USPS Says New Delivery Service Could Save You During UPS Shutdown
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With retailers pushing out summer sales and companies like Home Depot already releasing popular Halloween offerings , many of us are steadily shopping online without a second thought right now. Unfortunately, there’s a big chance you could end up waiting longer than expected for these orders to come in, as the shipping sector is facing some major concerns. UPS is teetering on the edge of a historic strike , which has the ability to affect millions of packages. But the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is also making waves this summer with shipping options that could save you from trouble. Read on to find out more about the potential UPS shutdown, the USPS’ new delivery service, and what this all may mean for you.
RELATED: See a Sticker on Your Mailbox? Don’t Touch It, USPS Says .
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Labor strikes have become a common sight this year, with both the Screen Actors Guild (SGA) and Writers Guild of America (WGA) strikes currently impacting Hollywood. But soon, another sector could be headed towards the same fate.
A labor dispute between UPS and the Teamsters Union—which covers more than 340,000 full-time and part-time UPS workers—has reached a contentious point as negotiations have come to a standstill, the AP reported.
The current union contract expires on July 31, and Teamsters has made it clear that unionized UPS employees will not continue to work if a new one has not been agreed upon before then. According to the AP, the shipping company and the labor union are currently locked in a battle over one point: wage increases for part-time workers.
“The largest single-employer strike in American history now appears inevitable,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a June 28 press release. “Executives at UPS, some of whom get tens of millions of dollars a year, do not care about the hundreds of thousands of American workers who make this company run. They don’t care about our members’ families. UPS doesn’t want to pay up.”
RELATED: 5 Warnings From Ex-UPS Employees .
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UPS delivers more than 20 million packages every single day and is the largest shipping company in the U.S. by revenue, according to NPR. The latest data from the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index indicates that UPS has 37 percent of the country’s parcel delivery market by revenue, while the USPS only has 17 percent in comparison.
Therefore, the strike of hundreds of thousands of UPS workers is likely to bring significant disruption to our deliveries.
“Everything will get delayed. I mean, everything, anything that you ship via the mail,” Patrick Penfield , a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University, told local radio station WAER. “You’re going to get [packages] later and later and later.”
RELATED: USPS Issues New Alert on What You Can’t Send Through the Mail .
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While UPS is battling a major breakdown, the Postal Service is actually bringing new innovation to its shipping operations. In a July 10 press release , the agency announced that it has just launched a new delivery service called USPS Ground Advantage. This new option simplifies the Postal Service’s ground shipping by incorporating and replacing three previous offerings: USPS Retail Ground, USPS Parcel Select Ground, and USPS First-Class Package Service.
“USPS Ground Advantage is a game changer—for our customers, the industry and USPS,” Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in a statement. “By efficiently and effectively integrating our ground transportation model to the magnificence of our last mile delivery operations, we can now offer the most compelling ground shipping offering in the market.”
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The Postal Service’s new product launch may have come at the perfect time as consumers stress over the potential UPS shutdown. In his initial statement, DeJoy said that the USPS is now “ready to compete for an increased share of the growing package business” with its Ground Advantage service.
As a result, this progress and other efforts mean that the agency “absolutely can” handle more workload that could come from a UPS strike, Jacqueline Strako , an executive vice president at USPS who serves as the chief commerce and business solutions officer, told Government Executive on July 10.
“We’re well staffed and we’ve invested and made the right transportation network changes…absolutely we are positioned to handle additional volume,” Strako said.
USPS Ground Advantage is meant to be an “ affordable and reliable ” way to ship packages up to 70 pounds across the U.S. in just two to five business days, according to the agency’s website.
“We feel we have created a powerful new business advantage for the Postal Service by harnessing our new integrated mail and package network through a single national ground product,” Strako said, noting that the new service is expected to make other companies like UPS “reevaluate how they currently move their packages around the country.”
- Source: https://about.usps.com/newsroom/national-releases/2023/0710-introducing-usps-ground-advantage.htm
See a Sticker on Your Mailbox? Don’t Touch It, USPS Says
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Your mailbox serves a very simple purpose: receiving mail and leaving outgoing mail for a carrier to pick up. Still, some of us enjoy sprucing up our mailboxes, adding personal flair, color, or even decals to help an otherwise standard mailbox stand out. But if you notice a paw print sticker on your mailbox that you didn’t add, don’t start peeling it off just yet—it’s likely part of a program run by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to help keep carriers safe. Read on to find out what these stickers mean and why you shouldn’t remove them.
RELATED: USPS Wants to Raise the Price of Your Mail Again—Here’s When It Could Happen .
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In 2023, more than 5,800 Postal Service workers were attacked by dogs while delivering mail, up from 5,300 in 2022, according to a USPS press release.
Larger cities had the highest numbers of attacks, with Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, St. Louis, and Cleveland claiming the top five spots.
“Even though a customer’s dog is friendly to most people, it can always have a bad day,” said letter carrier Tara Snyder . “I know, from experience, even when a dog is in the house, customers need to make sure their door is secure so their dog can’t push it open and bite the letter carrier.”
To her point, the USPS writes that “all dogs can bite, even those perceived as nonaggressive.” In fact, many of the attacks that letter carriers report are by dogs whose owners told them, “My dog won’t bite.”
Such an attack can result in consequences for the homeowner, too. According to data from the Insurance Information Institute, the average cost per insurance claim for a dog bite is $64,555, the USPS states.
“When a postal employee suffers an injury, the owner could be responsible for medical bills, lost wages, uniform replacement costs, and pain and suffering for the employee,” they explain.
RELATED: USPS Is Making These Changes to Your Mail, Starting Now .
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To combat dog bites, the Postal Service shared tips on how pet owners can “support safe mail delivery.” These include keeping dogs inside the house or behind a fence, away from the door or in another room, or on a leash.
“Pet owners also should remind children not to take mail directly from a letter carrier as the dog may view the carrier as a threat to the child,” they state.
Mail carriers also follow protocol to keep them aware of areas where dogs might be present, and they’re equipped with scanners to remind them of possible dog hazards, as well as dog warning cards that are added during mail sorting.
In 2020, the USPS added another preventive measure: the PAWS Program . First introduced in Pennsylvania, the program uses mailbox stickers to keep carriers safe.
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The PAWS Program uses color-coded stickers affixed to mailboxes to inform mail carriers about dogs in the area. An orange sticker with a black paw print tells carriers that there is a dog at this home, while a yellow sticker with a black paw print tells them there is a dog at the next house.
Citizens are informed ahead of time that the stickers may appear on their mailboxes. In a notice sent to Lakewood, Ohio, residents, the Postal Service wrote, “Carriers will soon be placing a paw sticker on mailboxes to indicate that a dog or dogs live in the area —yellow indicates dog nearby/orange indicates dog at residence. The sticker will act as a reminder to the carrier that they should proceed with caution, especially when delivering packages to the door.”
RELATED: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Resigns—What It Means for the USPS and Your Mail .
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Removing these stickers may do more harm than good, as your mail service can be halted if your carrier feels unsafe. Not only does this affect the home of the dog owner, but it also applies to the entire neighborhood, the USPS said in a previous press release . Service isn’t restored in these instances “until the aggressive dog is properly restrained.”
At the end of the day, these stickers are put in place to “reduce the risk of dog bites and attacks that occur while delivering mail,” which is just another reason you should leave the sticker on your mailbox.
“We all love our dogs,” Kimberly Tilley , acting postmaster for Winston-Salem, told WGHP. “We love our animals, but we … have to take responsibility to protect the carrier and the people around us as well from our animals.”
Tilley added that dog bites are more common than you think, and they can be traumatic for carriers. “Once a carrier has been bit, it sets some fear in them long term for the rest of their life,” she told the outlet.
However, although these stickers are strongly recommended, if you object to having a sticker placed on your mailbox, you can opt out , Kyle Stevens , Southwest Carrier Annex station manager in South Dakota, told KELO in 2021. To do so, the first step would be to contact your local post office.
This story has been updated to include additional entries, fact-checking, and copy-editing.
