Democrat Senators call for USPS to delay mail plant closures
A group of US Senators from the Democratic Party has written to outgoing Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe calling for a delay on the planned closure of 82 mail processing plants next year. The 27 Democrat Senators and one Democrat-leaning independent Senator said that failures to complete impact assessments on some plant closures meant it would be “impossible” to understand the impact of the consolidation on mail services.
The US Postal Service wants to close the mail processing plants from January 2015 in order to continue downsizing its network in the light of declining mail volumes, and to further reduce operating costs.
USPS had suggested that if Congress had been able to pass meaningful postal reforms to help with its multi-billion dollar annual losses, the closure programme might have been avoided. But, Congress has so far failed to pass postal reforms.
The Democrats, who will relinquish control of the US Senate to the Republicans at the end of this month, following November’s elections, have been concerned at the job losses and reduced mail service standards associated with network consolidation.
The Senators’ letter criticised the USPS for its public communications regarding the plant closure, stating that information provided to local communities had been “so vague and uninformative as to be meaningless to the public”.
The Senators pointed to a USPS Inspector General’s report that claimed 91 of 95 feasibility studies related to the consolidation of mail processing plants were not completed.
The studies were not completed because service standards are currently being revised, according to the Postal Service.
But the Senators said that since the USPS is aware that its feasibility studies are incomplete, it could adjust its schedule for consolidating the plants until the standards revision, and subsequently the feasibility studies, are completed.
The Senators told Postmaster General Donahoe: “We strongly urge the USPS to delay implementation of any mail processing consolidations until feasibility studies are completed and there has been adequate time for public comment and consideration of those comments.
“Only fair”
“There is no reason that the USPS cannot delay its consolidations to provide time for the public to see and comment on the service standard worksheets. It is only fair to allow the process to unfold in this way, and the USPS gains little by deciding to continue the consolidation process on its current, arbitrary timeline.”
USPS, which made a $5.5bn loss in its financial year up to the end of September, its eighth consecutive year of massive losses, hopes to save $750m a year with the planned plant closures.
The consolidation process is due to start next month, and be completed by the autumn of 2015.
USPS has already downsized its mail processing plant network from 675 plants to 320 since 2006, with First Class Mail volumes down 50% over the past decade.
The Senators writing to the Postmaster General this month, calling for a delay on the next phase of plant consolidations, included Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken of Minnesota, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Jon Tester and John Walsh of Montana, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. The letter was also signed by the Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
