BEND, OR -- Rallies that have been held across the country to express opposition to the Postal Service plan to consolidate mail-processing continued in Bend Wednesday.
Bend's Roger Sabbadini with The Vocal Seniority citizens group was among those gathered at the 4th street Post Office. "Seniors like myself, we rely on medications, we rely on social security checks, we rely on disability checks and these delays, you know, in some cases could be life threatening," Sabbadini said at the gathering which included American Postal Workers Union members, advocacy groups, Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler, and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.
Union leader Daniel Cortez says the plan hurts postal workers, and those counting on mail deliveries, "These are manufactured delays. These are deliberate attempts...not even attempts anymore. These are deliberate slowdowns of the American people's mail and it must stop."
He believes the policies have also created staffing struggles in both rural and urban areas, "It's a squeeze from both sides, they are making the mail take longer by design, changing the rules around how long mail is supposed to take because the post office still can't even meet their own reduced goals. Instead of increasing staffing or even maintaining staffing to meet those goals, they're slashing it across the board, we're losing jobs, we're not hiring and that reduction in staffing coupled with the built in manufactured delays of the mail on either end is what's creating the crisis."
The USPS projects a $300-billion loss over the next 10 years. The Postmaster General wants to mitigate the loss by moving nearly all of Oregon's mail processing to Portland.
