Fwd: {{ruralcarriers@rootsweb.com}} NJ Postal and Rural News, Issue 27, V.1, Dec. 6, 2007 (List 22)
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From: <hier...@comcast.net>
Date: Thu, Dec 6, 2007 at 2:22 AM
Subject: {{ruralc...@rootsweb.com}} NJ Postal and Rural News, Issue 27, V.1, Dec. 6, 2007 (List 22)
To: Hier...@comcast.net
Cc: Ruralc...@rootsweb.com
NEW JERSEY POSTAL AND RURAL NEWS
Issue 27, Vol. 1 December 6, 2007 Thursday 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.
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
Postal Service Looks For 1,000 Missing Checks
Louisville, Kentucky-The U.S. Postal Service and the Social Security Administration are working together to locate about 1,000 Social Security checks they said have disappeared.
The checks were supposed to be delivered to residents in postal zones 40201 through 40203 by Dec. 3.
The Louisville Postmaster said both agencies are trying to find out what happened to the checks -- but added that they do not believe there was any kind of security threat.
Anyone who hasn't received a check should contact the Social Security office closest to him or her.
The administration will re-issue checks that aren't located on Thursday. http://www.wlky.com/news/14784773/detail.html
Retailers join movement to curb the cascade of catalogs
It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas. No, not sleigh bells. The thud of catalogs landing in mailboxes.
But now environmental groups are offering a way for consumers who feel snowed under by paper to go online to opt out of catalogs they don’t want. And the effort appears to be gaining support from retailers, who see it as a way to cut costs.
Nearly 20 billion catalogs are mailed each year — 6 billion more than a decade ago — which equates to more than 53 million trees shredded into pulp. While there is no certain count, many of those catalogs are mailed during the holidays.
“We’re not anti-catalog,” said April Smith, a spokeswoman for the National Wildlife Federation, one of the groups behind the Web site, CatalogChoice.org. “We know catalogs provide a service. We just want to make sure people get the catalogs they want. Not those they don’t want.”
Since its launch in October, the site has signed up more than 230,000 consumers who have declined about 2.6 million catalogs. Analysts say that many merchants are monitoring the Web site, weighing whether it might benefit them. Fifty already have opened accounts in active support of the movement, including L.L. Bean, Lands’ End, Brookstone and Tiffany & Co.
Al Bessin, a consulting partner with Lenser, which advises the catalog industry, said that higher paper and postal costs — and a drop in response rates — make the old approach of mailing thousands of phone-book thick catalogs to everyone a waste of time and money.
The question now for catalog companies, Bessin said, is how to “put your best foot forward” and reach consumers whose behavior will be triggered to go online or to the mall to buy an item they see in a catalog.
“There is tremendous economic pressure on the industry to do a better job,” he noted.
Industry research shows that, even with the growth of Internet commerce, catalogs remain a major influence on what people buy. In fact, 70 percent of Web purchases are driven by paper catalogs.
Sears spokeswoman Kristen Whipple said that the retailer responded to consumer requests this year when it reintroduced its Wish Book catalog — 13 years after it was discontinued. Even so, the 188-page book is a slip of a thing compared with the 700-page version that plopped on consumers’ doorsteps in 1993.
“You have to get customers excited about what you have, and what we found is that people still wanted paper. It’s more tangible,” Whipple said.
Carrie Roberts of Lawrence is one of those receptive consumers whom catalog merchants want to reach. “I confess I’m an impulsive shopper,” Roberts said last week at Oak Park Mall. “I get ideas from catalogs. I might see something cute in a Victoria’s ” Secret catalog and say, ‘I have to go out and buy that.’
But Kathy Minor of Shawnee said she has had it with most of the catalogs she receives — three to five a day lately. Minor said she likes the kiddie catalogs, which she gives to her three children to circle the toys they want from Santa.
Most of the rest get dumped. But Minor said that what increasingly concerns her is that all these discarded catalogs can’t be good for the environment. Bessin said that the industry is trying to go “green” by using more recycled paper. It’s a tough balancing act, though, because consumers still want colorful, attractive and entertaining catalogs.
Lafcadio Cortesi, a spokesman for ForestEthics.org, agrees that merchants today are more environmentally savvy. Each year, ForestEthics issues a Santa’s list of “nice” retailers that reduce paper, use recycled products and avoid those that come from endangered forests.
This year’s list is longer than last year’s, and merchants viewed as falling short are labeled “naughty” and given a lump of coal.
Sears got a lump again this year. According to ForestEthics, the retailer fails to make adequate use of recycled paper in the 425 million catalogs it mails each year and gets much of its paper products from endangered forests, including the Boreal Forest in Canada. In a statement, Sears officials assured that they were addressing environmental issues.
“We are actively engaged with our suppliers and industry associations to continuously improve on our prudent use of natural resources,” the company said.
Victoria’s Secret, however, went from “naughty” to “nice” this year. ForestEthics’ new ranking only reflects a change in the company’s environmental policy on paper use. (Their lingerie is still a little naughty.)
“We consider environmental stewardship to be an essential part of our values,” said Tom Katzenmeyer, a spokesman for The Limited, Victoria’s Secret’s parent company.
HOW TO STOP THE CATALOG AVALANCHE
•CatalogChoice.org’s site is free. Consumers simply check off multiple merchant catalogs they don’t want.
•The Direct Marketing Association also operates a mail preference service at www.dmaconsumers.org. The DMA site, however, charges $1. The association says that makes it costly for dishonest marketers to download names. http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/389703.html
Judge dismisses race, gender bias suit vs. Postal Service
By MICHAEL HINKELMAN, Philadelphia Daily News
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-A federal judge threw out a complaint by an Olney woman who sued the U.S. Postmaster General for race and gender discrimination after she was dismissed from her postal job in June 2005. In a ruling handed up on Friday, U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter said that even though Michelle E. Brisker had established a prima facie case for race discrimination, there was insufficient evidence that the Post Office's stated reasons for discharging her were fabricated to cover up the alleged discrimination.
Pratter granted summary judgment for the Postmaster General and ordered the case closed. Postal authorities said they canned Brisker, a black female who worked in the King of Prussia post office as a mail sorter and carrier, because she was taking too long to deliver her routes and also had a poor driving record while on the job.
At the time of her dismissal, Brisker was in a 90-day probationary status. Brisker had alleged that racial animus was the real motivating factor in her dismissal.
She said in a court filing that her supervisor, Gerard Kudach, told her at the time of her dismissal that it would be in her best interest to deliver mail in "[her] own neighborhood with [her] own kind," a remark Brisker interpreted to be derogatory. In court papers, Kudach denied having made the remark.
Although the reasons for Brisker's performance deficiencies were disputed, Pratter said in her 19-page ruling that it was "undisputed" that Brisker "frequently failed to complete her routes on time" and that Kudach had written her up for poor driving.
In one evaluation cited by Pratter, Kudach said Brisker had "pulled up on a customer's lawn instead of the driveway" to deliver a parcel. Pratter said that Kudach's allegedly racist comment was the only evidence in the record that indicated racial animus and there was no evidence of animus towards women.
But the judge said that that comment was "counterbalanced" by the fact that another black female employee who worked under Kudach passed her probation and was hired as a permanent employee during the same time period Brisker worked there. http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20071205_Judge_dismisses_race__gender_bias_suit_vs__Postal_Service.html
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: Thu, Dec 6, 2007 at 2:22 AM
Subject: {{ruralc...@rootsweb.com}} NJ Postal and Rural News, Issue 27, V.1, Dec. 6, 2007 (List 22)
To: Hier...@comcast.net
Cc: Ruralc...@rootsweb.com
NEW JERSEY POSTAL AND RURAL NEWS
Issue 27, Vol. 1 December 6, 2007 Thursday 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.
___________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
Postal Service Looks For 1,000 Missing Checks
Louisville, Kentucky-The U.S. Postal Service and the Social Security Administration are working together to locate about 1,000 Social Security checks they said have disappeared.
The checks were supposed to be delivered to residents in postal zones 40201 through 40203 by Dec. 3.
The Louisville Postmaster said both agencies are trying to find out what happened to the checks -- but added that they do not believe there was any kind of security threat.
Anyone who hasn't received a check should contact the Social Security office closest to him or her.
The administration will re-issue checks that aren't located on Thursday. http://www.wlky.com/news/14784773/detail.html
Retailers join movement to curb the cascade of catalogs
It’s beginning to sound a lot like Christmas. No, not sleigh bells. The thud of catalogs landing in mailboxes.
But now environmental groups are offering a way for consumers who feel snowed under by paper to go online to opt out of catalogs they don’t want. And the effort appears to be gaining support from retailers, who see it as a way to cut costs.
Nearly 20 billion catalogs are mailed each year — 6 billion more than a decade ago — which equates to more than 53 million trees shredded into pulp. While there is no certain count, many of those catalogs are mailed during the holidays.
“We’re not anti-catalog,” said April Smith, a spokeswoman for the National Wildlife Federation, one of the groups behind the Web site, CatalogChoice.org. “We know catalogs provide a service. We just want to make sure people get the catalogs they want. Not those they don’t want.”
Since its launch in October, the site has signed up more than 230,000 consumers who have declined about 2.6 million catalogs. Analysts say that many merchants are monitoring the Web site, weighing whether it might benefit them. Fifty already have opened accounts in active support of the movement, including L.L. Bean, Lands’ End, Brookstone and Tiffany & Co.
Al Bessin, a consulting partner with Lenser, which advises the catalog industry, said that higher paper and postal costs — and a drop in response rates — make the old approach of mailing thousands of phone-book thick catalogs to everyone a waste of time and money.
The question now for catalog companies, Bessin said, is how to “put your best foot forward” and reach consumers whose behavior will be triggered to go online or to the mall to buy an item they see in a catalog.
“There is tremendous economic pressure on the industry to do a better job,” he noted.
Industry research shows that, even with the growth of Internet commerce, catalogs remain a major influence on what people buy. In fact, 70 percent of Web purchases are driven by paper catalogs.
Sears spokeswoman Kristen Whipple said that the retailer responded to consumer requests this year when it reintroduced its Wish Book catalog — 13 years after it was discontinued. Even so, the 188-page book is a slip of a thing compared with the 700-page version that plopped on consumers’ doorsteps in 1993.
“You have to get customers excited about what you have, and what we found is that people still wanted paper. It’s more tangible,” Whipple said.
Carrie Roberts of Lawrence is one of those receptive consumers whom catalog merchants want to reach. “I confess I’m an impulsive shopper,” Roberts said last week at Oak Park Mall. “I get ideas from catalogs. I might see something cute in a Victoria’s ” Secret catalog and say, ‘I have to go out and buy that.’
But Kathy Minor of Shawnee said she has had it with most of the catalogs she receives — three to five a day lately. Minor said she likes the kiddie catalogs, which she gives to her three children to circle the toys they want from Santa.
Most of the rest get dumped. But Minor said that what increasingly concerns her is that all these discarded catalogs can’t be good for the environment. Bessin said that the industry is trying to go “green” by using more recycled paper. It’s a tough balancing act, though, because consumers still want colorful, attractive and entertaining catalogs.
Lafcadio Cortesi, a spokesman for ForestEthics.org, agrees that merchants today are more environmentally savvy. Each year, ForestEthics issues a Santa’s list of “nice” retailers that reduce paper, use recycled products and avoid those that come from endangered forests.
This year’s list is longer than last year’s, and merchants viewed as falling short are labeled “naughty” and given a lump of coal.
Sears got a lump again this year. According to ForestEthics, the retailer fails to make adequate use of recycled paper in the 425 million catalogs it mails each year and gets much of its paper products from endangered forests, including the Boreal Forest in Canada. In a statement, Sears officials assured that they were addressing environmental issues.
“We are actively engaged with our suppliers and industry associations to continuously improve on our prudent use of natural resources,” the company said.
Victoria’s Secret, however, went from “naughty” to “nice” this year. ForestEthics’ new ranking only reflects a change in the company’s environmental policy on paper use. (Their lingerie is still a little naughty.)
“We consider environmental stewardship to be an essential part of our values,” said Tom Katzenmeyer, a spokesman for The Limited, Victoria’s Secret’s parent company.
HOW TO STOP THE CATALOG AVALANCHE
•CatalogChoice.org’s site is free. Consumers simply check off multiple merchant catalogs they don’t want.
•The Direct Marketing Association also operates a mail preference service at www.dmaconsumers.org. The DMA site, however, charges $1. The association says that makes it costly for dishonest marketers to download names. http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/389703.html
Judge dismisses race, gender bias suit vs. Postal Service
By MICHAEL HINKELMAN, Philadelphia Daily News
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-A federal judge threw out a complaint by an Olney woman who sued the U.S. Postmaster General for race and gender discrimination after she was dismissed from her postal job in June 2005. In a ruling handed up on Friday, U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter said that even though Michelle E. Brisker had established a prima facie case for race discrimination, there was insufficient evidence that the Post Office's stated reasons for discharging her were fabricated to cover up the alleged discrimination.
Pratter granted summary judgment for the Postmaster General and ordered the case closed. Postal authorities said they canned Brisker, a black female who worked in the King of Prussia post office as a mail sorter and carrier, because she was taking too long to deliver her routes and also had a poor driving record while on the job.
At the time of her dismissal, Brisker was in a 90-day probationary status. Brisker had alleged that racial animus was the real motivating factor in her dismissal.
She said in a court filing that her supervisor, Gerard Kudach, told her at the time of her dismissal that it would be in her best interest to deliver mail in "[her] own neighborhood with [her] own kind," a remark Brisker interpreted to be derogatory. In court papers, Kudach denied having made the remark.
Although the reasons for Brisker's performance deficiencies were disputed, Pratter said in her 19-page ruling that it was "undisputed" that Brisker "frequently failed to complete her routes on time" and that Kudach had written her up for poor driving.
In one evaluation cited by Pratter, Kudach said Brisker had "pulled up on a customer's lawn instead of the driveway" to deliver a parcel. Pratter said that Kudach's allegedly racist comment was the only evidence in the record that indicated racial animus and there was no evidence of animus towards women.
But the judge said that that comment was "counterbalanced" by the fact that another black female employee who worked under Kudach passed her probation and was hired as a permanent employee during the same time period Brisker worked there. http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20071205_Judge_dismisses_race__gender_bias_suit_vs__Postal_Service.html
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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