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Network Realignment
Seven More AMPs Terminated
(This article was first published in the July/August 2007 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)
From late April through the first week of June, the Postal Service terminated seven Area Mail Processing studies, bringing to 28 the number of feasibility studies halted in the past year.
“After review, it has been determined that there are currently no significant opportunities to improve efficiency and/or service through consolidation” at the La Crosse (WI) P&DF, said a letter to the APWU on May 22. “Therefore, no significant changes will be made at this time.”
The La Crosse mail-processing operation was to move into the Rochester P&DF, about 70 miles west into Minnesota. It was among 10 AMPs announced by the USPS on Dec. 12, 2005.
AMay 14 letter had revealed that “no significant changes” were in store at the Gaylord (MI) MPO. A study there concerned moving mail processing 60 miles away to Traverse City. As many as 80 APWU-represented employees would have been relocated.
Two weeks earlier, the Postal Service and the local APWU negotiated an agreement that resulted in 20 new career employees in Gaylord. “The hiring at the post office will take place immediately,” said John Marcotte, president of APWU’s Gaylord Local. “This is a huge win for the people of northern Michigan.”
Management also weighed in on the good news. “It’s going to give us career positions we haven’t had in quite a few years,” acting Gaylord postmaster Bob Cherwinski told the Gaylord Herald Times. “The casual employees [are] only a supplemental workforce. The career employees will give stability because they’ll be here year after year.”
‘After Review...’
In mid-May and early June, updates were received about studies that long had been under way in Texas and Ohio.
The May 16 “Notice of the completion” letter regarding the shifting of processing from the Beaumont P&DF to Houston (about 90 miles) and the June 7 letter about the Zanesville MPO-to-Columbus (60 miles) plans were study-termination announcements, and they were well received.
Zanesville Postmaster Gary Haenisch told the Times Recorder that both he and the employees — roughly five dozen of whom could have been affected — were pleased with the study’s findings. “I think we do have a very efficient processing facility,” he said. The study there had been announced in November 2005, as had been the survey in Texas.
Beaumont was one of the cities to benefit from an APWU broadcast-advertising campaign last summer that focused on the negative effects USPS network consolidation plans would have on mail service for individual postal customers and small businesses. Another “TV-radio” city was Cumberland , in western Maryland.
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Sure enough, on May 4, the APWU received word that: “After review, it has been determined not to pursue the consolidation ... at the Cumberland Main Post Office.”
The study to shift Cumberland mail to the Frederick P&DF, 90 miles away, was launched Jan. 6, 2006, and it came at the tail end of a flurry of approximately 50 AMP studies announced over a 10-week period. Throughout 2006, Cumberland Area Local APWU members spread the word about the problems of shifting mailsorting operations to Frederick , which is less than 40 miles from Washington, DC.
On Oct. 26, 2006 , during the APWU’s nationwide day of picketing to protest consolidation, an APWU demonstration resulted in the Postal Service explaining that it had held no public meeting to discuss the proposals because its study had not been completed. The announcement that the study was complete — and that no changes were forthcoming — came a full six months later.
Two Others in April
On April 20, the APWU was notified that the study of consolidation of some mail-processing operations at the Twin Falls (ID) Customer Service Mail Processing Center into the Boise P&DC had been cancelled. The study was one of 10 studies announced 17 months earlier, on Dec. 12, 2005.
An even “older” study was called to a halt on April 19, when the APWU received a termination notice about the study of “the consolidation of cancellation operations” at the Cape Cod P&DF into the Brockton (MA) P&DC. The Cape Cod feasibility survey was among 12 studies announced Nov. 15, 2005.
One to Proceed
For the first time in more than a year, the Postal Service announced it has completed an AMP: It notified the APWU on April 26 that it will implement plans to shift some mail-processing operations from the St. Petersburg (FL) Processing and Distribution Center across Tampa Bay to the Tampa P&DC.
The decision to shift operations drew an angry response from union activists, community leaders, and elected officials who had engaged in a vigorous campaign to preserve St. Petersburg’s high-quality mail service and its postmark, as well as to keep postal jobs in the city.
The Postal Service said that it projects first-year savings of almost $4 million, and annual savings of more than $4.6 million after that. It estimates that there will be a net decrease of 76 positions.
“These numbers came out of thin air,” said Mike Sullivan, President of the APWU Suncoast Area Local. He said that newspapers have reported that as few as 19 jobs would be affected and that only $1.3 million will be saved each year. “What the Postal Service is saying publicly does not match the information in their reports,” Sullivan said. “We don’t intend to roll over.”
House Bill Seeks to Force Consolidation ‘Accountability’ Rep. Bart Stupak (D), who represents northern Michigan and its Upper Peninsula , introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives on May 3 that would establish firm deadlines for Area Mail Processing surveys and would prohibit the USPS from removing equipment or reducing the workforce in affected facilities during AMP studies.
The bill would require the Postal Service to complete AMP studies within 180 days. Extensions of 60 days would be permitted only if “persons likely to be affected” are notified prior to the expiration of the original deadline. “The Gaylord postal employees do excellent work and the Gaylord facility is a key component of our mail-delivery system,” Stupak said in a May 1 press release. He and his staff had met with postal officials in Washington last July. “I expressed a number of concerns, including the importance of continued uniformity of postal service throughout northern Michigan ,” the congressman said at the time. He said that after reviewing the preliminary work and speaking with USPS representatives, he was convinced that the AMP study was “fatally flawed, and fails to reflect the real costs and consequences of relocating the mail processing operations.” (For more on Stupak’s bill, H.R. 2177, see this month's Legislative Department Article.) |
