NNA joins Affordable Mail Alliance
The Affordable Mail Alliance, a coalition of Postal Service customers, has been re-established to defeat an expected Postal Service proposal to raise postage rates by as much as five times the rate permissible by law.
The National Newspaper Association is a member of the coalition.
The Postal Service Board of Governors, who must approve the Postal Service’s request, is set to decide on the matter imminently.
The law permits the Postal Service to raise postage rates annually, consistent with the rate of inflation, a standard that should satisfy any well run organization in today’s economy.
A state from the alliance says “a combination of declining revenue and increasing costs has the Postal Service poised to inflict on its customers an ‘exigent’ rate increase designed to subsidize an outdated infrastructure in need of change.
“Most private sector companies have already made major structural and operational changes in recent years in order to survive.
“The Alliance believes USPS needs to do the same.”
The statement continues: “A massive postage rate increase will hit consumers, charities, and large and small businesses at a time when the still fragile economy cannot afford it.
“The result will be more jobs lost in the private sector in order to maintain an overbuilt postal system, and even less revenue to the Postal Service as mailers flee.
“There should be a unified call to reform the USPS, not saddle postal customers with higher prices — something that will only accelerate the decline of mail volume, and hasten the Postal Service’s demise.”
The Postal Service claims that it will soon run out of cash without major financial relief, a claim it has been making for a number of years.
In 2010 the Postal Service proposed a massive postage rate increase to avert a pending financial catastrophe that never materialized.
Fortunately for mailers and for the Postal Service, that proposed price increase was rejected through the efforts of the Affordable Mail Alliance.
“While the Postal Service may believe it has no other options, a rate hike of this magnitude will hurt postal customers and cause more mail to leave the postal system; therefore, the Affordable Mail Alliance has united to once more say no to exorbitant rate hikes,” the statement concludes.
Members of the Affordable Mail Alliance are:
Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers
American Catalog Mailers Association
Direct Marketing Association
MPA – The Association of Magazine Media
Association of Marketing Service Providers
National Newspaper Association
Quad/Graphics
RR Donnelley
Software & Information Industry Association.