HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
JB REED/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
GOINGPOSTAL
In fact, FedEx and UPS are actually dependent on the postal service, just like the rest of us. The
agency does what’s called “lastmile delivery,” often carrying FedEx
and UPS packages on the last leg of
their trip. It simply isn’t profitable
for the private companies to deliver
all the way to remote homes, so
they take advantage of the government’s universal service guarantee
for many of their home deliveries.
Package delivery is one promising
area for the postal service, thanks
to the rise of e-commerce, and
private industry would probably
be happy to pick up the business
should the postal service disappear.
But the private carriers would also
suffer, at least initially, if the postal
service starts to contract.
Asked where UPS stands on
postal reform, Kara Ross, a company spokeswoman, says, “We
think it’s important to have a
strong postal service. They contract to us, and we contract to
them.” Maury Donahue, a spokeswoman for FedEx, echoes that
sentiment, saying in an email that
the company “support[s] efforts
to ensure that the Postal Service
is able to successfully manage
its business. We believe that a
healthy Postal Service, the largest
postal operator in the world,
is important to America.”
Private corporations, of
course, have no social obligations to the public the way the
postal service does. Lose the
postal service and you lose a
considerable public asset, and
maybe something more, says Ellen Dannin, a professor at Penn
State’s Dickinson School of Law
who follows privatization trends.
“If you are going to have one
country, then you have to take actions that help keep you knitted
together as a country,” says Dannin. “I think that we are really in
danger of losing what I would call
important citizenship values...We
have a responsibility to one another to make [the postal service] function effectively.”
Neil Chin,
right, and
Cecil Farrell
work at the
FedEx Harlem
River Yards
facility in New
York City.