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News Brief

Oct. 1, 2024 |  By: Deborah Van Fleet - Public News Service

NE town understands issues highlighted by nationwide Postal Union rallies

postal workers

By Deborah Van Fleet - Public News Service

American Postal Workers Union members are holding a nationwide "Day of Action" rally today to draw attention to a number of concerns, several of them a result of the leadership's "Delivering for America" plan.

Some North Platte area residents can relate to the APWU's concerns. The community learned early this year that the North Platte Mail Processing Center will be closed and the work moved to Denver. Opposition from residents, business and community leaders and Nebraska's congressional delegation resulted in a "stay" on the order until January.

Gary Person, president and CEO of the North Platte Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation, said the processing center serves a huge area, stretching to the border of several neighboring states. He contended it almost seems as if the Postal Service wants to abandon rural America.

"Even by their own admission at the public hearing, some of the information that came out indicated that Denver's distribution system is one of the most inefficient in the country," Person pointed out. "And they want to dump more mail into that flawed system?"

The Delivering for America plan could lead to closure of at least 60 mail-processing centers across the country and moving the work to larger regional hubs. Union concerns also include inadequate staffing levels and the Postal Service's failure to implement new innovative services laid out in the 2022 Postal Reform Act.

Person noted the Postal Service was not at all up-front about its plans for the North Platte Mail Processing Center.

"They were doing the minimal, what they had to do, to put it on some remote postal website about what was going on," Person asserted. "They preyed on the fact that none of the local media was aware of it or involved in it, and certainly not our community leadership either."

He added local Postal Service managers seemed to have a "gag order" preventing them from sharing anything and said his repeated attempts to get information from the Postal Service Public Relations Department in Washington, D.C. brought no response.

Sheri Butler, associate offices director for the American Postal Workers Union from Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, is one of the founders of the "We Won't be Silenced" campaign which led to today's "Day of Action." She said it began as a letter-writing campaign after the Postal Service Board of Governors stopped allowing public comments at their quarterly meetings.

Butler emphasized it is crucial for the public to get involved.

"Constituents are reaching out to their senators, and the senators are responding," Butler noted. "We need the public to keep voicing their concerns loudly and pressuring USPS management to act in the best interest of the people."