on every day, every week. We are a commercial business driven by a social purpose: to be there for our customers. Along with a significant online business, we are the biggest retail network in the UK, with more branches than all the banks and building societies combined. Our role and reach Publicly owned following our separation from Royal Mail in , we have modernised 7, branches , with over , extra opening hours and thousands of Post Offices now open early in the morning until late in the evening with many branches open seven days a week.
The Post Office continues to evolve and adapt to meet the ever-changing demands of customers. In the last few years, as part of an exciting modernisation and investment programme, over communities now have a brand new Post Office branch. The Postal Service performs other tasks in addition to shipping and delivery. It also processes passport and selective service forms, as well as issuing money orders.
It operates the largest fleet of alternative-fuel vehicles in the world -- over 43, vehicles that can operate on ethanol and other forms of energy. Jon Reed is a journalism student at the University of Alabama, and he writes a column on politics and student life for the campus newspaper, "The Crimson White.
Regardless of how old we are, we never stop learning. Classroom is the educational resource for people of all ages. Based on the Word Net lexical database for the English Language.
0コメント