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The Kalamazoo Processing and Distribution Center on 9th Street in Oshtemo Township is slated to be closed on April 18. Mail sorting and processing work will be transferred from there to Grand Rapids. The transfer will mean the 100 to 120 postal workers in Oshtemo Township will have to find jobs elsewhere.Stacks of mail are shown Thursday in a U.S. Postal Service vehicle,
(Al Jones | MLive/Gazette)
KALAMAZOO, MI – Two trade unions will protest on Friday the planned closing of the United States Postal Service's sorting center on 9th Street in Oshtemo Township.
Members of the American Postal Workers Union-Local 143 and the National Mail Handlers Postal Union are expected to carry informational picket signs from noon to 1 p.m. Friday (Nov. 14) at three USPS post office locations: the Kalamazoo main post office at 1121 Miller Road in Kalamazoo; the Portage post office at 1151 W. Milham Ave.; and the Westwood post office at 167 N. Drake Road in Kalamazoo.
The postal service center at 3885 S. 9th St., called the Kalamazoo Processing and Distribution Center, is slated to be closed on April 18, although part of it will be used as a hub for trucks transporting mail. The 9th Street center processes mail that originates throughout Southwest Michigan, all mailings that originate in the zip codes that begin with "490" and "491."
Mail sorting and processing work will be transferred to facilities at 36th Street and Patterson Street in Grand Rapids. Postal workers say the transfer will mean the 100 to 120 postal workers in Oshtemo Township will have to find jobs elsewhere.
Linda Sarratt, president of the Southwest Michigan Area local of the American Postal Workers Union, said the protest is intended to generate awareness of plans to close the processing center and of changes in mail delivery standards.
"The most important thing is this is a service," Sarratt said of USPS. "And as a service we want to give our 100 percent. We want to see people getting what they paid for. If they paid for next-day delivery, they should get that service. It shouldn't be eroded."
The USPS announced plans more than two years ago to consolidate the work done at 82 U.S. locations into other facilities. The Oshtemo Township location was one of them.
Sabrina Todd, communications spokeswoman for the USPS Greater Michigan District, has said the consolidation is part of a nationwide plan to cut costs and adjust to the ongoing decline of first-class mailings. Those mailings dropped by 40 percent between 2000 and 2009, a study found.
USPS said it is has lost $26 billion nationwide over the last three years.
Consolidations are part of a plan to help it save $3.5 billion over the next five years, with $2.5 million to be saved annually by consolidating work from Oshtemo Township to Grand Rapids.
The U.S. Postal Service is an independent organization that is not a part of the U.S. government. It does not receive taxpayer support.
The unions say the work transfer will mean lengthier delivery times. They say USPS promised in 2010 that service standards would not be lowered by efforts to put the organization on a better financial track. But they say the changes will mean that overnight delivery within the same city will be virtually eliminated.
Sarratt said items that have typically been mailed and delivered in one day (within the same city) may take two to three days. That will impact the mailing of medicines, bill payments, online purchases and local newspapers as well as cards and letters, she said.
"A lot of people get their medicines through the mail," she said.
A lot of people also pay bills through the mail that need to be post-marked by a certain date in order to be properly credited with bill collectors and others, she said.
Postal workers say mail acceptance times are changing in order to accommodate the additional time it will take to truck mail to Grand Rapids. Some mail may not be post-marked the day it is sent if it does not arrive in Grand Rapids by a certain time each day.
Closing the 9th Street processing center will cause a hardship to workers there. But Todd said USPS does not lay off its workers. It provides them opportunities to continue to work for the postal service at other locations within a 50-mile radius.
According to information provided by Sarratt and Ellen Carpenter, of the National Mail Handlers Postal Union, 51 U.S. senators and 160 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have called for a one-year moratorium on the reduction in service and the closure of mail processing centers "to allow Congress time to enact postal legislation that would improve, not degrade, postal service."
They want Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe and the USPS Board of Governors to honor the request. At the request of Congress, the consolidation plan was put on hold in 2012 but that moratorium was lifted in June and consolidation was to restart at many locations in January.
Sarratt said she wants people to contact their legislators and ask them to push for another moratorium of at least one year "and to ask them to address the issue of them changing the service standards."
MLive business writer Al Jones may be contacted at ajones5@mlive.com. Follow me on Twitter at ajones5_al.