Amazon Sunday and the US Postal ServiceTeam 7

Overview• The United States Postal Service has been losing revenue for a long

time for many reasons.

• Changes in technology have reduced mail needs in general, and competition have made it difficult for the USPS to keep up their business.

• In order to deal with these changes, the organization itself must change.

New Changes in the Postal Service• In order to deal with losses in revenue, the USPS has tried many

things, including stopping Saturday delivery and laying off employees. The position of CCA was created to effectively lower the salary of Transitional Employees from $23.52 to $15.00.

• Now, Negotiated Service Agreements (NSAs) have been enacted, which is when the USPS creates agreements with specific businesses offering modified prices and incentives for that specific business.

• The most recent NSA is one with Amazon, which involves Sunday delivery of only Amazon packages, and more NSAs are in the works.

What this means for employees• In order to accommodate the NSA with Amazon, the USPS has relied

largely on its City Carrier Assistants (CCAs), non-career employees working at 15 dollars an hour.

• These CCAs must now work seven day work-weeks in order to accommodate the new AmazonSunday service. The practice is increasing across the country, involving more and more employees.

• The USPS has stated that it will not hire any new employees to help operating under the new NSA, meaning even harder work for existing CCAs.

What this means for employees• CCAs are expected to treat Amazon packages with more priority than

packages from the USPS’s own customers.

• New prospective NSAs include AmazonFresh, a grocery service that would make mail carriers and their trucks available from 3-7 am every day.

• The National Association of Letter Carriers is offering little help to the CCAs

• When it was discovered that anyone working on Sundays is supposed to receive an extra 25% of the hourly rate, it was said it didn’t apply to CCAs.

Force-Field Analysis• Driving forces for change in the USPS include competition from other

companies, changing technology,

• Restraining forces include the CCAs that are carrying the brunt of the change with a lack of compensation.

• To ensure sustainable change, the management should work on lowering restraining forces rather than increasing driving forces. This will change the level of productivity in the long run.