Nearly three dozen postal workers, retirees, and postal customers rallied outside a conference of the Greater Portland Postal Customer Council Sept. 23, where Postmaster General Megan Brennan was speaking. Postal workers and their allies called on Brennan to stop closing mail processing plants and post offices, to stop cutting jobs, and to stop further delays of the mail.
Since 2007, USPS has eliminated 155,000 jobs while closing 153 processing plants (almost half, including plants in Salem and Pendleton, Oregon), and reducing service. Currently, Brennan is considering shuttering another 68 mail plants, including ones in Bend and Springfield, Oregon, plus reducing hours at 5,000 more rural post offices, including 37 in Oregon. Six-day and at-the-door delivery also are threatened.
Protesters tried to take their message directly to the postmaster general, but they were turned away by security guards at the Portland Art Museum, where the conference was held. Later, retired letter carrier Jamie Partridge and Rev. John Schwiebert of Portland Communities and Postal Workers United got a five minute meeting with Brennan, where they presented her with a petition containing 1,500 signatures demanding ‘No Closures, No Cuts, No Delay of the Mail.‘
“We’ll see if our pleas, petitions and postcards result in preserving the people’s post office,” Schwiebert said.
