Cape Girardeau rally planned to protest end of Saturday mail

An organizer expects at least 50 people, and maybe as many as 150, to participate Sunday in Cape Girardeau's portion of a nationwide rally protesting the end of six-day home delivery by the U.S. Postal Service.

Thomas Bolen, who is putting together Cape Girardeau's part of the Delivering for America rally at 1 p.m. outside the Cape Girardeau post office at 320 N. Frederick St., said the message organizers hope to communicate is that "a vast majority of people are affected if it does go to five-day delivery."

The Postal Service announced plans in February to cut Saturday home mail delivery to trim costs.

The move is expected to save about $2 billion a year toward the $20 billion budget gap the Postal Service faces between now and 2016, Postal Service regional spokesman Richard Watkins said.

Packages still will be delivered six days per week, express mail will continue its seven-day schedule and delivery to post office boxes will continue on Saturdays. Post offices also will maintain Saturday hours.

"Right now there's just insufficient mail volume to sustain six-day mail delivery," Watkins said.

But Bolen and others hope to convince people otherwise, and exert pressure on Congress to get the Postal Service to reconsider cutting a day of delivery.

The National Association of Letter Carriers union is leading the Delivering for America effort, hoping Congress will preserve six-day delivery beyond Sept. 30. The continuing budget resolution passed this week includes six-day delivery, but the resolution will expire at the end of September.

Cape Girardeau is one of more than 100 locations that will host a rally nationwide, Bolen said, and one of three in Missouri. St. Louis and Kansas City also will host rallies.

Watkins said the postal service hopes to end Saturday home delivery in August, and the move shouldn't result in layoffs. Instead, positions will be eliminated through attrition.

Meanwhile, the closure of Cape Girardeau's mail distribution facility remains set for some time in 2014. The center is one of two in the state -- the other is in Springfield -- where the Postal Service plans to consolidate with operations in larger cities. Plans are to merge Cape Girardeau's operation into the St. Louis distribution center, and the Springfield operation into the Kansas City center.

msanders@semissourian.com

388-3652

Pertinent address:

320 N. Frederick St., Cape Girardeau, MO