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Network Realignment

APWU Locals Lead Protests of USPS Consolidation Plans

(This article was first published in the July/August 2009 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine.)

The controversy over USPS efforts to cut the nation’s mail processing and distribution network has been rekindled in recent months, following a rash of announcements that the Postal Service is seeking to consolidate operations in many locations. Workers, owners of small businesses, and other concerned citizens have been speaking out against USPS plans.

APWU members are fighting a proposal to move mail-processing operations away from Wilkes-Barre, PA.

At one of the noisier public protests last spring, several business owners and elected officials in Wilkes-Barre disagreed sharply with the USPS conclusion — based on the “initial results” of an Area Mail Processing (AMP) study — that moving operations 25 miles away to Scranton would leave the economy of Luzerne County unharmed.

The Wilkes-Barre City Council unanimously approved a resolution that opposes “any and all efforts” to close the P&DC serving the area. “We have employers that really rely on getting their mail out,” Mayor Thomas Leighton said at the meeting.“ That’s why it’s important for the future of the city, while we’re going under revitalization, that we maintain this kind of service.”

The “negative local impact” was a recurring theme voiced at the public meeting. “We just have to take a great deal of more time to analyze what that impact will be, ”U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D) told the daily Times-Leader .

“Why pick on us?” asked John Kishel, president of APWU’s Wilkes-Barre Area Local, noting that nothing in the Postal Service presentation implied that improved efficiency or mailing service would result from the shift in mail-processing operations.

Other ‘Network Realignment’ Proposals

Between February 2006 and November 2008, the Postal Service announced no AMP studies. Over the next six months, however, more than two dozen sites were newly targeted or re-targeted for consolidation.

Approximately 100 picketers demonstrated in early May in New Castle, PA , where an AMP study had been announced the previous month. “The way I see it,” New Castle Local President David Wigley said, “it could mean anything from taking away one tray of mail to an entire closure of the place.”

The Postal Service has yet to announce when a public meeting will be held to review the proposal to move at least some mail processing operations 50 miles away to the Pittsburgh P&DC. “In addition to the service to the community being impacted,” Wigley said, “a couple hundred jobs” are on the line.

The local launched a petition drive was launched at savenewcastlemail.com and has garnered support from elected officials. New Castle Mayor Anthony Mastrangelo, Lawrence County Commissioner Richard DeBlasio, and Pennsylvania House Rep. Chris Sainato joined APWU members and members of other local unions in the May 8 demonstration, and on May 20, U.S. Rep Jason Altmire (D) and U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D) and Arlen Specter (D) sent a letter to Postmaster General John E. Potter urging him to keep the New Castle P&DF open.

In Winchester, VA , the regional Chamber of Commerce released a statement expressing its concern about consolidating mail processing from the rural location to a P&DC 50 miles away in a congested area near Washington-Dulles International Airport.

“We have heard from many businesses in the region who work every day with client bulk mailings,” said Chamber official Randy Collins. A public hearing on the issue was poorly attended, he said, because so many Winchester-area businesses were unaware it was being held.

Horn blasts and petition signatures were two ways people showed their support for Winchester APWU members, who demonstrated near the city’s main post office with signs saying “Don’t Stamp Out Our Local Economy” and “It’s Not Just a Letter — It’s Your Life.”

In Zanesville,OH , where mail processing may be shifted nearly 60 miles away to Columbus, the Postal Service is proposing a move that it says would save $789,000. In a public meeting held in mid-April, it was noted that an Area Mail Processing study completed nearly two years ago projected a savings of nearly the identical amount.

“I think they used a lot of the old numbers, the old volumes, and really didn’t do much study of where we’re at now,” Zanesville Local APWU President Gerald Corns told the Zanesville Times Recorder .

Approximately 200 people attended a town-hall meeting April 7 in Mansfield, OH , including representatives from the offices of Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R). Several elected officials spoke at the meeting, questioning whether the Postal Service was taking into account the degradation of mail service that would occur if mail processing was moved more than 60 miles away to Akron. Jordan has called for a study by the Government Accountability Office.

In New York City , a mid-April rally organized by public officials and postal union leaders was staged to protest a move of mail processing from Staten Island to Brooklyn or Queens. During the event, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) promised to “challenge a cost-cutting analysis.” Unless it clearly shows that money will be saved, she said, the move should not be considered.

U.S. Rep. Michael McMahon (D) said that trucking Staten Island mail off the island for sorting and then bringing it back for delivery not only would delay the timely distribution of letters, but would be environmentally harmful.

Despite a campaign of opposition in Manatee County, FL , the USPS in April began moving some operations more than 50 miles to a P&DC in Tampa, eliminating 59 jobs at the Manasota P&DC.

“Was the fix in?” asked the Bradenton Herald in an editorial. The newspaper noted that the closure came “despite objections from a congressman, mayors, council members, county commissioners, other civic leaders, business people and residents from around the region ... How much more opposition must there be?”

Postal officials have estimated that the closing would save $3.2 million a year, “yet nobody’s seen any documentation to support that,” the newspaper editorial said. “Where is it? Does it even exist? The public should have access to that in order to question its validity.”

In an April 16 letter, Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) asked the GAO “to conduct an independent review of consolidation plans.” He pointed out the USPS failure to provide hard data to justify its proposal, and said that a review would “help ensure that no postal workers will unnecessarily lose their jobs or be relocated, that there will be no reduction in service, and that the promised savings are realistic and attainable.”

“I also request that the GAO make recommendations to further improve the AMP study process,” the congressman wrote, “for the benefit of other communities undergoing a similar process now or in the future.”

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