Rally seeks to keep six-day mail delivery

More than 50 residents, postal workers and business owners gathered Sunday afternoon to picket near the Cape Girardeau post office to protest a change from six-day mail delivery to five.

The Delivering for America rally, organized by the National Association of Letter Carriers with the support of the Southeast Missouri Central Labor Council, represented a national day of protest, said Thomas Bolen, an advocate for Delivering for America and one of the rally organizers.

"The Post Master General announced late February that they would be moving to five-day delivery with or without the approval of Congress," Bolen said. "The Senate has since passed a measure to approve six-day delivery and it's sitting on the president's desk, but we can't wait and hope that saves us."

A main goal for the rally, Bolen said, was to show how five-day delivery would be a detriment not only to letter carriers, but to the public. He said senior citizens and veterans who depend on postal services to deliver medicine and checks would be among those most affected.

Mark Guilliams, co-owner of Premium Regional Mail, a direct mail business in Jackson, said cutting back to five-day delivery would certainly be a problem for his customers.

Clyde Clippard, a retired union plumber and pipe fitter, rallies in support of saving the United Sates Postal Service's Saturday delivery. "I just want to support these guys," Clippard said. Over 50 people rallied around the Cape Girardeau post office Sunday afternoon, March 24, 2013, during the National Day of Action to Save the United States Postal Service. This was one of four rallies held in the state Sunday in support of saving Saturday postal delivery. (Laura Simon)

"I'm here to represent my customers, which are businesses like banks, hospitals and universities," Guilliams said. "They still depend on that first class mail to deliver the things that can't be faxed or emailed."

Guilliams said decreasing services and efficiency while increasing prices wasn't a sensible business model and already would have driven any other business into the ground. If a restaurant increased prices but decreased portions and service, he said, it would no longer be in business.

Audrey Humes, past president of the Missouri Rural Letter Carriers Association, said that in Missouri, a state with multiple rural communities, paper mail is still a viable, popular means of communication.

"Many people in rural areas don't have access to the Internet, so they still depend heavily on mail," she said.

Humes said there are nearly 3,600 rural routes served in Missouri, which means a great number of people will receive decreased access to news or other items of value delivered via paper mail. She also said eliminating Saturday delivery will lead to a loss of jobs.

"The weekend is the time that regular mail carriers are off work, so part-time workers fulfill those duties," Humes said. "If there's no Saturday delivery, then about 20,000 part-time workers lose their jobs."

Humes and Guilliams said they encourage all concerned businesses and citizens to contact their congressmen and senators to retain six-day mail delivery.

srinehart@semissourian.com

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Pertinent address:

320 N. Frederick St., Cape Girardeau Mo.