Area postal workers lobby for local facility

Area U.S. Postal Service employees braved a brisk wintry wind Monday morning to encourage patrons to support their anti-consolidation efforts.

Members of American Postal Workers Union Local No. 4088, handed out literature in front of Cape Girardeau's post office downtown lobbying against a plan to close the Richard G. Wilson Processing and Distribution Center in Cape Girardeau and send that work to a facility in St. Louis.

Greg Davidson, president of the local union chapter, said the consolidation efforts date to 2011 and a mandated feasibility study regarding postal operations. Over the years, plans to shutter the local processing facility have gone back and forth, with some operations moving to St. Louis, but no new study has been done, Davidson said.

Davidson said the consolidation plan came about to lower costs. He contended the majority of cost savings have not materialized, saying the ongoing "process of failure" has degraded service.

"One of our problems is the study they did was conducted a decade ago. So, none of that information that they gathered applies anymore. We are arguing the fact that everything has changed," he said. "Unfortunately, the powers that be at the Postal Service are taking the 'service' out of the Postal Service."

Bill Sturm of Scott City, a 24-year Postal Service employee, said closing the local facility would not only affect mail operations in the region but would also result in lost jobs. If the local plant closes, up to 37 employees could lose their jobs. He pointed to longer mail delivery times as one hazard of shifting operations out of Cape Girardeau.

Davidson agreed.

"If you are going to look at us as a business, our product is service, and when you try to sell an inferior product and raise the price on it, you are not going to get more sales on that product. So, it is a terrible business model," he explained. "We want our postal customers, if they are concerned about their mail, to contact their legislators. It's going to take Congress to try to stop this," he said.

Genevieve Brinkopf of Cape Girardeau said she relies on the Postal Service.

"It's the most important thing to many of us," she said, noting mail delivery as vital. "My sister, who is 95, gets her medication through the Postal Service. It's a service to the people, provided by the United States' government, if we can keep it. It's the only service that the Constitution says they must provide, and that' what it is, a service. It's not a business."