Postal workers rally against changes to Champaign post office
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — A big shake-up might be coming to a major Central Illinois postal hub. Postal workers and community members gathered in Urbana’s Independent Media Center on Sunday to fight those possible changes with a “Save the Post Office” event.
The United States Postal Service is looking into ways to make post offices more efficient as part of a 10-year plan to modernize its network. Those plans include looking at ways to move some services to Chicagoland post offices.
But local postal workers are worried their jobs might be at risk.
“When you consolidate services and move services out of spaces like college towns or rural areas, what you’re doing is you’re disrupting everyday people’s day-to-day lives,” Organizer Augustus Wood said.
Wood is a Labor Relations Professor at the University of Illinois. He is also President of the Champaign-Urbana Media Center where the event was held. Wood said any change to the system could affect more than just postal workers.
“Particularly if they have to get medicine, particularly if they have to pay a bill,” he said. “And even with our election coming up, the early voting situation is going to be incredibly important to making sure people have access to their postal services.”
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Local American Postal Workers Union President Brian Cunningham said this could force postal workers to relocate or change jobs. Now, he wants people to speak up.
“They want to know if your post office is short-staffed and you have to wait in line. They want to know all this so we can bring this to the Postmaster’s attention,” Cunningham said.
USPS officials say right now, they are just looking into changes for the Champaign post office. Moving distribution services to Chicago and the southern suburbs is a possibility. Officials say it is also highly likely they will be investing more money into the county’s main hub.
Cunningham said he has seen this operation before from the Postmaster General and he’s not convinced those changes will help in Champaign.
“You can notify your congressman,” he said. “We have congressmen from different areas who’ve already been contacting the Postmaster about all these different changes.”
Officials say when a decision is made, they will give a week’s notice before giving community members the chance to be heard. Until then, Cunningham said he will be doing all he can to get the message out.
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