Postal union pickets National Center for Employee Development

By Althea Peterson

Transcript Staff Writer

They came from Hawaii, New York, Illinois and Oklahoma, but they were all united in calling for awareness.

Just off State Highway 9, flag-waving and sign-holding employees and community members called for awareness of proposed changes to the United States Postal Service Thursday evening. The picketing was in front of the USPS' National Center for Employee Development on State Highway 9.

Jane Duggan, a maintenance craft director for the Michigan Postal Workers Union from Detroit, said the picketing in Norman was just one of many protests across the country. She said many towns would lose their ZIP codes and post offices, as well as having postal service delayed.

"Small towns are going to be hit very hard," Duggan said. "Citizens are upset that they will not have their own postmark. It's like losing the identification of the town."

"Strategic Transformation Plan 2006-2010" involves "focusing on major cost drivers, especially delivery operations," according to the USPS Web site.

T his involves "consolidating mail sorting facilities without proper public input," according to the American Postal Workers Union Web site.

"People will have to travel a lot farther to mail packages," Duggan said. "People are concerned that this will affect the travel time, taking two more days for mail to arrive."

More than 30 picketers showed up at the event, some of whom walked over to Highway 9 directly from the National Center for Employee Development. The signs people marched with said "Don't let our mail service fall apart. The U.S. Postal Service is proposing to close part of our local post office, which will reduce service for individual citizens and small business. The USPS was founded to serve all Americans, yet the plans to downsize were developed behind closed doors, without community input and without concern for community impact. Save Our Service."

"They say cut back, we say fight back," the picketers shouted.

A notice on the USPS site from James C. Miller III and Postmaster General and CEO John E. Potter reads: "We will promote growth by creating more value for every customer. We will continue to reduce costs by improving efficiency in all our operations and business processes... We will achieve all this with an energized, customer-focused workforce."

Joe Frega, electronics technician from Syracuse, N.Y., said protesters picketed not just because they are concerned about employees losing jobs, but also about USPS service cutting back in communities.

"We're talking about potentially tens of thousands of employees packing up and relocating," Frega said. "We're not cattle that can be pointed in a different direction. We have families and friends we don't want to leave."

Frega said their goal was not to change the mind of the USPS, but rather, inform local elected officials about the proposed changes, so that they can act on their behalf to stop the changes.

"We are over 300,000 strong," Frega said. "That's a pretty effective voting block. We want to send a message that when someone hurts the public through the postal service, that somebody notices, and that's us."

Wallace Collins, Democratic nominee for House District 45, was among the local picketers. He said he supports the picketers, because of the importance of the National Center for Employee Development to Norman and the state of Oklahoma.

"As a citizen of Norman, I am interested in keeping this facility here," Collins said. "I think it would be a detriment to the area to lose this facility."

For more information, visit usps.com or apwu.org.

Althea Peterson 366-3539 apeterson@normantranscript.com