'Serious concerns': Possible Postal Service changes face backlash in Peoria
Dozens of Peoria postal workers and concerned citizens gathered at the Peoria Public Library on Wednesday to voice their concerns about potential changes coming to Peoria's United States Postal Service location on State Street.
The major proposed change would switch Peoria's processing and distribution center over to a local processing center, which means all local Peoria mail would be sent to suburban Chicago for sorting and then back to Peoria for distribution, instead of remaining entirely in Peoria.
USPS says this move would boost efficiency and have a cost savings of $1.8 million to $2.2 million a year while not impacting the quality of mail service.
Citizens, politicians question USPS efficiency under new plan
Yet, those in attendance questioned the logic of how sending local Peoria mail to Chicago suburb Bedford Park would increase efficiency.
Brian Wagner, a past president of the National Association of Postal Supervisors, said the move was "not a good business decision" by the Postal Service and said he did not see any savings "at the expense of our service."
Wagner pushed back on the idea that the change would boost efficiency and noted that mail in Peoria would be sent to suburban Chicago, mail in Springfield would be sent to St. Louis and mail from the Quad Cities would be sent to Des Moines. He and others frequently raised the question of how any of that made sense for efficiency.
USPS communications specialist Tim Norman said many things, not just the mileage, are taken into consideration when talking about efficiency.
"What this does is, it gets that mail going to a regional processing center because the vast majority of outgoing mail is going to different places, not just Peoria — it's going all over the country," Norman said. "It gets more amounts of mail we can process together and that helps us as far as our logistics and scheduling at different plants."
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Local Peoria mail currently operates on an overnight standard. Under this change, it would be held to a 48-hour delivery standard.
Local politicians had a presence at the meeting, as well. East Peoria Mayor John Kahl spoke and raised concerns about the change, as did representatives for both 17th District U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen and 16h District U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood. Peoria Mayor Rita Ali was also in attendance.
Sorensen's office said it needed more assurance that efficiency would not be affected by the changes and also raised concerns about election ballots from Illinois being sent to cities in other states with different election laws.
LaHood and Sorensen penned a joint letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in which they said they had "serious concerns" about the plan.
"While we are pleased to hear that USPS is planning to invest in new equipment and upgrades to the Peoria facility, any proposal that would jeopardize timely mail delivery, diminish customer service, or risk local jobs is unacceptable..." the letter said. "Our constituents rely on the services provided by USPS, and our local postal service centers are important cornerstones of our community."
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LaHood and Sorensen also gave DeJoy until March 29 to answer the following questions:
How many jobs and families in the Peoria area are expected to be impacted by these potential changes?
What guarantees can you provide that moving operations to the South Suburban P&DC will improve efficiency and achieve quicker mail delivery?
For employees unable or unwilling to move from Peoria to Bedford Park, which is over 150 miles away, what efforts are USPS taking to provide retraining programs or alternative opportunities within the postal service?
The plan would also include upgrades to the Peoria facility such as newer equipment, renovated spaces for employees, new lighting and a new parking lot.
Will Peoria jobs be impacted by postal service change?
The USPS said Wednesday to the crowd in attendance that no "career employees," which are full-time USPS workers, would be laid off as a result of this change and projected that only 16 positions would be affected.
Here, too, those in attendance were skeptical of the USPS claim. Some in attendance said a transferring of positions would be the equivalent of a layoff because many people are not willing to move their families for a job with the postal service and called the postal service claim "deceptive."
Linda Turney, a representative of the American Postal Workers Union, said it was eyebrow raising that 16 employee positions would be impacted by the move but no supervisor positions would be as well. She said the postal service would essentially be forcing people to transfer under this plan.
Norman said he did not know if any non-full-time employees would lose their jobs because of this plan. He also said he could not say for sure if the 16 impacted full-time positions would be transferred.
"We try to be as transparent as possible along the way with the employee unions and management associations, and so in regard to employees, this will be a part of labor negotiations and we'll look at each case appropriately within each employee so it's all within the labor contract," Norman said.
Norman said it is "an exciting time" to be with the USPS and said all the proposed changes will help the postal service in the future. He said people will be "surprised and very happy" when they see how the changes impact mail service.
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This article originally appeared on Journal Star: How will possible postal service changes impact Peoria?
