Postal Service, Usps | featured news

The lack of a decision so far by House Republican to hold a vote on overhauling postal operations means lawmakers are once again likely to pass a short-term stop-gap measure to shore up postal finances, but not address longer-term structural and financial concerns, congressional aides and industry observers said Thursday.

President Obama’s former top adviser on manufacturing has been tapped by the nation's letter carriers to develop new business ideas for the U.S. Postal Service. Ron Bloom, who helped restructure the automotive industry and has negotiated several large labor deals over the course of his career, served until August as Obama’s top manufacturing policy adviser. He announced Sunday that he will advise the National Letter Carriers Association as the 280,000-member union attempts to strike a new multi-year deal with the cash-strapped Postal Service.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warned that the Postal Service is on "the brink of default" as he battles to keep his agency solvent. Without legislation by Sept. 30, the agency "will default on a mandated $5.5 billion payment to the Treasury," Donahoe told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service delivered more bad news Friday, announcing it lost $8.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended in September. Without congressional action to change its obligations, officials said, the Postal Service likely will go broke at the end of fiscal 2011.