But even this figure has proven alarmingly grim, as postal leaders lament the challenges with "below-margin" package deliveries and other nonregulated services.
Obtaining more information about business dealings and costs for sustaining all services will give postal leaders and their governing bodies the best chance to make operational fixes, including ceasing services that add to their skyrocketing debt.
Postal union leader Dave Ward is to step down as a member of Labour's ruling national executive committee, saying there is a conflict of interest between fighting government policy and sitting on the body.
Postal Union leaders are planning a showdown with the government as they escalate their campaign of strike action at the Royal Mail this week.
Yet many workers and postal union leaders across the country, said today that the United States Postal Service's latest efforts to safeguard workers' health were still not enough, given the lethal possibilities that can arise from exposure to anthrax, which the authorities in Washington said caused the deaths of two postal workers on Monday.
Whether it's the stubborn inefficiencies of the health-care system, the ever-rising costs of the higher-education system, even the slow-motion collapse of the US postal system, leaders with unrivaled expertise and decades of experience can't seem to develop creative solutions to dire problems.
Royal Mail later blamed a hard core element of London postal union leaders for refusing to endorse a proposal that both sides had agreed to.
Maxine Postal, the former leader of the Democratic minority in the Suffolk County Legislature, pleaded guilty today to charges that she attempted to divert $3,000 in campaign contributions illegally.
Anthony Comstock, a postal inspector and leader in the purity movement, successfully lobbied for the passage of the 1873 Comstock Act, a federal law prohibiting mailing of "any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion" as well as any form of contraceptive information.
The postal treaty irked leaders from both parties long before Trump took office, Taub said.
