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Ryan rallies for USPS opening
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
An argument continues to be made in support of maintaining operations at the U.S. Postal Service Youngstown Processing and Distribution Center.
U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, furthered that argument Monday at a news conference outside the center at 99 S. Walnut St. downtown.
“I think you just keep making the argument and you hope you catch a stroke of luck,” Ryan said. “If people hear it enough, they say, ‘Wow, that makes sense to us, and we want to keep this facility open.’”
But the postal service consistently has said the Youngstown center’s operations will be fully consolidated into the Cleveland Processing and Distribution Center. There are 125 employed in the Youngstown center.
“We are just going to keep up the fight,” Ryan said.
Starting in 2013, the Youngstown center’s consolidation into the Cleveland center began with outgoing mail. Phase two of the consolidation tentatively was scheduled for late July, but that date has been adjusted to “to be determined.”
“I am glad they cried ‘uncle’ and we had enough people calling in to stop it,” said Jim Varner, president of American Postal Workers Union Local 443, which hosted the news conference.
Phase two mostly would move the single-piece first-class mail to Cleveland. USPS says this type of mail, which includes personal correspondence, bill payments and greeting cards, has declined by 53 percent in the past 10 years.
The Youngstown consolidation is one of 82 consolidations USPS has scheduled for this year. The Akron Processing and Distribution Center consolidation into Cleveland’s was complete in April, but Toledo’s consolidation into Detroit’s was postponed like Youngstown’s.
In 2012 and 2013, the first phase of network consolidations on 141 mail-processing facilities generated about $900 million in savings. USPS expects to save $2.1 billion from the phase one and phase two consolidations when they are complete.
Ryan’s concern is that the consolidations of processing centers could mean the consolidation of something else later because there are some who want to see the postal service dismantled.
“This is a very important issue,” Ryan said. “I think it is important for us to remember how essential the postal service is.”
While the final consolidation date for the Youngstown center has not been determined, Varner explained contractually the postal service will have to wait at least three months to close, which would be in October — close to holiday rush time.
“That puts us into hopefully next year because of our cycle,” Varner said.
When the consolidation is complete, the postal service will find new locations for employees to work within a 50-mile radius.
Meanwhile, at the plant, workers continue to process and distribute mail. Varner said the plant recently has seen mail come in from Canton, Cleveland, Akron and Mansfield.
“We got a lot of mail here,” he said.
U.S. Postal Service spokesman David Van Allen said a construction project at the Cleveland processing center resulted in temporarily sending some of the mail processing to Youngstown.
“This isn’t unusual,” Van Allen said. “The postal service regularly makes temporary adjustments as necessary. The postal service is simply using its available resources as appropriate.”