Curtailing Saturday carrier operations will significantly reduce personnel and vehicle-related costs. Approximately 25,000 full-time employee assignments will be reduced. This will be accomplished by eliminating full-time carrier technician and relief carrier assignments, reducing part-time flexible and transitional employee work hours, and reducing overtime. Delivery positions will be reduced through attrition, reassignments in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement, and by releasing some non-career transitional employees.
The change to five-day delivery is not expected to affect significantly the current number of city delivery routes required to support Monday through Friday delivery operations. Given current work-hour trends, extensive realignment of existing routes is not expected. The Postal Service anticipates that for routes requiring evaluations and adjustments, traditional route adjustment procedures can be used.
Eliminating Saturday delivery and collection operations will shift workload. More effective workload management and use of automation will absorb much of the shifted workload.
The change to five-day delivery will require local offices to update scheduled collections pickup times. Given the anticipated buildup of mail in collection boxes in some high-volume locations, early Monday collections may be necessary on a local as-needed basis.
Eliminating Saturday delivery and collections will necessitate revisions to delivery handbooks, operating manuals, forms, management policies, and a number of support systems. Reviews are under way to identify where changes are necessary so they can be made in time to support operational changes.
