U.S. Postal Service to close Cape Girardeau distribution facility

Postal workers believe only Congress can save their jobs now that the U.S. Postal Service has confirmed it intends to close Cape Girardeau's Richard G. Wilson Processing and Distribution Facility.

The decision was announced Thursday after five months of angst for workers as the government studied the cost-saving benefits of moving the Cape Girardeau operations to St. Louis.

Specific dates for the closure haven't been set but it won't happen before May 15, said Richard Watkins, spokesman for the Postal Service's regional office in Kansas City. Some employees will be offered the opportunity to transfer to other positions, such as letter carriers, he said.

"It's still a pretty murky situation. You've just got to try to plan your life figuring it's going to happen," said Brad Pickett, who has worked at the distribution center since 1996.

Pickett is one of about 100 workers whose jobs will disappear if the center closes. Employees were told in a meeting Wednesday night the center may close if Congress doesn't act to keep the Postal Service from revising its existing service standards for first-class mail, Pickett said.

Currently, first-class letters mailed within the local area are delivered in one to three days, but the Postal Service is seeking to change that delivery standard to two to three days. The move, which must be approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission but could be stopped by congressional action, would allow the closure of more than 250 distribution centers.

Greg Davidson, president of American Postal Workers Union's Cape Area Local 4088, said union members have been lobbying Missouri legislators in hopes they can block the change in service standards.

"They could not close this plant down and get the mail out overnight. In some areas, where plants have already been closed down, they're seeing huge delays in mail," Davidson said.

Union members have distributed hundreds of postcards to the public to be sent to legislators urging them to work to keep Cape Girardeau's distribution center open, he said.

"If they go through with it, it's not just jobs we're losing. Everybody's mail service is going to suffer," he said.

Davidson said slowing down the delivery of mail would damage local businesses and delay the delivery of medications for many people.

The Postal Service, an independent agency of government, is subject to congressional control on major aspects of its operations.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a Cape Girardeau Republican, expressed disappointment about the decision in a news release.

"I'm incredibly disappointed not only with this decision, but also in the way it was communicated to the communities that rely on these facilities for the timely delivery of the mail they entrust to the USPS," Emerson said.

Emerson said she was also frustrated by the decision, saying the Postal Service acts "as though it doesn't trust its own employees and it doesn't care about its customers."

Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri also said she was disappointed in the decision.

"Many factors that would impact this move have yet to be decided, but I refuse to back down from my fight to preserve the levels of service that Missourians rely on, and to get the Postal Service back on a responsible path toward sustainability," she said.

Other processing centers slated for closure include Springfield, Mo., Carbondale, Ill., and Paducah, Ky.

According to the Postal Service's Area Mail Processing feasibility study, consolidating the Cape Girardeau center's operations with the St. Louis distribution center will save the agency $3.8 million annually.

In December, the Postal Service agreed to impose a moratorium on closing post offices and mail processing facilities until May 15 to give Congress the opportunity to enact an alternate plan.

If the Cape Girardeau center closes, the mail equipment here will be moved to St. Louis, but the fate of the building is unknown.

The Postal Service, which forecasts a record $14.1 billion loss by the end of this year, recently said it will lose as much as $18.2 billion a year by 2015 if Congress doesn't grant it new leeway to eliminate Saturday delivery, slow first-class mail by one day and raise the price of a postage stamp by as much as five cents. Earlier this month, the Postal Service also said its quarterly loss ballooned to $3.3 billion amid declining mail volume and said it could run out of money by October.

Co-managing editor Matt Sanders and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

mmiller@semissourian.com

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