Universal Postal Union

“ No member of the Postal Union, which includes almost all civilized governments, is sovereign in the matter of foreign postal rates. The question for every contracting party in all forms of contract is whether the portion of liberty he surrenders is adequately recompensed by the portion of reward or security he acquires. ”

“ The Unions argue that because one of the purposes of the labor-management provisions of the PRA was to stablize labor-management relations within the Postal Service, and because the PES is the "linchpin" of the Postal Service, employment opportunities of postal workers are arguably within the zone of interests covered by the PES. The Unions rely upon our opinion in Clarke v. ”

“ The growing importance of the foreign service also merits attention. The post-office department of Great Britain and our own have agreed upon a preliminary basis for a new postal convention, which it is believed will prove eminently beneficial to the commercial interests of the United States, inasmuch as it contemplates a reduction of the international letter postage to one-half the existing rates: a reduction of postage with all other countries to and from which correspondence is transmitted in the British mail, or in closed mails through the United Kingdom ”

“ Every year sees public bodies, in the United States as everywhere else, entering upon new fields of activity. In this country, municipal bodies, state governments, and even the Federal Government, are in this way perpetually increasing the number of those directly in their employ. The establishment of the parcel post alone must have added considerably to the total of the employés in the Postal Department. ”

“ If such second-class matter paid merely the cost of its handling, our deficit would disappear and a surplus result which might be used to give the people still better mail facilities or cheaper rates of letter postage. I recommend that legislation be at once enacted to correct these abuses and introduce better business ideas in the regulation of our postal rates.
Experience and observation have demonstrated that certain improvements in the organization of the Post-Office Department must be secured before we can gain the full benefit of the immense sums expended in its administration. ”

“ To insure these to all the people of the States, the Constitution has wisely placed these powers in 'THE CONGRESS' of the Union, of the 'NATION.' In accordance with the powers thus vested in Congress, our present postal or mail service has been created. No State has a right to set up its own mail or postal system. No State has a right to interfere with the transportation of the national mails. ”

“ One of the oldest institutions of our Federal Government, its service should be of the best. Its employees should merit and receive the high regard and esteem of the citizens of the Nation. There are today in some areas of the postal service, both waste and incompetence to be corrected. With the cooperation of the Congress, and taking advantage of its accumulated experience in postal affairs, the Postmaster General will institute a program directed at improving service while at the same time reducing costs and decreasing deficits. ”

“ The postal employees for whose benefit the Unions have brought suit here are not competitors of either the Postal Service or remailers. Employees have generally been denied standing to enforce competition laws because they lack competitive and direct injury. ”

“ Modernized handling of local mail now brings next-day delivery to 168 million people in our population centers, expanded carrier service now accommodates 9.3 million families in the growing suburbs, and 1.4 million families have been added to the rural delivery service. Common sense dictates that the Postal Service should be on a self-financing basis. ”

“ If such gifts of the public money are to be made for the purpose of aiding any enterprise in the supposed interest of the public, I can not but think that the amount to be paid and the beneficiary might better be determined by Congress than in any other way.
The international congress of delegates from the Postal Union countries convened at Lisbon, in Portugal, in February last, and after a session of some weeks the delegates signed a convention amendatory of the present postal-union convention in some particulars designed to advance its purposes. ”

“ But with the advent of the new system, the Post Office straightway became the paid servant—and a far more faithful and efficient one than it is sometimes given credit for being—of the entire nation, since upon every man, woman, and child in the United Kingdom were henceforth conferred equal rights to postal intercourse.
Strange to say, the passing of the Penny Postage Bill had, to some extent, depended upon the successful making of a bargain. ”

“ Whether § 410 (a) exempts the Postal Service from APA review is in essence a question of whether Congress intended to allow a certain cause of action against the Postal Service. Whether a cause of action exists is not a question of jurisdiction, and may be assumed without being decided. ”

“ On the other hand, it is an undoubted fact that international trade, finance, and intercourse has increased enormously with improved means of transport. The Postal Union is a fine [25] achievement towards the unification of the whole human family. Its successful working shows that enterprises covering the entire civilized population of the globe can now be undertaken and carried through. ”

“ Meanwhile the Fawcett Scheme Committee were not idle, and proceeded with the work of organising the men on a more definite basis; voluntary subscriptions per man being collected systematically, and the principles of trades unionism quietly disseminated. Clery and his immediate following were now agreed that the time had arrived when the sorting force should set an example to other postal servants who were not yet organised by combining on trades-union lines. ”

“ The monopoly was created by Congress as a revenue protection measure for the Postal Service vis-a-vis private competitors. Pursuant to a PES provision allowing it to suspend PES restrictions as to any mail route where the public interest so requires, the Postal Service issued a regulation authorizing a practice called "international remailing," which entails bypassing the Service and using private couriers to deposit with foreign postal services letters destined for foreign addresses. ”

“ A treaty for the formation of a General Postal Union, and for the adoption of uniform postage rates and regulations for International correspondence, was arranged and signed at Berne, Switzerland, in October, 1874, by the representatives of the Post Offices of the chief Nations of the world. This agreement took effect between all the countries which were directly parties to the Treaty, in July last. ”

“ Sam Woods, M.P., who on February 18, 1898, moved an amendment to the address. The reinstatement question had now come to be known as the “hardy annual” of the Post-Office. Sir Albert Rollit ably supported the amendment. Mr. Hanbury, as representing the Postmaster-General, replied to the strictures on postal administration, and in dealing with the particular matter of the dismissals and the question of reinstatement, made some very pointed allusions to the two dismissed officials of the sorters’ trades union, Messrs. Clery and Cheesman. ”

“ If competitors could serve the lower cost segment of the market, leaving the Postal Service to handle the high-cost services, the Service would lose lucrative portions of its business, thereby increasing its average unit cost and requiring higher prices to all users. [5] See Report of the President's Commission on Postal Organization, Towards Postal Excellence, 94th Cong., 2d Sess., 129 (Comm.Print 1968) . The postal monopoly, therefore, exists to ensure that postal services will be provided to the citizenry at large, and not to secure employment for postal workers. ”

“ In the early part of 1890 the discontent born of a long period of neglect and refusal to consider their moderate demands reached an acute and critical stage. The necessity for some sort of an organisation of postmen was beginning to be recognised among them, and it was then decided to start the Postmen’s Union. A request privately made by the postmen themselves to several prominent labour leaders was the means of bringing it into existence. ”

“ Under the power to establish post offices and post roads it has made a Government monopoly of the entire postal service, established a money-order system, and provided for free delivery of mail in all cities and in many rural communities. ”

“ But over and above all these considerations was the great question of the public convenience, and people were beginning to understand the great principle of State administration, 226that a loss to one Department is not a loss to the State if the people benefit. Dr. Von Stephan was for twenty-five years the head of the German Postal Administration, and he attended more than one of the Congresses subsequent to that at Berne. At the Vienna Congress of 1891 he modestly resisted the idea that the Postal Union originated from his action. He said: “Ideas are not originated by any individual. ”

“ Every postoffice, the disposal of which he loses, will be so much gain to his working power, to his freedom and moral independence, to his usefulness and dignity as a legislator. He will, therefore, not only do the utmost in his power to aid the Postmaster-General in the work of reorganizing the postal service according to the President’s order, but he will zealously promote the passage of a law bringing under effective Civil Service Rules those postoffices which the President’s order cannot reach. ”

“ When the first statutes limiting private carriage of letters on post roads were enacted in 1792, the Post Office offered no pickup or delivery services. See C. Scheele, A Short History of the Mail Service 66, 91 (1970) . Statutory authority to employ letter carriers was not enacted until two years later and was largely ignored until the late 1820's. ”

“ The principle of free citizenship, unhampered and uncorrupted by the abuse of public employment as party spoils, is now solidly established in the entire Federal service except in one branch of the Postal Service — the smaller Post Offices — and will shortly embrace these. ”

“ The postal movement particularly, as represented by the sorters’ organisation, discharged its due share of work and responsibility in connection with the general crusade of labour, sending delegates to the Trades Union Congress each year, holding a respected position in the London Trades Council, and rendering assistance both moral and pecuniary in most of the functions of trades union and labour politics. ”

“ In consequence of this meeting, and the disturbance that ensued, another thirteen men were next day suspended from duty.
But the agitation still continued to progress, the men being supported in their academic demand for a free public platform by a section of the public press and a few public men. The leader of the Postmen’s Union now thought that he was in a position to dictate terms to the Postmaster-General, and repeated the demands of the men in an ultimatum despatched one afternoon by special messenger. ”

“ Slowly, step by step, labour in the Post-Office has gained something of a recognition of its value; but it has been forced to fight its way ofttimes with manacled hands and tape-tied feet. Happily, however, the story of postal agitation and the spread of combination throughout the postal service is not made up entirely of failures, contumacies, inflictions, and punishments. That combination in this branch of the public service has had to fight hard for its very existence from the beginning till now is perfectly true. ”

“ The states before the Union was formed could establish postoffices and postroads and in doing so could bring into play the police power in the protection of their citizens from the use of the means so provided for purposes supposed to exert a demoralizing influence upon the people. When the power to establish postoffices and postroads was surrendered to the Congress it was as a complete power, and the grant carried with it the right to exercise all the powers which made that power effective. ”

“ In short, if the merchant had to correspond with neighbouring places he was compelled to employ the post office. With a country so extended and so highly civilized as the American colonies were at that day, a postal system was an absolute necessity; and if the system maintained by the government were protected by a monopoly, its charges were a tax on the users of the system in so far as those charges exceeded the strict cost of carrying on the service. ”

“ In thus exercising their right as citizens in approaching Parliamentary candidates, they were doing so not only in their own behalf but in the interest of every other class in the postal service throughout the United Kingdom, embracing the telegraphists, the sorting clerks, the Savings-Bank men, the postmen, themselves, and others. ”

“ The carriage of the mails is the most important monopoly carried on by the government, and we may find some facts of interest by enquiring the reasons why it is for the public welfare that it should be so conducted rather than by private enterprise. In the first place, if it were left to private enterprise to furnish us with postal facilities, the postal service would be much more limited than now; many places of small importance being left without postal facilities or charged a much higher rate for service than now. ”

“ Postoffices and post roads are established to facilitate the transmission of intelligence. Both commerce and the postal service are placed within the power of Congress, because, being national in their operation, they should be under the protecting care of the national government. The powers thus granted are not confined to the instrumentalities of commerce or the postal service known or in use when the Constitution was adopted, but they keep pace with the progress of the country, and adapt themselves to the new developments of time and circumstances. ”