Postal consolidation faces stiff opposition

WILKES-BARRE – Several business owners and workers spoke out at a meeting Tuesday night, disagreeing with a mail processing study that would eliminate jobs and reassign positions at the local postal facility.

A study conducted by the U.S. Postal Service supports consolidating redundant operations from the Wilkes-Barre processing facility into the Scranton facility.

City Mayor Thomas Leighton said the consolidation would negatively affect local businesses.

“We have employers that really rely on getting their mail out,” said Leighton, who attended the meeting at Best Western Genetti Hotel. “That’s why it’s important for the future of the city, while we’re going under revitalization, that we maintain this kind of service.”

According to the study, all mail processing operations in Wilkes-Barre would be transferred to the Scranton and Lehigh Valley facility.

A five-minute video was presented about redundant operations at the local facility. Ray Daiutolo, a regional spokesman of the Postal Service, said the Postal Service is underutilizing its Wilkes-Barre facilities.

“We’re underutilizing our facility because of volume reductions in Scranton and the same thing in Lehigh Valley,” Daiutolo said. “What we’re looking at is, is there is a way to combine some of those operations together in one of those facilities?”

Some USPS customers and owners of small businesses asked how bulk mailing would affect their business.

“The intent of the study is designed so that it doesn’t affect service,” Daiutolo said.

Another concern was if jobs would be affected.

Some employees may have to be reassigned or relocated, up to 191 positions, according to a union representative, depending on their job position and depending if the consolidation were to go through.

John Kishel, president of the Postal Workers Local 175, said the move must improve mailing efficiency and service.

“If this move is done here it does neither,” Kishel said at the meeting. “Why pick on us? Why come down here when we have dedicated employees and supervisors whose goal is to make sure that service standards are kept up.”

The study, which started in Jan. 7, supports consolidating some mail processing operations currently being performed at the Wilkes-Barre processing facility.

Postal officials say the results of the informational study may be practical to consolidate.

“The concept works where you consolidate operations, maximize your efficiencies and utilize the resources that you have,” said Ed Burke, district manager of the Postal Service. “We are in an acute financial crisis.”

The Postal Service projected a loss this year of more than $5.8 billion.

People are paying their bills online now, which has contributed to that factor, along with the economic recession, according to Burke. The volume of first-class single mail has dropped 19 billion pieces, or 29 percent, since 1998.

“We don’t have enough mail to work on the machines that we have,” Burke said.

The proposed annual savings in the draft of the study would save approximately $3.9 million. The Postal Service projects a net decrease of approximately 44 positions with the move.

While postal officials say services will not be affected, several other members, including public officials disagree.

“It seems to me there is entirely too much concentration on the internal financing of the Postal Service itself,” said U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, who attended the meeting. “We just have to take a great deal of more time to analyze what that impact will be.”

On Monday, there were 600 new jobs introduced to Sally Mae in Hanover Township.

Kanjorski questioned if mailing services would affect that business, as well as smaller businesses in the Wilkes-Barre area.

Representatives from U.S. Sens. Robert Casey and Arlen Specter, and a representative from U.S. Rep. Chris Carney’s office, disagreed with the study.

They say the consolidation would negatively affect local businesses.