Jobs, higher costs on the line with proposed postal changes

CEDAR RAPIDS - Ending mail sorting in Cedar Rapids will cost postal workers jobs and increase costs for some businesses, according to initial assessments of a Postal Service feasibility study that estimates annual savings of $3.6 million.

“It's written like it's not going to be a very big deal,” Dan Skemp, president of the local postal workers' union, said Wednesday. “We have very severe concerns about the overall service to Cedar Rapids.”

The study calls for the elimination of 34 of the Cedar Rapids' 214 processing jobs. Skemp said the remaining 180 would go to a processing facility in Milan, Ill.

Skemp, of North Liberty, said the move would hurt Cedar Rapids printers and commercial mailers who would have to truck their materials to Milan to get the low rates they currently have.

“Their rates if they wanted to still drop mail in Cedar Rapids would go up a pretty high percentage,” he said. “They'd have to haul the mail to Milan and that makes it easy for a company in Illinois to underbid them.”

“I do have concerns over it, because it will effect our customers' turnaround,” said Bruce Van Kerckhove, owner of Allegra Print & Imaging of Cedar Rapids. The company produces mailers and other promotional material for area businesses.

“I guess the proposal is to truck it to the Quad Cities, process it, and truck it back, “ said Van Kerckhove. “That's just going to be a delay for our operation. Most of our marketing for our customers is in the metro regional area, so it comes back to Cedar Rapids for distribution anyway.”

The shift would eliminate 30 union and four management positions, according to the letter.

“They've been processing very good here in Cedar Rapids, and now we're going to be losing that,” said Van Kerckhove.

Skemp questions the study's conclusions and is trying to get a complete copy of its supporting documents.

“The initial results of the study support the business case for consolidation,” W.J. Herrmann, the Postal Service's area vice president for labor relations, wrote in a letter to Skemp,

Officials of the Postal Service's Hawkeye District announced in September they were considering shifting mail processing from Cedar Rapids and Waterloo as part of an effort to cut costs nationwide by $3 billion.

The plan, now under review, calls for moving Cedar Rapids' processing to the Quad Cities Processing and Distribution Facility in Milan. The study estimates the move would save nearly $1.7 million in mail processing costs, $175,085 in management costs, $989,200 in maintenance, and $780,580 in transportation.

The consolidation wouldn't immediately affect current counter services, local home or business delivery, or commercial mailers at the Cedar Rapids post offices, although pickup times at local collection boxes may change, according to Herrmann's letter.