Pelley good evening. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds unless its saturday. The u. S. Postal service added that qualification to its legendary motto today. The service is broke and it will drop saturday mail delivery in august. The troubles of the Postal Service are as big as the agency itself. The u. S. P. S. Delivers 40 of all of the mail on earth and it has more than 522,000 fulltime workers, which makes it among the top civilian employers in america. But the age of email has turned out to be a much bigger challenge than snow or rain or gloom of night and heres nancy cordes. Reporter saturday mail delivery dates back to the inception of the Postal Service itself in 1863. But today the postmaster general said times have changed and his agency must, too. When you lose the first class volume that weve seen, you cant make ends meet from a financial standpoint. The choice is either change some of the
Overtime and rely on retirements. There is, however, one catch. I believe that it is not legal. Reporter republican senator Susan Collins of maine was one of many lawmakers who warned today the Postal Service needs congressional approval to cut service. The problem is that every time the Postal Service cuts back on its service, it loses customers if it loses customers, it loses revenue. Is this legal . laughter yes, it is. Reporter the postmaster general insists the move will save 2 billion a year. The Postal Service has threatened to do this so many times in the past 150 years. How do we know that youre serious this time . We are very serious because as you take a look at the finances, we have to make some change. Reporter the Postal Service lost 16 billion last year, 41 billion since 2006, partly because of a drop in demand, partly because of enormous pension obligations, and partly because of promised postal reform bills that never came which House Speaker john boehner acknowledged
In an air-conditioned room on a quiet, tree-lined street in Mali's capital, Bamako, three young men sat at desks with cameras mounted overhead, picked up one page of parchment at a time from tall stacks at their left, clicked the shutter button and then reached for the next page. Click. Flash. Repeat.