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APWU launches website for closing mail centers
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
The National American Postal Workers Union has put forth more effort to prevent the closing of four mail-processing and distribution centers in Ohio, including the one at 99 S. Walnut St. in Youngstown.
On Thursday, APWU launched the My Mail, My Ohio website to show the impact of the shuttering of the Youngstown, Dayton, Toledo and Akron U.S. Postal Service processing centers.
The four centers are part of 82 centers nationwide expected to close this year.
“We are at a place of urgency with the issue, and that is why we are urging [community members] to contact congressmen,” said Myra Grubbs, spokeswoman for the national APWU.
Toledo’s processing and distribution center is tentatively slated to close in April, and so is the Akron center. Dayton and Youngstown are scheduled to close by July.
USPS consolidated 141 mail-processing facilities in 2012 and 2013. The postal service expects those moves to generate $750 million in annual savings.
There are more than 100 employees at the Youngstown facility, but that does not mean all of those positions will be affected by the closure.
USPS has said it is committed to finding “landing spots” for employees, which generally means within a 50-mile radius of Youngstown, but there are exceptions.
Jim Varner, president of the APWU Local 443 that represents about 230 workers in the Mahoning Valley, said there is concern at the facility right now. On Monday, about 35 clerks and 20 maintenance workers received letters. The letters were notifications that they could be transferred within 50 miles of the Youngstown center, Varner said.
“There is concern about these letters because we have never reached this point before,” Varner said. “We have been going through this process for years.”
The website, mymailohio.com, details the effects on each community with a closing center.
Concerns include an increased cost for business mailers, a slowdown in residential mail delivery and an impact on the local economy. The goal is to get community members to call senators and U.S. representatives to prevent the closures.
“We are just hoping we can save the service for the community and, hopefully, keep the impact here at a minimum and keep doing the jobs we do,” Varner said.