PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — A bill sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins — S. 1789, the 21st Century Postal Act — was approved two weeks ago by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 62-37. Passage of the bill prevents the closure of the Hampden mail distribution plant and recommends other actions to help keep the U.S. Postal Service solvent.
The future of the USPS and possible cuts, should the agency continue to struggle financially, had a number of local postal workers picketing on April 12 in front of Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office on Academy Street in Presque Isle to raise public awareness of the department’s plight and the impact cuts would have on rural service.
“Closure of the plant would have forced the elimination of rural first-class delivery. (Government leaders) are completely out of touch at the local level,” said Kevin Marquis, of Easton, head of the Aroostook County Rural Letter Carriers.
Marquis said certain customers of his rely more on mail than others.
“Our Amish customers depend completely on mail. Customers have seen a variety of ways services have been impacted already — they can no longer find post office numbers listed in the phone book, for example. We used to have a lot of rural customers call asking if we could pick up packages at their homes, etc. That’s not happening now,” Marquis said.
He said technology is playing too big a role in society, especially in rural communities.
“We still have customers who don’t have computers — can’t go online to order stamps, print labels,” said Marquis.
George Dionne, director of retirees for the Maine State Association of Letter Carriers, served as the site lead for the protest. In Aroostook County, the association has 62 members. There are 27 post offices in the County.
“The Senate bill, as written by Sen. Collins, will put an end to six-day mail delivery in two years and phase out door-to-door mail delivery in four years. Our businesses depend on six-day delivery to get the mail where it needs to go in a timely manner,” said Dionne.
If the Hampden site had closed, Dionne said mailed letters would have taken at least one to two days longer to get to recipients.
“If Saturday delivery’s phased out, a letter mailed on Thursday would only reach you by the following Monday or Tuesday. This is not a very acceptable delivery service, causing more loss of revenue for the Postal Service and more cuts in mail service and increases in postage,” Dionne said.
Several Aroostook County jobs have been eliminated, according to Dionne, as the Postal Service has worked over the past year or more to stay in the black.
“Part-time jobs gone is estimated at 27 clerks and rural delivery carriers, full-time jobs lost is estimated around eight,” he said.
Thousands would lose their jobs, should Saturday delivery end.
“Nationwide they estimate 80,000 full-time jobs would be lost if there were no Saturday delivery. If the door-to-door delivery is stopped, another 140,000 full-time jobs will be lost and that doesn’t include numerous part-time positions that would be lost as well,” said Dionne.
The Postal Service has lost more than $13 billion during the past two years, and by the end of 2012, its statutory credit limit of $16 billion will be maxed out. Driving this crisis are many factors, including first-class mail volume has fallen by 26 percent since 2006 and continues to decline. Reflecting the sharp drop in volume, revenue has also plummeted from $72.8 billion in 2006 to $65.7 billion in 2011. The Postal Service is at great risk of not being able to make payroll by this fall, according to the Postmaster General.
Collins’s bill encourages the Postal Service to operate more like a business: by cutting internal costs first instead of driving away customers with deep service cuts or steep price hikes. Specifically, Collins’s legislation prevents the Postal Service from eliminating Saturday service for at least two years and then only if the Government Accountability Office and postal regulators certify that it is necessary to ensure solvency.
The bill includes a one-year moratorium on closures of small, rural post offices unless there is no significant community opposition to the closure. It encourages the Postal Service to work with the community to explore options such as co-locating a post office within a retail store or sharing space with government agencies.
Collins authored a key provision that would result in the continued operation of the Eastern Maine Processing Center in Hampden by mandating certain overnight delivery standards in some areas. In Maine, reliable overnight delivery service would be impossible without both the Eastern Maine facility in Hampden and the Southern Maine plant in Scarborough. The Hampden plant could not be closed as long as these standards become law.
“As I have argued for a long time, given the geography of our state, both plants are clearly essential,” said Collins.
“In recent months, we have seen the Postal Service announce a number of draconian measures including the intent to close hundreds of processing plants and implementing disastrous service standard changes. Our bill takes a far better approach that helps the Postal Service right size its excess capacity, while still maintaining what is one of the most valuable assets to the Postal Service — its ability to deliver mail overnight to many areas,” said Collins.
Dionne said in 2006, Congress passed a law that mandates the Postal Service to pre-fund retiree health care for the next 75 years at a cost of $5.5 billion per year.
“The office of the inspector general has stated the health care is already funded as it stands. No other agency in the world, government or private, is required to do this. This $5.5 billion sits in a fund at Congress’s disposal, more or less; it is another form of taxation charged on postal patrons. There is also an overpayment into the retirement fund that has to be addressed,” said Dionne.
Dionne said changing this practice would have made a big difference in the past year alone.
“One of the answers is to stop the pre-funding of $5.5 billion. If this would happen, the Postal Service would have been $200 million in the black last year. Please note there is no tax dollars spent to operate the USPS; your 45-cent postage pays for this service,” said Dionne.
Dionne and Marquis urge postal customers to let their elected officials know their concerns and keep the pressure on, before drastic changes become a reality.
“If door-to-door delivery gets phased out in the future, that would mean trips of many miles for rural customers just to pick up mail. Everyone in the nation will be affected — the mailers and those who receive the mail,” said Dionne, noting more community mail drops would become the norm, with patrons having go to designated locations to pick up their mail. “Have Sen. Collins go stand at the street corner in the rain to pick up her mail and see what happens.”
