D.C. plan could stall your mail, Island postal workers warn

Picture this.

You send a letter from your Rosebank home to a friend in Grant City, but it has to go through Brooklyn to get there. It wouldn't even get a Staten Island postmark.

Yesterday, postal workers around the country rallied to protest the possible consolidation of scores of mail-processing plants.

While a Postal Service spokesman said such a scenario won't happen here anytime soon -- despite the Staten Island Processing and Distribution Center's designation three months ago as a possible candidate for consolidation with Brooklyn -- borough postal workers are taking no chances.

About two dozen of them, waving a big American flag and chanting "Save our service" to a chorus of honking horns, gathered for about an hour outside the main post office on Manor Road in Castleton Corners.

Doling out postcards and literature, they urged customers to pressure elected officials to reject consolidation.

"Washington's plan could mean slower, less reliable mail service for all of us here in Staten Island," said Great Kills resident Fred C. Fischer, president of Local 231 of the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO. "We will likely see mail collected earlier and arriving later in the day, even into the evening, and we could see delays up to a week [in] receiving our mail, delaying vital services such as checks, bill payments, birthday cards and important medication."

In July, the Postal Service identified the Staten Island Processing and Distribution Center at the main post office as one of 139 potential candidates for a feasibility review on consolidation. Officials said they might consider merging it into the Brooklyn Processing and Distribution Center in the East New York section.

In that case, all mail to and from Staten Island would be processed in Brooklyn, including intra-borough letters. Staten Island also would lose its postmark.

The Staten Island plant at the main post office processes 1.5 million pieces of mail daily.

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