I have this great idea to help solve the Post Office dilemma — you know the one — they are broke and have this postal union contract that they don’t know how to handle.

The Post Master General could take a lesson from Ronald Reagan when he had a problem with the air traffic controllers when they went on strike, causing untold problems with air traffic nationwide. He broke the contract, fired all of the controllers and placed military controllers in their jobs until the problems could be worked out.

With the war in Iraq over and plenty of men and women coming home and looking for jobs, what better time to break the postal workers union contract, fire the ones that can’t work out a new, more reasonable contract and replace them with unemployed military personnel. There will be thousands of men and women who know how to work hard for long hours under some of the worst conditions imaginable, without overtime, take orders and actually appreciate the United States and for what it stands.

With all of this in place, a new workable contract could be negotiated — one with reasonable pay scales, reasonable benefits, and eliminate the no-reduction-in-jobs clause.

Make having a job with the postal service a privilege instead of a right.

Make the postal service a more customer-oriented operation and base pay on merit.

I know that there are a lot of great postal workers in and around this area, and some are friends of mine and do a wonderful job, but that doesn’t help the bottom line of the postal service.

It is still broke and going downhill, and if it fails to survive, these same friends and relatives will be without jobs anyway.  Sometimes hard business decisions must be made to save a business from failure.

When Entergy faced some financial hardships several years ago, we had to close many offices and eliminate many jobs that were filled with great people who worked hard for many years but we all survived.

No one liked the idea of doing that, but it was necessary and kept electric rates from increasing. The union worked with the management to make a smooth transition with very few problems.

It could happen with the postal service.

Forest Persons

Natchez resident