Postal employees report late mail, more work

The U.S. Postal Service's earlier first-class mail pickup time went unnoticed for some, but those who say they were charged late fees on bill payments and had utilities shut off because of a late notice may have a different opinion.

Greg Davidson, president of American Postal Workers Local Union 4088, works the night shift manually sorting flats, or large envelopes, catalogs and newspapers, at the Richard G. Wilson Processing and Distribution Facility in Cape Girardeau.

Davidson said he has witnessed customers receive newspapers two days after their publication date, and residents of Gideon, Mo., get water shut-off notices two days after their water was shut off.

He said the delay in the mailing system stems from the mail processing center in St. Louis being overwhelmed by the volume of mail.

When sorters used to get mail from St. Louis to finish processing at 1:30 a.m. at the latest, it now is not unusual for sorters to wait until 4 a.m. before mail comes off the trucks, Davidson said.

Even after the mail comes in late, Davidson said some of it does not have a bar code because the facility in St. Louis can't keep up, even with additional machines.

When put through a machine, the bar code tells what town, carrier and order on a route a piece of mail must travel. The pieces of mail without a bar code must get one from a machine at the Cape Girardeau processing center, and at that point, employees are conducting operations that are supposed to now be done in St. Louis, "which totally defeats the purpose in the first place," Davidson said.

"That was what was supposed to be taken out of our hands, and we end up doing it anyway," he said. "It's not a bar code problem, it's just that they can't get around to processing all their mail."

Sorters then are back at square one when it comes to sorting mail and getting it out in a timely manner, Davidson said, which leads to piles of mail in the facility that are not touched until sorters have time to add bar codes to the returned mail, and that time is difficult to find.

"We do not have the personnel here at the Cape plant to keep up with this mail," he said.

The collection time of first class mail was moved from 5 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Cape Girardeau to allow for transportation from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis after originating mail operations, mail collected in Southeast Missouri, were moved to St. Louis as part of a postal service cost-reduction plan.

U.S. Postal Service regional spokesman Richard Watkins said that by early next year, mail destined for Southeast Missouri also will be sorted at the St. Louis mail processing center. The processing center in Cape Girardeau will remain open, but employees no longer will sort mail and will instead conduct other operations, he said.

Davidson fears that if the St. Louis facility is struggling and not succeeding in keeping up with mail flow now, what will happen when all operations are moved to St. Louis?

"This is becoming a regular thing, and we are not even at that busy time of the year at all, yet," he said.

Watkins said he has seen no evidence of the St. Louis mail processing center being overwhelmed by mail volume, but said there still are details in terms of transportation that need to be worked out. He said the St. Louis center "has been gearing up for additional mail volume for well over a year."

"Does it mean everything has been going according to plan? No. Of course not," he said.

Watkins said negative perception about the transition may have to do with customers' expectations.

With a declining mail volume, particularly in first-class mail -- the most profitable type of mail -- it is not realistic to think the postal service will continue to operate in the same manner as in previous years, he said.

"To expect that we will continue to collect sort and deliver mail in the same manner previously, that can't happen because our customers are using us differently," Watkins said.

The St. Louis facility has a larger mail processing center and equipment that the Cape Girardeau facility does not have, and consolidation of the two made financial sense, he said.

"Is it perfect? No, but our employees are the best at overcoming those challenges and we're confident they'll do that here," Watkins said.

Vickie Groves, city clerk for Gideon, confirmed that the city has had more water shut-offs than usual during the last few months. She said people have contacted city hall saying they did not receive their bills or are getting them late.

"We've had a lot of problems with the mail," she said. "I don't know of anyone that's very happy with them right now."

Craig Slate, postmaster for Perryville, Mo., said he had not noticed major effects caused by the earlier mail pickup time, which was moved to 11:15 a.m. in Perryville.

He said overnight express mail now may be mailed to cities in states along the coasts because of the earlier pickup time. Before, overnight express mail was limited to states surrounding Missouri.

"Other than that, there hasn't been any detrimental effect as of yet," he said.

Slate said after the initial days of the pickup time change, which caught many people off guard, mailing for customers only got easier as they got used to their mail leaving Perryville at an earlier time.

"I think as we get past this, it's going to get smoother and smoother, and I can already see that," he said.

The Cape Girardeau sorting and processing facility has yet to witness a smooth transition, Davidson said, and he is convinced the chain of delays in mail delivery is only costing the postal service money, not saving it.

"All the overtime that they're causing downstream wipes out any savings," he said. "To me, this is just a fiasco."

adowning@semissourian.com

388-3632

Pertinent addresses:

320 N. Frederick St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

475 Kell Farm Drive, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Gideon, Mo.

St. Louis, Mo.