Can the Postal Service handle the increased volume in case of a UPS disruption at the end of July? Jacqueline (Jakki) Krage Strako, USPS Chief Commerce and Business Solutions Officer, said, “Yes, we absolutely can.”
Strako, who has worked her way up at the USPS over a nearly 35-year career, was responding to a question during a briefing with reporters on Monday about the launch of USPS Ground Advantage.
“We’ve done a lot with our network and with our employees,” she told the reporter. “We’ve converted 125,000 employees over the last couple of years, so we’re well staffed and we’ve invested and made the right transportation network changes.”
She said the USPS was 2 years into the 10-year Delivering for America plan, “but absolutely we are positioned to handle additional volume.”
Ordoro Chief Revenue Officer Jim LeRose was at Pitney Bowes in the 1990s and recalled the UPS strike in August 1997: “During that time FedEx put in restrictions to avoid overloading their own systems and staff – there is only so much capacity available,” he noted in a LinkedIn post published by Ordoro CEO Jagath Narayan on Sunday.
A UPS disruption would be no joke across many industries, including comic books. Bleeding Cool reported on how Diamond Comic Distributors communicated to comic book retailers about the impact of such an event.
The distributor letter to comic book stores stated in part: “In the event of an extended UPS strike, we have been testing alternative shipping arrangements that would allow us to minimize shipping delays or interruptions. We are working diligently to optimize our logistics processes, explore backup options, and leverage our network of reliable carriers, distribution centers, and drop points to mitigate the impact of any potential disruptions. We are committed to keeping you informed throughout the process and if there are changes or delays to your order due to unforeseen circumstances, our customer support team will promptly reach out to you with updates and alternative solutions.”
Bleeding Cool noted that a UPS strike would impact customers and business that use UPS as a subcontractor – including Amazon, FedEx, and USPS. “A lot of the dealers who appear to be using USPS are actually taking advantage of deals where most of the delivery is handled by UPS and the local post office just takes care of “the last mile,”” the trade publication said.
UPS and the union traded blame for the breakdown in negotiations last week, according to media outlets.
Many people and businesses are hoping USPS (and others)’s capacity won’t be put to the test this summer.
Another reason I never use UPS.
In my lifetime they’ve gone on strike 3X already.
JOKE : “Out of Business” is the sign of Union involvement.
USPS won’t be getting any packages that would go UPS, there is a reason why UPS gets my packages, the USPS got too expensive. I could switch over but nothing would sell.
“the USPS got too expensive”
Not only that but USPS employees also like to steal packages.
There is no way I can use USPS. A package that cost me $20 via UPS is $70 via USPS.
I send my breakables and expensive items via UPS/Fedex. If anything wrong happens when you ship USPS they will NOT REFUND even if you have insurance. They have an assinine requirement that you bring the breakable goods into the post office for inspection. UPS/Fedex only requires a picture. If I’m a seller and the buyer received a broken item, the item is with the buyer not with me.
I won’t ship breakables via USPS ever again.