Copyright 2000 The Baltimore Sun Company
THE
BALTIMORE SUN
May 22, 2000, Monday ,FINAL
SECTION: EDITORIAL ,16A
LENGTH: 446 words
HEADLINE:
Can Postal Service survive a Digital Age?
E-mail threat: U.S. agency must
embrace changes but needs help from Congress to compete.
BODY:
HOW DOES a slow-moving, labor-intensive
organization with 800,000 workers and revenue of $63 billion
adapt to the lightning-fast changes of the Internet era?
That's the
question top Postal Service officials must answer in the next few years as
electronic messaging becomes a more dominant communications force.
A
General Accounting Office study shows that by 2003, Postal Service volume will
start to decline 2.5 percent a year largely due to e-mail. That puts at risk
$17 billion in first-class postal revenue from delivering bills
and return payments.
Postmaster General William J. Henderson has been
blunt about the e-mail threat. "Bills and payments will eventually go
electronic," he said last week. "It's not if but when."
To meet the
challenge, the Postal Service now offers or is planning to offer a series of
electronic products, including postage, priority mail, secure messaging and
bill-paying.
One of the more intriguing ideas ties into the Postal
Service's success as the delivery man for e-commerce sites such as amazon.com,
eToys.com and Eddiebauer.com. A big-ticket item for these businesses is
merchandise returns. The Postal Service is studying how it could run an auction
site to quickly and profitably dispose of returned merchandise.
Such
innovative thinking is what it will take to make it in this emerging Digital
Age. Much more will be required, though.
The Postal Service is a
cumbersome, inflexible behemoth. If it were a private corporation, it would rank
in the top 10 in revenue and employees.
It has a highly unionized
workforce and is hamstrung by congressional mandates that make it difficult to
compete with the new e-commerce messengers.
Mr. Henderson admits "we're
barely keeping our heads above water."
Even a
$2-billion cut in overhead the last two years hasn't sufficed.
He has ordered another $4 billion cut over four years, bringing
job reductions -- mainly through attrition -- to 20,000.
He also will
need help from Congress. Other national postal agencies in Europe, New Zealand
and Australia have been given increased freedom to act more like a private
company in setting rates, offering new products and making investments. Unless
Congress agrees to reforms, the Postal Service may not survive.
The new electronic threat is serious, but this country's public mail
delivery operation has weathered other storms in its 200-year history, such as
the advent of the telegraph and the telephone.
No one else delivers the
mail -- in whatever form -- to every American household and business (130
million of them) six days a week. It's a universal public function worth
preserving.
LOAD-DATE: May 23, 2000
