Rank and File Support Cuts at the Top : Union: Conventioneers in Anaheim agree that Postal Service has more supervisors than needed.

Members of the American Postal Workers Union, holding their annual convention here, said Thursday night that they support the postmaster general’s anticipated proposal to cut management jobs by 25% and that there are more supervisors than necessary to run the nation’s post offices.

Even so, some postal workers said they are skeptical that Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon is serious about his reported plans and are concerned that the layoffs eventually will cut into their own ranks.

“They need to reduce the management structure,” said Joyce Richards, a postal clerk from Port Washington, Wis. “They’ve been reducing the employee structure for some time and this is long overdue.”

Postal workers, about 10,000 of whom are meeting this week at the Anaheim Convention Center, said they have heard only parts of the new strategy in the last few weeks. Many of the workers planned to attend a video screening of the announcement of Runyon’s plans at the convention this morning.

“They want to know,” said Helen Hoff, 40, a postal clerk from Casper, Wyo. “Everyone wants to know where they stand. It’s gotten to the point where no one is making a decision. They are all waiting for Runyon to make his move.”

Postal workers said that the ratio of one supervisor to six employees is too high.

“You have people who have been there for years and years and years, and they know their job,” said Jeanie Franklin, 39, a procurement clerk from Lubbock, Tex. She added, “I’m the only clerk in my office and I have a supervisor, which is asinine.”

A fellow employee at Franklin’s office, Shirley Dumpous, agreed there are too many supervisors.

“There is a term for them; we call them feather-benders,” she said with a laugh.

Some employees were fearful that the layoffs might affect their own jobs, although that is not part of the expected announcement.

“That’s what they say,” said John Cruz, 39, a window clerk from Puerto Rico. “They promise a lot of things and then they do something else.”

Runyon’s plans also are expected to call for reorganizing the service on a corporate model, rather than its current military form in which employees must follow rigid directives. Part of the plan includes removing the word “general” from top officers’ titles and instead using terms such as vice president and executive vice president.

“I like the philosophical approach,” said Hoff, the Wyoming clerk. “But it’s not clear if you eliminate the term general whether the system will change.”

The plans are also expected to include dividing the post office into two divisions, a distribution and processing side and a customer service side. But Hoff said, “We already in essence have that split.”

At the convention, postal workers have attended seminars on expected changes in postal delivery systems such as electronic mail sorting. This system, in which mail is sorted by scanners reading bar codes, also is expected to eliminate jobs.

“It moves mail like when you riffle a deck of cards,” Hoff said.

One of the concerns that postal workers hoped Runyon would address was increased competition from private mail carriers and fax machines. Some workers also said that cuts in their ranks have hindered the ability to improve customer services.