Chants of “Save Our Service” and “Mail Delay — Not Okay” rose in the air at the corner of Leota and Dewey streets on Thursday in support of keeping mail processing in North Platte.
The 90-minute picket demonstration was held near the Nebraskaland National Bank building at 1400 S. Dewey, where a stream of motorists drive into North Platte. It was held with the support of the bank’s CEO, State Sen. Mike Jacobson. About 70 people attended.
“Whose post office is it?” an organizer yelled into a megaphone.
“The people’s post office,” the demonstrators answered.
“What service do we deserve?”
“First class service!”
Stephanie Logan of Bellevue, a USPS maintenance mechanic and an American Postal Workers Union member was one of the voices at the bullhorn.
“We are out here today to raise awareness,” Logan told the Bulletin. “There are veterans not getting their medications, lab tests not being delivered and truckloads of mail purposely and intentionally not going out.”
“There are no delivery standards,” she said. “In 2012 there were, we need to go back to those standards.”
Members of the APWU, affiliates of the Mid-West Nebraska Central Labor Council and Nebraska AFL-CIO President Sue Martin participated, along with North Platte residents and members of the Lincoln County board of commissioners.
USPS plans to consolidate mail processing into 60 mega-centers across the country. All mail in the western half of Nebraska would be processed in Denver instead of North Platte, adding another two days or longer to the current two-days or longer delivery times.
A career postal worker said the Omaha processing center does not have enough staff. He said the postal service needs to return to next-day delivery for local first-class mail and with proper management, it would be affordable.
He said too many postal service managers are not well trained. But there are not enough workers.
The first two mega-centers that opened in the U.S. have been plagued with troubles.
On Tuesday, the chairman of the U.S. Senate committee on government affairs urged the Postal Service to stop consolidating mail service until problems are resolved at the two mega-centers in Richmond, Va. and Atlanta, Ga.
The rate of two-day mail delivery in Atlanta has fallen as low as 16%.
The Richmond processing center opened more than a year ago. Expenses are $8 million more than expected. Performance is less reliable than it was before the center opened.
“No one likes to see rates go up and less service at the same time,” one of the demonstrators said.
At another processing plant in south Houston, inspectors found undelivered Priority Mail packages sitting there for as long as 28 days.
© 2024 The North Platte Bulletin. All rights reserved.
= No current warnings. Any past warnings have expired.
= Minor offense. Post was edited where neccessary. Yellow flags fly for 7 days.
= A more serious offense. This user can't post to Talk Back for 7 days. The offending post has been permanently blacked out. Red flags fly for 7 days.
= The most serious offense. This flag is reserved for those with multiple or particularly agregious offenses. Last step before permanent banishment. Black flags fly for 30 days.
= Banned.
It’s bad enough that a letter mailed from Hay Springs to Rushville, twelve miles apart on US HWY 20, has had to go first to Alliance, and then to North Platte for processing, now that letter will be going to Denver? Insanity!!!!!
True story. I place an order, April 16th, to an on-line medical supply store and requested next day/2 day delivery, as I have many times before. Delivery should be no later than the 18th. While checking on delivery status, I see it was shipped from Omaha to Indianapolis, expected delivery is the 22nd.
Seems to me that the postal service is being used by amazon to finish their small package deliveries for free is whats hurting the postal service more than anything. So why aren’t they trying to get amazon to pay up? Over working the system all together. I assume Amazon would raise the cost of shipping if the post office makes them pay. All in all people will stop using the postal service.
Annette, I’m 99% certain that Amazon pays USPS for the delivery service.
UPS also uses the post office for final delivery of many packages. I guess this saves them on manpower and fuel so their execs can receive a higher year-end bonus for cost savings.
Here s a prime example of how lousy the postal system is. I sent a letter to Guthrie OK from Ogallala on the 8th and it is now the 19th and it still has not been delivered. I could have walked there and back before now. I wish they postal system would disappear and the Pony Express would come back. They would deliver much faster than the present system is. What the present system wants is all letters go priority at 10$ a letter instead of a 1st class stamp.