APWU: Recent News about collapse of USPS misses true cause of financial woes
Recent headlines that predict the Postal Service will collapse within one year demonstrate the importance of APWU members getting involved in legislative affairs, President Cliff Guffey said. Read more
A Hidden World Inside New York’s Great Post Office
From National Public Radio:
Across the street from Penn Station, in the heart of midtown Manhattan, is the enormous and imposing Farley Post Office.
Designed in 1912 by the famous architecture firm of McKim, Mead and White, the Farley building covers two square city blocks. You can still climb up its marble staircase to mail a letter, but there’s very little left behind that grand facade.
“I love the fact, among many, that you walk by it every day and you have no idea that 95 percent of it is empty,” says film location scout Nick Carr, who has written about the post office on his blog, Scouting NY. He tells NPR’s Jacki Lyden that the building has featured in at least one film, Miracle on 34th Street.
Five thousand people once worked in this building. It was a self-contained city within a city, with a medical wing, photo studio, cafeteria, fitness room, even a jail for any miscreants who tried to meddle with the mail.
Post Office Cuts Cause Economic, Emotional Blow
Faced with an $8.5 billion loss, the U.S. Postal Service has been cutting back: slashing hours, combining routes and closing offices. In East Cleveland, Ohio, the city’s only post office has been downsized from nearly 100 employees to just one.
The cutback is deeply troubling for the hard-pressed urban community and came as a punch in the gut to people like Robyn Hales.
Hales’ father delivered mail in East Cleveland. She says her dad’s job helped propel her family into the middle class. Her family was the first of what would be many African-American families to move to the block.
Everyone knew Mr. Hales.
“On cold days they gave him coffee. He knew when people were sick. He would check on people, things like that. He was their friend,” she says.
But her hometown has hit hard times. One-fourth of the houses in the city are vacant. After decades of corrupt or inept leadership, East Cleveland is a financial mess. Businesses have shuttered. Even the library is in budget trouble.
Full story from National Public Radio
Black Postal Workers Brace For Proposed Cuts
From National Public Radio:
For decades, the U.S. Postal Service has provided many communities of color with a reliable career option with steady benefits. But proposed budget and service cuts — including eliminating Saturday deliveries — threaten the livelihoods of many career postal workers. To get a sense of how communities of color will be affected by these proposed cuts, host Michel Martin speaks with William Burrus, president of the American Postal Workers Union. Also joining the discussion is Philip Rubio, the author of There’s Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice and Equality. click here to listen to the story