Postal Workers: Save Redlands and Industry Postal Facilities

A rally cry by US Postal Service workers to collect 1 million signatures in an effort to preserve six-day delivery and stop the closure of more than 200 offices and processing plants has been successful, postal service officials said.

On Monday, Postal Service labor unions announced it took 12-weeks to collect 1 million signatures.

“By reaching this goal, it is our hope that it will help prevent passage of two major bills pending before Congress that are designed to dismantle the Postal Service — H.R. 2309 and S. 1789,” according to the Save America’s Postal Service, a website that has served as the central location for information on the petition drive.

H.R. 2309 would form a commission to study and make recommendations on downsizing the USPS and the closure of hundreds of post offices. It would also end Saturday mail delivery service.

Currently the City of Industry Processing and Distribution Center and the San Bernardino Processing and Distribution Center in Redlands are on the chopping block. The measures are part of a cost cutting effort due to a $5 billion shortfall during the 2010 fiscal year that ended Sept. 30.

The U.S. Postal Service put off the consolidation until May 15 after receiving several requests from several U.S. Senators, according to a news release. 

In the Senate, S. 1789 does not repeal a controversial pension pre-funding requirement, will phase out door-to-door delivery and eliminate Saturday delivery by 2014, said postal union officials.

According to officials, the signatures were already processed and sent to Congress.

“It was a very impressive situation,” said Jerry Ryan, president of the San Bernardino Chapter of the National Association of Letter Carriers. “But if you think about it, it wasn’t that hard to do because the American public has for a long time been supportive of the post office. And they don’t want to see this grand institution chopped up or sold out or privatized so that you don’t know who’s delivering your mail.”

Postal workers are very passionate about the job of postal workers, Ryan said.

“From a normal self-concerned point of view, we want and need good jobs,” Ryan said. “That’s what the American dream is about.”

Beyond that, cutting the service could mean a delay in the delivery in essential packages, such as medicine for the elderly, Ryan said.

The postal workers are facing off against Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who introduced H.R. 2309. In a letter to the editor run by several publications, Issa blames the insolvency issue to procrastination.

“The advent of technology has undermined the business model of the Postal Service. Simply put, by delaying necessary changes to adapt to a changing world, the USPS, clinging to an antiquated business model, is now facing financial collapse.

"Inflexible congressional mandates and impractical union agreements have raised serious questions as to whether or not the USPS can make the necessary changes even if it had the will to do so,” Issa wrote.

Though the congressman rejects the argument, Ryan said the problem is in fact a pension fund that comes with a requirement to pre-fund a 75-year liability in 10 years to cover healthcare benefits of future retirees.

The cost to the Postal Service is more than $5 billion annually, union officials said. Without the mandate, the USPS would have shown a surplus of $611 million over the past four fiscal years, they said.

No other federal agency or even private sector company is mandated to prefund future retirement benefits this way, Ryan said.

“So here we are now, fighting. We’ve survived the telegraph, the telephone, the fax, the Internet, the recession, and during the recession we’re somehow supposed to come up with $50 billion to $75 billion in a 10-year period to prefund health benefits for future retirees that A) are not even working for the Postal Service yet and B) are not even born yet,” Ryan said.