BRADENTON — With more than 40 postal workers in attendance, the City Council instructed Mayor Wayne Poston to send a letter outlining the city’s concern about possible loss of jobs at the U.S. Postal Service Manasota Processing and Distribution Center.
The Postal Service announced last month it was conducting an efficiency study of the originating mail process at the center, 850 Tallevast Road.
Since then, unions representing the workers at the plant have mobilized support from several cities and other governments to question the wisdom of downsizing the operation.
“The Postal Service says the mail volume is down at the center,” Jim DeMauro, president of Manasota Local 7136 of the American Postal Workers Union, told the council, “It may be, but we did more than 500,000 pieces of first class mail in one day.”
He said the Postal Service’s plan is not to “right-size the operation, but they are looking to take it out of our area.”
Moving the sorting of first class mail to Tampa does not make economic sense, according to Glenn Hayes, vice president of the local.
“It’s a 60-mile trip one way to Tampa,” Hayes said. “There the mail will be partially processed and then sent back to Manasota for final sorting.”
He also said the area will lose its local postmark unless the customer takes his mail to post offices and asks for a Bradenton postmark.
Councilman Patrick Roff said his concerns are the number of better-than-average-paying jobs for this area that would be lost.
“Most of the jobs in the area pay a lower rate than what the workers at the post office make,” Roff said. “We don’t want to lose any of those jobs.”
About 375 people work at the mail processing center.
Mark Teseniar, the union’s clerk craft director at the plant, said the postal service is saying if any jobs are eliminated the workers will be transferred to another center, but the closest job may be 500 miles or more away.
“And with many of those workers coming from a two-income family,” Teseniar said, “that’s twice the number of incomes that will leave the area.”
Mail processing clerk Debbie Marler, a Bradenton resident, said even though she has 19 years at the facility, she is worried about being laid off.
“I’m on the bubble,” Marler said after the meeting. “I’ve already been affected by changes. I used to work a day shift, now I start at noon.”
She said any change in her job status would be a disruption for her and her three teenage children.
“I’m just thankful I belong to the union,” Marler said, “and have them behind us.”
Councilwoman Marianne Barnebey agreed that this was an important issue for the council to take up. She made a motion for the mayor to send a letter to the Postal Service voicing those concerns.
The motion passed unanimously.
Barnebey also asked that the city’s Web site link to the union’s site, www.keepthemailhere.com.
Gary Sawtelle, spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service Suncoast District in Tampa, said in a telephone interview that the post office “welcomes any comments or concerns from the community.
“That is part of the process of the study,” Sawtelle said.
He encouraged anyone to send comments to the Consumer Affairs Manager, 6013 Benjamin Road, Suite 201, Tampa, FL, 33634-5178.
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