LABOR SCENE

Study piques postal employees

By RANDOLPH HEASTER

Columnist

• Read more columns by the Star's business staff

A possible consolidation by the U.S. Postal Service had some of its employees protesting in front of the Main Post Office last week.

More than two dozen members of the American Postal Workers Union held signs and handed out fliers in chilly and rainy conditions at Union Station on Thursday. They contended that individuals and small businesses will be hurt by possible cuts the Postal Service is studying.

A Postal Service spokesman responded that a feasibility study exploring operational changes is ongoing and that service will not be affected by any consolidation.

Mark Giddens, president of the union’s Kansas Kaw Valley Area Local 238, said the Postal Service’s feasibility study is being done without input from the public. About 140 facilities nationwide could be closed, Giddens said, including a processing and distribution center in Kansas City, Kan., that has 400 employees.

Most of those postal workers would be transferred to another facility, but service would be affected, Giddens said. A consolidation also would mean fewer neighborhood post offices, which are convenient for elderly residents, he added.

“It’ll slow down the mail,” he said. “Mail that takes two to three days will take three to four days in the future.”

Including letter carriers and mail handlers, there are nearly 5,000 postal workers in the area, said Sharon AlUqdah, president of the union’s Greater Kansas City Metro Area Local.

AlUqdah said prices are going up for individual and small-business postal users as the Postal Service gives steep discounts to large customers such as big corporations.

“This consolidation is not going to take away from us as workers, but it will take away from us as consumers,” she said. “I want to be able to mail a letter at a reasonable cost and not let corporate America write the laws so they can pay less while we pay more. The Postal Service is supposed to be for individual Americans.”

A Postal Service spokesman responded that first-class mail, the Postal Service’s most profitable service, has declined by 11 billion pieces since 1998.

“We can no longer do business like we’ve done for the past 35 years,” said Richard Watkins, a Postal Service spokesman for the Mid-America District. “When volume for your most profitable product is down significantly, you have to look at ways to do things differently, including looking at consolidating our mail-processing facilities. We’re not a tax-supported federal agency.”

Watkins called the protest “misinformational picketing.”

“Service will not be impacted negatively, and this would not be a threat to anyone’s jobs,” he said. “If service becomes impacted, it becomes unfeasible to look at consolidation.”

Watkins said the feasibility study is ongoing and no final decisions have been made about the Kansas City, Kan., facility or any others.