Briefs
Staff -- Purchasing, 5/16/2002
- Things could be changing at the U.S. Postal Service. After losing $1.6 billion last year, a new plan to overhaul operations at the Post Office considers closing offices and limiting delivery to less than six days a week. Postmaster General John Potter said every aspect of postal operations needs to be looked at to improve finances and efficiency. The proposal calls for a new law converting the post office to a commercial government agency after 2006 and working more closely with the Postal Rate Commission to provide more predictable price changes, including phased-in rates.
- FedEx pilots voted in early April to leave their independent union and join the Air Line Pilots Association, after rejecting the ALPA in 1996. The decision will do away with the FedEx Pilots Association, which was created after a contract fight that nearly led to a pilots' strike in 1998. Of the 3,210 pilots casting ballots, 2,906 voted to join the ALPA . FedEx employs more than 4,000 pilots.
- The rebounding economy will help the truckload segment get back on the right track, but it may come at the expense of LTL volumes. Truck tonnage rose more than 1% in both January and February from a year earlier, according to American Trucking Associations and climbed more than 9% in January from December, even though January is typically a weaker month for trucking. "All of a sudden, things just picked up almost overnight," said Bob Costello, chief economist at ATA. Costello attributed the upturn to inventory liquidation and said the industry may face a double-dip if business spending doesn't pick up after the inventory is replaced. Other factors working in the carriers' favor in the first quarter include the high unemployment rates, which provide more drivers, and mild winter weather.
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