Springs Postal Workers Fear For Their Jobs

Some postal workers in Colorado Springs are fighting to keep their jobs. The US Postal Service is considering shutting down the city’s processing and distribution center on Fountain and Academy, and it would impact workers as well as mail service.

On Friday, postal employees and community members voiced concerns to post office officials during a public meeting at Mitchell High School.

“This will be a big impact on our community because we have good jobs and when you have good jobs you spend money, when you don’t have good jobs, you don’t spend money,” said Cheryl Boyd, who works at the distribution center.

There are 350 postal employees, but the post office said that 250 jobs would be impacted by the closure when accounting for workers eligible for retirement. A spokesperson said every effort would be made to relocate workers who want to stay with the post office.

“In the last four years we’ve reduced our workforce by 112,000 positions and we haven’t laid anyone off,” said spokesperson Ron Perry.”I’m confident we can still do that at this point. That’s our goal.”

He said the post office is forced to make changes throughout the nation due to declining business.

If the proposal goes through, Perry said first-class mail service would be delayed. Delivery would change from one to three days to two to three days.

“You’re going to have more people going to another source because they’re faster,” said postal worker Ronald Davis.”Everybody wants fast right now, and if they make us slow, people will go elsewhere.”

The post office wont make a final decision on this until after mid-May. You can send your comments on the proposal to: Manager, Consumer and Industry Contact Colorado/Wyoming District 7500 E 53rd Place Rm 2212 Denver, CO 80266-9617

Public comments will be accepted through December 14th.