Newman! - The Junk Mail
Art Vandelay
To Postal Workers, No Mail Is ‘Junk’
With revenues falling, the post office owes its future to stuff we throw
out.
These are tough times for the U.S. Postal Service. It's being pummeled
by high fuel costs. The soft economy is crimping the overall volume of
mail, which fell 5.5 percent in the past year. Its business is also
falling as Americans opt for e-mail over birthday cards and thank-you
notes. Now comes another threat: consumers like Colleen Plimpton of
Bethel, Conn. Earlier this year Plimpton became tired of the credit-card
offers, catalogs and advertising fliers that clogged her mailbox. So in
February she paid $20 to GreenDimes, a firm that helps consumers reduce
their inflow of "junk mail" by contacting businesses on their behalf.
"[Junk mailers] are cutting down trees willy-nilly, and that has got to
stop," says Plimpton.
To the post office, consumers like her are a serious threat. "Efforts to
convince people not to receive mail are really going to hurt," says
Steve Kearney, a Postal Service senior vice president.
The Postal Service lost $1.1 billion in its latest quarter. That number
would be even larger if it weren't for direct mailings, which now
constitute 52 percent of mail volume, up from 38 percent in 1990.
Revenue from direct mail "is the financial underpinning of the Postal
Service—it could not survive without it," says Michael Coughlin, former
deputy postmaster.
But 89 percent of consumers say in polls that they'd prefer not to
receive direct-marketing mail; 44 percent of it is never opened. That's
why 19 state legislatures have debated Do Not Mail lists, which would
function just like the federal Do Not Call list. But partly due to
opposition from postal workers, not a single bill has passed. When
Colorado state Rep. Sara Gagliardi held a public meeting on a bill she
was sponsoring, she was surprised when a crowd of postal workers showed
up to express vehement opposition.
Both the Postal Service and the Direct Marketing Association say direct
mail is a key source of customers for small businesses. "Advertising
mail is a very valuable product to many consumers," says Sam Pulcrano,
Postal Service vice president for sustainability, who points to
two-for-one pizza coupons as especially welcome surprises. To blunt
opposition, the DMA recently launched the Mail Moves America coalition
to lobby against the restrictions.
GreenDimes founder Pankaj Shah isn't sympathetic. Not only is his
company providing a service to consumers, he says, but it has also used
its fees to plant more than 1 million trees. "We're all about giving
consumers choice, not about bringing down the post office," he says.
Still, as more consumers opt out of junk mail, rain, sleet and gloom of
night may seem like the least of mail carriers' problems.
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I say lets put postal workers on the border keeping illegal immigrants out.