Many of us who rely on the efficiency of the U.S Postal Service have been worried about its health for years. Now the very people entrusted with delivering our mail are sounding the alarm.
Several labor unions associated with the Postal Service - the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) - hosted a town hall meeting recently urging the general public to rally behind them in an effort to save the region’s local post offices.
From Rock Tavern to Bullville to Clintondale, the local post office has long been the hub of the community. That’s where customers are greeted by cheerful, helpful clerks, and where the local letter carriers know each of their customers by name.
There are numerous stories: if an elderly resident didn’t pick up yesterday’s mail, the local carrier might be the first to guess that something is wrong. And there’s the postmaster who keeps a list of subscribers to the local newspaper handy, and just might have an extra copy or two, in case one of the addressed papers doesn’t come through.
That Normal Rockwell vision is fading. Post offices are often understaffed and mail is often delayed at remote sorting locations. It’s not getting better.
Under the new “Delivering for America” Plan revealed recently by Postmaster Louis DeJoy, most pieces of incoming mail will never see the inside of their local post office. They will be sorted at the regional Sorting & Delivery Center (S&DC) on Enterprise Drive in the Town of Newburgh. Your local letter carriers will need to report there for work, pick up your mail and then head out to pursue “the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” in the words of the unofficial motto of the postal service.
The changes, according to union officials, would begin in September in Newburgh, Cornwall, Cornwall on Hudson, Clintondale, Maybrook, Salisbury Mills, Rock Tavern, Wallkill and Beacon. The next phase, in February of 2024, would shift mail sorting away from Walden, Modena, Montgomery and Fishkill.
The unions fear for the safety of employees who must traverse Route 17K or the Newburgh Beacon Bridge in vehicles not designed for long-distance travel. Customers may be concerned with further delays potentially caused by bottlenecks at the regional S&DC.
As for the local newspaper, we may no longer have the luxury of bringing papers to the aforementioned post offices but may soon be bringing them to Enterprise Drive, along with the tubs of papers with out-of-state addresses.
The postal service maintains that the affected post offices will not be closed, but will remain open for other services like the selling of stamps and shipping products, taking passport photos and for the acceptance of packages to mail. All facilities can anticipate a reduction in staff. At places like the City of Newburgh Post Office on Liberty Street, where lines can be long and where there’s already s shortage of window clerks, there’s a fear that further delays will result.
And there is cause to wonder if these changes will eventually lead to further cuts and closures. The elegant brick post offices in Walden and Newburgh are both nearly a century old. Once the staff has been whittled down, will they be declared surplus and placed on the market?
If you are concerned about these possible changes, contact Congressman Pat Ryan at patryan.house.gov/contact.
Whatever changes that do come should not take us by surprise.