The U.S. Postal Service and United Parcel Service have never been buddy-buddy, but relations have grown ever frostier as the two bicker over legislation pending in Washington and in state capitals.
The fight broke out when the House of Representatives began considering a bill (H.R. 22) that would, among other things, allow the Postal Service to create a separate corporation to sell products-from phone cards to t-shirts-that lie outside its core business of mail service.
The bill is backed by the Direct Marketing Association and the Advertising Mail Marketing Association, two groups that represent big mailers. The opposition consists of UPS, the Teamsters and a "Mainstreet Coalition" that includes several mailer groups such as the National Newspaper Association and the American Bankers Association.
UPS, irritated that Postal Service might succeed in wringing a lucrative concession from Congress, has taken the fight to a different arena: the states. The company, backed in many cases by Teamster locals and state chambers of commerce, has lobbied state legislatures to pass resolutions urging the federal government to crack down on mission creep by the Postal Service and to study whether the Postal Service should pay state and local taxes, from which it is currently exempt.
So far, resolutions have won passage in Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, South Dakota, Oklahoma and New York and have passed one chamber each in Texas and Indiana. Resolutions are pending in seven other states.
The Postal Service, finding itself under attack in the states, has launched a counteroffensive. "We're basically trying to set the record straight," said Norm Scherstrom, a Washington-based Postal Service spokesman. "Every citizen in the land is a customer of the Postal Service, and if the wrong information is being given to our customers, that will affect our perceived qualities and their satisfaction. We have a duty to be vocal, not silent."
But as soon as the Postal Service began making its points to state legislators, UPS charged that its rival's quasi-governmental status prevents it from engaging in lobbying.
UPS officials, for instance, criticized a letter on Postal Service stationery sent by Jesse Durazzo, USPS vice president for Pacific area operations, urging that district managers and senior plant managers "educate the California State Senate regarding this resolution which maligns the Postal Service" by means of letters sent on their own personal stationery. Durazzo's message also included a model letter.
"We think the Postal Service should not be spending government money, time or resources on something that is by any stretch of the imagination illegal to do," said Tad Segal, director of public relations at UPS. "When we lobby, all of our folks are registered and we disclose what we spend. The Postal Service does not do that, and is restricted from lobbying by current law."
Naturally, the Postal Service disagrees, noting that most restrictions placed on its lobbying ability have been on the federal, rather than the state, level.
"Providing the truth about the Postal Service is not lobbying," said the Postal Service's Scherstrom. "We're setting the record straight, and if the facts sway the politicians, that's fine."
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