Sanders, Leahy, Welch, Shumlin statement on Postal Service consolidation

Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Representative Peter Welch (D-VT) and Governor Peter Shumlin (D-VT) issued the following statement today after the US Postal Service announced plans to consolidate mail processing centers and close the facility in White River Junction, Vermont, where it has 245 employees.
The USPS announced it would move operations to Essex, Vermont, and Manchester, NH. The closing comes on the heels of a five-year master plan USPS released February 16. That plan calls for a 12 percent increase in postal rates, closing about 25 percent of its offices and reducing its labor force by approximately 45,000 employees from its current employee base of approximately 120,000 workers (25 percent). The USPS also wants the federal government toassume its pension liability (worth $16 billion). It also wants to go to afive-day delivery schedule ($2.7 billion annual cost reduction) and separate itself from the federal health insurance plan to save another $7.1 billion.USPS hopes through all these and other measures to save$20 billion annually.
USPS is a self-funded entity. However, it owes the US Treasury $12.9 billion and at this rate will be $92 billion in debt by 2016. USPS said it has lost 25 percent of first-class mail business since 2006.
Both the White River and Essex facilities had been possible targets for closure. It was unclear whether all those at White River would be layed off or whether there might be jobs for some of them at the other facilities.
STATEMENT:
‘We are extremely disturbed that the Postal Service intends to continue with its original plan to close the processing plant at White River Junction. We are pleased that the processing plant in Essex Junction was spared, but what we are saying loudly and clearly is that we will do all that we can to keep the White River Junction processing plant open as well.
‘Importantly, the Postal Service statement made clear that, because of a moratorium on closings that a number of us in Congress demanded, there will be no closings until mid-May. Furthermore, the Postal Service also made it clear that the announcements are not final decisions and that Congress still has the opportunity to develop a new plan to prevent these closings.
‘A Postal Service reform bill should be on the Senate floor within several weeks.
‘The Postal Service statement said, ‘implementation of this is contingent upon the outcome of proposed revisions to existing service standards. In addition, no implementation will take place prior to May 15 of this year, in keeping with the moratorium on closing or consolidating postal facilities, to give Congress and the administration the opportunity to enact an alternative plan.’
‘We in Vermont are working with others in Congress on an alternative plan which will financially stabilize the Postal Service without counterproductive cuts in processing plants or slowing down mail delivery service. Our goal is to also protect most of the rural post offices that the Postal Service wants to eliminate, which are important to community life.
‘A critical weakness of the current Postal Service plan is that it ignores the onerous financial burden being placed on the Postal Service by $5.5 billion a year in pre-payments for future retiree health benefits. According to the Postal Service inspector general, those payments are no longer necessary because of the $45 billion which that account already has accumulated.’
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2012 ‘ Congressional Delegation. Vermont Business Magazine.