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From: <hier...@comcast.net>
Date: Sun, Dec 9, 2007 at 4:18 AM
Subject: {{ruralc...@rootsweb.com}} NJ Postal and Rural News, Issue 30, V.1 Dec 9, 2007 (List 18)
To: Hier...@comcast.net
Cc: Ruralc...@rootsweb.com
NEW JERSEY POSTAL AND RURAL NEWS
Issue 30, Vol. 1 December 9, 2007 Sunday Hier...@comcast.net
Issues of the New Jersey Postal and NRLCA News are now posted and available on the following website: http://groups.google.com/group/rlc_onliners_pub?hl=en
DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with USPS or the NRLCA and as such any information that I pass on is unofficial and constitutes advice and/or suggestions for your consideration. You may be advised to double-check with official sources before depending on its use and while you are doing that ask why is it that someone without official contacts has this information and is passing it on and its not coming from official sources.
Note: These email messages are being sent to the entire NJ State Board and almost all of the senior stewards in New Jersey. There should be no concerns about this being done secretly.
**If you know any rural craft employee who would like to receive this dissemination, please send email address, and office of employment to Hier...@comcast.net.
**If you do not wish to receive these disseminations, please notify Hier...@comcast.net and request removal from dissemination list.
**Please address all comments, submissions, stories to Hier...@comcast.net and be sure to mark it as confidential or note if it is OK to share.
___________________________________________________________________________
I want to express my gratitude for all the comments, submissions and feeback and the termendous interest in this newsletter. We have passed 200 subscribers who have asked for this newsletter and only two have asked to not receive the newsletter. I encourage everyone to ask questions, get both sides of the story and do some investigating yourself. I have also seen some very small but positive changes in what the state officers and stewards are doing. Letting the membership know is a good thing and it should be permanent. BABY STEPS! BABY STEPS! It's a very small, modest start!
_______________________________________________________________________
What Future Is There In Postal Worker Forums?
There seems to be no shortage of places for disgruntled employees to vent their spleen these days.
The internet has opened up a plethora of such places and postal workers too seem to like to air their grievances. With so much change going on in Europe and the UK, and postal deregulation threatening to undermine years of negotiations by Trade Unions, forums purporting to represent the views of all those employed by postal operators seem to spring up all over the continent.
The trouble is, forums don't always paint an accurate view, as many found in the run up to the recent ballot on pay and conditions. Those fiercely against what they see as a 'slash and burn' approach to modernising Royal Mail were positively shaken when the majority of those who voted were actually in favour of Royal Mail's proposals. Many were convinced of the 'we can only win' cliche and as a result were in for a bitter disappointment. The problem is, where a forum adopts an almost singular viewpoint, trying to second-guess something like a ballot becomes impossible. Maintaining balance is a full-time job and few can commit so much time, unpaid, to what at the end of the day has little influence on change. An employee with a grudge against an employer may interest him or her, even their colleagues, but it has no interest to the public and people simply lose interest - very quickly.
There is also a knock-on effect in terms of running costs. Forums can be expensive to run - very expensive. The more popular they become, the more bandwidth is consumed, and unless they operate on a fee-based membership (difficult to implement) sheer numbers can and do pull sites offline as the web host starts to cap access. Popularity is a double-edged sword and what can start out as a good idea can quickly become an ogre in its own right, and for a forum owner, consume time and money with little in the way of a cash return to cover costs. Often those who shout the loudest are the last to put their hands in their pockets.
Companies certainly don't like employee-driven forums. For one thing they can damage the perception that customers have of their services or products, and perhaps more importantly, it makes little sense to pay the wages of an individual who constantly berates their employer. On the flip-side, its right that an employee should be able to complain where injustice seems to be the order of the day, but it also contributes to loss of business when comments are published on forums and that can simply accelerate job losses - one step forward and five steps back.
Historically, companies have taken such sites to task and brought individuals to court. A comment innocently posted on a forum is (in the eyes of the law), published and therefore governed by the same rules that apply to print-based content. Un fortunately, the most popular myth is the one about 'free speech'. By and large, we do all have that right, but with an increasing tendency by lawmakers to impose political correctness on all of us, and free speech complicated by 'exceptions', it starts to become obvious that maintaining any kind of forum where feelings run high, is a real can of worms. Having worked for numerous web-based publishing companies, I've lost count of the number of individuals who found that what they thought of as a hobby, became an expensive court case.
That said, forums invariably burn out through cost alone. The bigger they get the more expensive they become and with no sponsor/advertiser willing to sit alongside content that isn't consistent or at least strictly moderated, and members confusing 'free speech' with 'free to use', it often becomes unsustainable in the long run and they simply shut down.
Hellmail too had its own forums. In fact it was the first of its kind, but editor St e ve Lawson felt that it was also having a counter-productive effect on the very people posting comments and despite the 10,000 or so visitors a day it recieved in its heyday, little of that traffic covered costs or made any real positive contribution to challenging the changes going on inside the postal industry. Forums are great for fans of some long-forgotten television series, but when the subject matter is emotive, without some generous benefactor willing to put their name (and money) to what you do, the future is at best - bleak.
"Its a difficult balance" says Steve Lawson. "I think its very important that viewpoints are heard, of course, but I don't think a forum achieves much other than comfort those that use them. If you moderate heavily, you risk stifling comment but on the other hand, if you don't keep a tight grip on proceedings, you can quickly lose control altogether. On the whole, they're unmanageable outside the confines of a fanzine type site and can quickl y b ecome a financial headache as well as a legal minefield." http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/templates/postal_business_news.asp?articleid=194&zoneid=3
USPS: NYC greeting cards vanish, and sting points to mailman
NEW YORK, NEW YORK (AP) _ Call it a special delivery. A postal carrier pocketed dozens of greeting cards he was supposed to deliver to get at the cash inside, postal inspectors said. He was found with more than 130 pieces of other people's mail in his car, according to a court complaint.
Michael Olivio was released on his own recognizance Thursday following his arrest the previous day, court records show. The exact charges against him were not listed in court records available early Saturday, and a spokesman for prosecutors did not immediately return a telephone call.
Olivio said he was "not allowed to talk," and his lawyer, Michelle Gelernt, declined to comment.
Postal authorities started getting complaints in June about greeting cards getting lost en route to residents of a Brooklyn ZIP code, U.S. Postal Inspection Service Special Agent Stephen Dolloff said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
He set up sti ngs involving decoy cards in September and again this week. The latest one included cash _ and a hidden electronic transmitter. The transmitter showed that Olivio kept the card after finishing his mail route Wednesday, Dolloff said.
Agents stopped Olivio and found their decoy in his car, along with about 137 other cards and other letters, Dolloff said in a sworn statement. He said Olivio later told agents he had been filching greeting cards from his mail bag since February, recently taking as many about 35 per day. It wasn't clear how much cash Olivio is accused of taking. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny-odd--greetingcards1208dec08,0,1355708,print.story
USPS should take 'service' out of its name
Long lines, no stamp vending machines, fewer window clerks, they want you to buy your stamps at your local supermarket or online. Perhaps it is time for the United States Postal Service to change its name to the United States Postal Company. After all, services are being reduced or done away with. Conveniences such the stamp vending machines and the "postal store" for quick "stamps-only" purchases have disappeared. The USPS claims they are doing this to cut costs and save money. That's the excuse every company gives when it cuts customer service. They never lower their costs by eliminating or consolidating upper management positions, just their direct contact with their customers.
Service, to me, is helping customers. A mailing machine can g ive you options, but it can't help you make the best decision on which way to mail or insure a package. A machine that takes credit or debit cards only can't help a customer who only wants a couple of stamps. Neither will your local supermarket when they sell you a book of stamps. And, now that there is a more complex size restriction for the size of a first class letter envelope, how is a person to know how much postage to put on a greeting card this holiday season? I guess they wait on the long line. Where do you buy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Eid stamps? For those you have to wait in the long line to buy them at the post office. Supermarkets carry books or rolls of regular stamps, not the various commemorative or holiday stamps available at the post office.
Ronald Scheiman, Boynton Beach, Florida http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-pbmail799pndec09,0,4176312,pr i nt.story
Postal Service Sends Out Warning Postcards By Mistake
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN -- The United States Postal Service is apologizing for mistakenly sending out postcards warning some Milwaukee residents their mail could stop because a crime was committed in the area.
Postal Inspector, Lori Groen, said the service developed a program about a year ago to alert residents if they think a carrier is in danger. Groen said they have had to send out cards once or twice a month since and twice stopped mail for one or two days on certain blocks.
But she said a local office recently mistakenly sent the cards to an area near Marquette University. She said they are investigating when and why it happened and how many people received the cards. She said the postal service has since changed procedures so it doesn't happen again. http://www.wisn.com/news/14800894/detail.html
E-mail hoax could derail mail to troops
You may have already received the e-mail: "Christmas Card List Addition."
Maybe you forwarded it to your friends and family. Why not add one more name to your annual Christmas card list and send a greeting to "A Recovering American soldier" at Walter Reed Army Medical Center? There's just one problem with this e-mail: It's a hoax.
Despite the good intentions, postal and medical-center officials have confirmed no mail addressed to "A Recovering American soldier" will be delivered to patients at Walter Reed.
Because of security concerns, the Department of Defense implemented a policy several years ago that prevents mail to be delivered to military members unless it has a specific name. That means letters or packages sent to "Any Service Member," "A Recovering American soldier" or "Any Wounded Soldier" will not be delivered.
"People mean well, but it may wind up harming [a soldier], and that's the concern," U.S. Postal Service spokesman Joseph Breckenridge said. Breckenridge said his agency has not noticed an increase in such mail addressed to the medical center, but Walter Reed officials posted a warning on the center's main Web page about the hoax.
"We put it on our Web site because a lot of people saw that hoax e-mail that went out," said Thomas Cuddy, a community-relations officer at the center in Washington.
Walter Reed officials instead encourage people to work with a nonprofit organization to help locate soldiers in need, make a monetary donation or find a soldier who would like to receive mail. Such organizations can be found at americasupportsyou.mil
Central Florida resident Fernando Valverde, who as part of the Veterans Club of Solivita helped launch the local Support Our Troops program, said he recommends that people use anysoldier.com to locate soldiers who would like to receive mail or other items.
Valverde said requests often are based on where troops are stationed, but "what everybody wants are letters." Marty Horn, who retired from the Army and is now president of Any Soldier Inc., agrees.
"You will find that the most requested item is a letter," the Indiana man said. "It's an absolute morale boost." http://www.orlandosentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/thursday/orl-a2hoax0607dec06,0,5594903.story
RURALC...@ROOTSWEB.COM MAIL LIST.
FOR DISCUSSION OF POSTAL AND RURAL CARRIER RELATED SUBJECTS.
STEWARD CONTACTS
http://www.nrlca.org/stewards.html
NRLCA CONTACT INFO.
National Rural Letter Carriers' Association
Fourth Floor
1630 Duke Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3465
Phone: 703-684-5545
-------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to RURALCARRI...@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
From: <hier...@comcast.net>
Date: Sun, Dec 9, 2007 at 4:18 AM
Subject: {{ruralc...@rootsweb.com}} NJ Postal and Rural News, Issue 30, V.1 Dec 9, 2007 (List 18)
To: Hier...@comcast.net
Cc: Ruralc...@rootsweb.com
NEW JERSEY POSTAL AND RURAL NEWS
Issue 30, Vol. 1 December 9, 2007 Sunday Hier...@comcast.net
Issues of the New Jersey Postal and NRLCA News are now posted and available on the following website: http://groups.google.com/group/rlc_onliners_pub?hl=en
DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with USPS or the NRLCA and as such any information that I pass on is unofficial and constitutes advice and/or suggestions for your consideration. You may be advised to double-check with official sources before depending on its use and while you are doing that ask why is it that someone without official contacts has this information and is passing it on and its not coming from official sources.
Note: These email messages are being sent to the entire NJ State Board and almost all of the senior stewards in New Jersey. There should be no concerns about this being done secretly.
**If you know any rural craft employee who would like to receive this dissemination, please send email address, and office of employment to Hier...@comcast.net.
**If you do not wish to receive these disseminations, please notify Hier...@comcast.net and request removal from dissemination list.
**Please address all comments, submissions, stories to Hier...@comcast.net and be sure to mark it as confidential or note if it is OK to share.
___________________________________________________________________________
I want to express my gratitude for all the comments, submissions and feeback and the termendous interest in this newsletter. We have passed 200 subscribers who have asked for this newsletter and only two have asked to not receive the newsletter. I encourage everyone to ask questions, get both sides of the story and do some investigating yourself. I have also seen some very small but positive changes in what the state officers and stewards are doing. Letting the membership know is a good thing and it should be permanent. BABY STEPS! BABY STEPS! It's a very small, modest start!
_______________________________________________________________________
What Future Is There In Postal Worker Forums?
There seems to be no shortage of places for disgruntled employees to vent their spleen these days.
The internet has opened up a plethora of such places and postal workers too seem to like to air their grievances. With so much change going on in Europe and the UK, and postal deregulation threatening to undermine years of negotiations by Trade Unions, forums purporting to represent the views of all those employed by postal operators seem to spring up all over the continent.
The trouble is, forums don't always paint an accurate view, as many found in the run up to the recent ballot on pay and conditions. Those fiercely against what they see as a 'slash and burn' approach to modernising Royal Mail were positively shaken when the majority of those who voted were actually in favour of Royal Mail's proposals. Many were convinced of the 'we can only win' cliche and as a result were in for a bitter disappointment. The problem is, where a forum adopts an almost singular viewpoint, trying to second-guess something like a ballot becomes impossible. Maintaining balance is a full-time job and few can commit so much time, unpaid, to what at the end of the day has little influence on change. An employee with a grudge against an employer may interest him or her, even their colleagues, but it has no interest to the public and people simply lose interest - very quickly.
There is also a knock-on effect in terms of running costs. Forums can be expensive to run - very expensive. The more popular they become, the more bandwidth is consumed, and unless they operate on a fee-based membership (difficult to implement) sheer numbers can and do pull sites offline as the web host starts to cap access. Popularity is a double-edged sword and what can start out as a good idea can quickly become an ogre in its own right, and for a forum owner, consume time and money with little in the way of a cash return to cover costs. Often those who shout the loudest are the last to put their hands in their pockets.
Companies certainly don't like employee-driven forums. For one thing they can damage the perception that customers have of their services or products, and perhaps more importantly, it makes little sense to pay the wages of an individual who constantly berates their employer. On the flip-side, its right that an employee should be able to complain where injustice seems to be the order of the day, but it also contributes to loss of business when comments are published on forums and that can simply accelerate job losses - one step forward and five steps back.
Historically, companies have taken such sites to task and brought individuals to court. A comment innocently posted on a forum is (in the eyes of the law), published and therefore governed by the same rules that apply to print-based content. Un fortunately, the most popular myth is the one about 'free speech'. By and large, we do all have that right, but with an increasing tendency by lawmakers to impose political correctness on all of us, and free speech complicated by 'exceptions', it starts to become obvious that maintaining any kind of forum where feelings run high, is a real can of worms. Having worked for numerous web-based publishing companies, I've lost count of the number of individuals who found that what they thought of as a hobby, became an expensive court case.
That said, forums invariably burn out through cost alone. The bigger they get the more expensive they become and with no sponsor/advertiser willing to sit alongside content that isn't consistent or at least strictly moderated, and members confusing 'free speech' with 'free to use', it often becomes unsustainable in the long run and they simply shut down.
Hellmail too had its own forums. In fact it was the first of its kind, but editor St e ve Lawson felt that it was also having a counter-productive effect on the very people posting comments and despite the 10,000 or so visitors a day it recieved in its heyday, little of that traffic covered costs or made any real positive contribution to challenging the changes going on inside the postal industry. Forums are great for fans of some long-forgotten television series, but when the subject matter is emotive, without some generous benefactor willing to put their name (and money) to what you do, the future is at best - bleak.
"Its a difficult balance" says Steve Lawson. "I think its very important that viewpoints are heard, of course, but I don't think a forum achieves much other than comfort those that use them. If you moderate heavily, you risk stifling comment but on the other hand, if you don't keep a tight grip on proceedings, you can quickly lose control altogether. On the whole, they're unmanageable outside the confines of a fanzine type site and can quickl y b ecome a financial headache as well as a legal minefield." http://www.hellmail.co.uk/postalnews/templates/postal_business_news.asp?articleid=194&zoneid=3
USPS: NYC greeting cards vanish, and sting points to mailman
NEW YORK, NEW YORK (AP) _ Call it a special delivery. A postal carrier pocketed dozens of greeting cards he was supposed to deliver to get at the cash inside, postal inspectors said. He was found with more than 130 pieces of other people's mail in his car, according to a court complaint.
Michael Olivio was released on his own recognizance Thursday following his arrest the previous day, court records show. The exact charges against him were not listed in court records available early Saturday, and a spokesman for prosecutors did not immediately return a telephone call.
Olivio said he was "not allowed to talk," and his lawyer, Michelle Gelernt, declined to comment.
Postal authorities started getting complaints in June about greeting cards getting lost en route to residents of a Brooklyn ZIP code, U.S. Postal Inspection Service Special Agent Stephen Dolloff said in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.
He set up sti ngs involving decoy cards in September and again this week. The latest one included cash _ and a hidden electronic transmitter. The transmitter showed that Olivio kept the card after finishing his mail route Wednesday, Dolloff said.
Agents stopped Olivio and found their decoy in his car, along with about 137 other cards and other letters, Dolloff said in a sworn statement. He said Olivio later told agents he had been filching greeting cards from his mail bag since February, recently taking as many about 35 per day. It wasn't clear how much cash Olivio is accused of taking. http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny-odd--greetingcards1208dec08,0,1355708,print.story
USPS should take 'service' out of its name
Long lines, no stamp vending machines, fewer window clerks, they want you to buy your stamps at your local supermarket or online. Perhaps it is time for the United States Postal Service to change its name to the United States Postal Company. After all, services are being reduced or done away with. Conveniences such the stamp vending machines and the "postal store" for quick "stamps-only" purchases have disappeared. The USPS claims they are doing this to cut costs and save money. That's the excuse every company gives when it cuts customer service. They never lower their costs by eliminating or consolidating upper management positions, just their direct contact with their customers.
Service, to me, is helping customers. A mailing machine can g ive you options, but it can't help you make the best decision on which way to mail or insure a package. A machine that takes credit or debit cards only can't help a customer who only wants a couple of stamps. Neither will your local supermarket when they sell you a book of stamps. And, now that there is a more complex size restriction for the size of a first class letter envelope, how is a person to know how much postage to put on a greeting card this holiday season? I guess they wait on the long line. Where do you buy Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Eid stamps? For those you have to wait in the long line to buy them at the post office. Supermarkets carry books or rolls of regular stamps, not the various commemorative or holiday stamps available at the post office.
Ronald Scheiman, Boynton Beach, Florida http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-pbmail799pndec09,0,4176312,pr i nt.story
Postal Service Sends Out Warning Postcards By Mistake
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN -- The United States Postal Service is apologizing for mistakenly sending out postcards warning some Milwaukee residents their mail could stop because a crime was committed in the area.
Postal Inspector, Lori Groen, said the service developed a program about a year ago to alert residents if they think a carrier is in danger. Groen said they have had to send out cards once or twice a month since and twice stopped mail for one or two days on certain blocks.
But she said a local office recently mistakenly sent the cards to an area near Marquette University. She said they are investigating when and why it happened and how many people received the cards. She said the postal service has since changed procedures so it doesn't happen again. http://www.wisn.com/news/14800894/detail.html
E-mail hoax could derail mail to troops
You may have already received the e-mail: "Christmas Card List Addition."
Maybe you forwarded it to your friends and family. Why not add one more name to your annual Christmas card list and send a greeting to "A Recovering American soldier" at Walter Reed Army Medical Center? There's just one problem with this e-mail: It's a hoax.
Despite the good intentions, postal and medical-center officials have confirmed no mail addressed to "A Recovering American soldier" will be delivered to patients at Walter Reed.
Because of security concerns, the Department of Defense implemented a policy several years ago that prevents mail to be delivered to military members unless it has a specific name. That means letters or packages sent to "Any Service Member," "A Recovering American soldier" or "Any Wounded Soldier" will not be delivered.
"People mean well, but it may wind up harming [a soldier], and that's the concern," U.S. Postal Service spokesman Joseph Breckenridge said. Breckenridge said his agency has not noticed an increase in such mail addressed to the medical center, but Walter Reed officials posted a warning on the center's main Web page about the hoax.
"We put it on our Web site because a lot of people saw that hoax e-mail that went out," said Thomas Cuddy, a community-relations officer at the center in Washington.
Walter Reed officials instead encourage people to work with a nonprofit organization to help locate soldiers in need, make a monetary donation or find a soldier who would like to receive mail. Such organizations can be found at americasupportsyou.mil
Central Florida resident Fernando Valverde, who as part of the Veterans Club of Solivita helped launch the local Support Our Troops program, said he recommends that people use anysoldier.com to locate soldiers who would like to receive mail or other items.
Valverde said requests often are based on where troops are stationed, but "what everybody wants are letters." Marty Horn, who retired from the Army and is now president of Any Soldier Inc., agrees.
"You will find that the most requested item is a letter," the Indiana man said. "It's an absolute morale boost." http://www.orlandosentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/thursday/orl-a2hoax0607dec06,0,5594903.story
RURALC...@ROOTSWEB.COM MAIL LIST.
FOR DISCUSSION OF POSTAL AND RURAL CARRIER RELATED SUBJECTS.
STEWARD CONTACTS
http://www.nrlca.org/stewards.html
NRLCA CONTACT INFO.
National Rural Letter Carriers' Association
Fourth Floor
1630 Duke Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3465
Phone: 703-684-5545
-------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to RURALCARRI...@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
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