The Martin Luther King Day Holiday is one of ten Federal holidays on which the Postal Service is closed, along with the rest of the Federal Government. However, most private sector businesses are open today, just as they are on President’s Day, Columbus Day and Veterans’ Day. While the Postal Service is closed because Federal law requires that all federal entities be closed, its private sector competitors are open because they know that their customers demand service on all but the six most universally celebrated holidays. (i.e. Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day)
In a tweet today, United Parcel Service highlighted this difference:
U.S. post offices are closed for #MLK Holiday, but your neighborhood @TheUPSStore is open to help with shipping + printing.
Today, on the Martin Luther King Day holiday, retail customers of the Postal Service can buy parcel shipping services today at Office Depots nationwide and a couple thousand other contract locations. They can buy stamps at banks and supermarkets. However, parcel services purchased today will take a day longer, as the Postal Service will not pick up the parcels until tomorrow. Holiday closings may create more of an issue for commercial shippers of business-to-consumer parcels as they will have at least two days of orders sitting on the dock that will take a day longer to deliver than their customers may find satisfactory.
The Postal Service counters closing on the six federal holidays that United Parcel Service and FedEx are open with Saturday mail processing and delivery. Saturday mail processing and delivery is a competitive advantage for home delivery, particularly for orders filled near the end of the week. Unfortunately, ending Saturday delivery would remove this advantage and would result in the Postal Service having fewer delivery days than either of its private sector competitors due to the closure of the Postal Service on all federal holidays.
As the share of the Postal Service’s business associated with competitive products increases, the Postal Service needs the flexibility to adjust its operating schedule so that it can offer services when its customers demand them. If that means opening on all but the six most commonly celebrated holidays in order to compete with FedEx and United Parcel Service, then the Postal Service should seek changes in law and union agreements to allow that to happen.
Eliminating certain federal holidays would not be easy or popular with employees. However, Postal Unions are concerned that the Postal Service offer services that are responsive to customers and eliminating these holidays could be traded for additional vacation days and/or a reduction in the number of job reductions, which many employees might find attractive.
The problem of eliminating certain federal holidays to compete with the private sector also highlights a key problem with the current quasi-governmental business model. As long as Congress can set the rules regarding Postal Service where, how and when the Postal Service should offer existing postal services or restricts the competitive or complementary services that the Postal Service can offer, the Postal Service will becoming the customer-focused enterprise it needs to be nearly impossible.
I’d sure be will to trade these hollidays for annual leave. It’s costly for the service,hard the day after for empolyees and our customers need the service.
I have 12 packages ready to mail right now but I’d never take them to the UPS Store because my out-of-pocket postage would be double or more……………………………If the PO want to take those Monday holidays, that is Ok with me.
Consumer focused enterprise? Talk about a conflict in purpose / direction. You should be aware the USPS is mired in budgetary goals at the local levels that force customer dis-service. Customer service managers staff in accordance with budgeted hours, not customer lines. Internal staffing to move the mail is staffed according to this same model. it has nothing to do with customer satisfaction. Managers who obtain budget goals get bonuses. USPS current leadership direction shoud demand a defferent model from congress and / or reinvent itself. In any event, current top management must go.
Can you even begin to imagine the flood of criticism that would occur if the USPS even thought about closing on the MLK holiday? Accusations of racism would be staggering! The only holiday that would even have a chance of being eliminated from the USPS would be Columbus Day. I think that Federal Express and UPS should be up front and honest about how much THEY depend on the USPS for their “last mile” delivery. People assume that the green and blue FedEX trucks are the same as the orange and blue FedEx trucks. The green and blue FedEX trucks are owned by the drivers or by people who are not career FedEX employees. Several weeks ago I had to pick up a FedEX package that was sitting on the bumper of one of these trucks when it fell off when the reckless driver rounded a corner almost on two wheels! They are a hazard on the streets of America.
I wouls like to talk about how the the postal stores or contract postal unit take express mail on a holiday and guarantee it. They are not trained on the sales and delivery of special sevices, they give the postal service a bad reputation.
Again its the private sector twisting the truth around to make the Post Office look bad!
First of all UPS @ FEDERAL EXPRESS are closed on Saturday’s. Thats 52 days a year so the extra 6 holidays the Post Office is closed still gives it 46 extra days of added service.
Mr. Robinson get your facts straight before you make commets!
I’d work just about every holiday for personal days. I’d be willing to work/trade MLK, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day and Vets Day(yes, I”m a vet) for 6 personal days. Working the day after a holiday, especially a Monday holiday just isn’t worth the hassles anymore.
The stock market and banks are closed on all those holidays, too. And during the ‘six major’ holidays, many private sector worker get 4-5 days or whole week off, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. More government employee bashing–I bet this ‘journalist’ spent all of 1 1/2 hours on this, then surfed the web, on the his boss’s dime, for the remainder of the day.
Wait a minute, I am being told their is no mail so we needed to get rid of employees and facilities but yet we now needed to stay open on holidays’! What due you think the commercial mailers are going to say when we have raise rates to stay open extra days, when again their is no mail to move anyway. Ye and what about closing on Saturdays, what kind of customers service is that. Someone needs to get the facts, we have mail or not!