Local Efforts Amplify the Fight

(This article first appeared in the July/August 2013 edition of The American Postal Worker.)

As the Postal Service proceeds with plans to consolidate the mail procession network, union members and citizens are fighting back.

Norfolk

In Virginia, where the USPS plans to shift mail processing operations from the Norfolk Processing & Distribution Center to a facility near Richmond, union members have rallied opposition to the plan and generated considerable media coverage in the process.

Maintaining overnight delivery of local mail would be impossible after the consolidation, Norfolk Local President Michele Wright told the Virginian-Pilot. “We believe that our customers will be greatly impacted,” she said. The union also rebutted management’s claim that the consolidation would save $20 million.

Union leaders also described the hardships consolidation would cause the 211 clerks and 92 maintenance workers who would be affected. Many APWU members are wondering what postal jobs will be available within a 50-mile radius, as required by the contract. APWU locals around the country are waging similar battles.

Berkeley

On the West Coast, the citizens of Berkeley CA have banded together to stop the Postal Service from selling the town’s historic post office, a city landmark with notable architecture and New Deal-era art that has been a community gathering spot for a century.

Spearheaded by Mayor Tom Bates, the effort to prevent the sale of the Berkeley Main Post Office has drawn hundreds of people to public meetings and rallies. Residents fear the facility will be demolished or turned into upscale condominiums and retail outlets while postal services are moved to the outskirts of town. At a Feb. 26 meeting, an overflow crowd pummeled USPS managers with questions, and activists followed up with leafleting and petition campaigns to let their neighbors know what they were about to lose — and why.

Following a perfunctory public comment period, in April the USPS announced that it planned to proceed with the sale. In response, the union and community activists have renewed their efforts and drawn more support from allies across the nation.

Mayor Bates sent letters to government leaders in 54 other locations where historic post offices have been on the auction block, writing, “Collectively, we may be able to lobby the federal government to halt the sale of post offices across the country and express our outrage at the privatization of publicly funded buildings.”

At a May 7 rally, hundreds of Berkeley residents crowded the sidewalks outside the facility to protest USPS plans and to urge California’s U.S. senators, Barbara Boxer (D) and Diane Feinstein (D), to support the Postal Service Protection Act (S. 630). Only that kind of action would stop the red ink, APWU East Bay Area Local President Steve Lysaght told the Mercury News.