The United States Postal Service has lost hundreds of employees nationwide through attrition in an attempt to buffer dropping mail volumes and financial decline. The Mercer Island Post Office is feeling the pressure, yet has managed to keep all of its workers employed. Instead, the office reduced its Island routes to compensate for financial losses.
Three weeks ago, Island mail carriers began servicing 23 routes, down from 26. The drop has required staff to work longer shifts, said Mercer Island Postmaster Dale Goforth.
“We’re pretty busy moving our employees around to better meet the changing needs,” he said. “The idea is to adjust our routes to eight-hour work assignments. Previously, some routes were under half an hour.”
The reason behind the route reductions, Goforth said, is that mail volumes have slumped significantly in recent months. After years of steady growth, Island mail volume is down by “9 to 12 percent,” according to the postmaster.
Yet the Island branch chose to prioritize its employees, avoiding layoffs by cutting routes instead. Goforth said that residents should not be affected by the change. Some Islanders, though, may notice that their mail is delivered later in the day.
“There could be incidents where you were at the beginning of a route and now you’re towards the end,” he said, adding that, overall, the new routing system is running smoothly.
According to a Town Center postal carrier, who wished to remain anonymous, he had not heard much complaining among co-workers. The transition in delivery routes, he said, was more or less a smooth one.
Yet other Island postal carriers said they have felt the effect.
Mitch Pierce, a part-time deliverer, said that when the office dropped three routes in August, he lost almost seven hours of work a day.
“I’ve felt the cut big-time,” Pierce said. “I went from working a 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. shift to a 2:45 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. shift.”
While full-time employees with their own routes have maintained their hours, it is the part-time carriers whose hours were compromised, Pierce explained,
“We’re the ones who take the effect,” the mail carrier said, adding that he is keeping a positive outlook. “I’m doing the best I can to ride it out.”
According to AP news, the U.S. Postal Service announced last week that it was offering buyouts to 30,000 employees, thereby cutting $500 million in labor costs.
The buyout targets approximately 4.5 percent of the postal agency’s workforce, which includes 656,000 people.
The USPS announced on Aug. 5 a net loss of 2.4 billion dollars in its third quarter, ending June 30. The fiscal 2009 net loss at the end of the third quarter was 4.7 billion dollars, compared with a loss of 1.1 billion last year, according to AP news.
The agency expects to cut $6 billion of its budget to compensate for nationwide loses.
For more on the financial condition of the post office, go to www.usps.com. To reach the local postmaster, call (206) 230-5636.
