Mail-Sorting System Protested by Workers

About 200 postal workers picketed U.S. Postal Service headquarters in Orange County on Wednesday, protesting an automated letter-sorting system they say makes their jobs harder.

“It’s making it impossible to deliver the mail,” said John Wellen, a spokesman for the National Assn. of Letter Carriers’ Local Branch 1100, which organized the demonstration on Sunflower Avenue as part of a one-day “informational picket” at post offices nationwide.

“This is not a pay dispute or a strike,” Wellen said. “We just want to provide good service and we’re being hampered from doing that.”

The letter carriers said they are upset about the postal service’s increasing use of machines--first made available in 1989--designed to automatically sort mail by destination according to ZIP Code. But instead of making mail delivery more efficient, the workers contend, the new system is slowing it up by causing errors that the carriers are not allowed to correct in a timely manner. Making matters worse, they said, the postal service has begun scheduling carriers’ shifts to begin later in the day, thus causing delays in delivery of their clients’ mail.

“We want to deliver the mail and we want to deliver it before dark,” said George Heim, a letter carrier in Placentia.

Richard Maher, a spokesman for the postal service, said the workers’ concerns are misplaced.

“We’ve put a $4-billion automated system in place,” he said. “As of now we’ve saved $5 billion in mail processing costs and right now, nationally and in Orange County, our delivery is better than it ever has been. There are problems, but we consider them minor compared to the amount of savings.”

The later starting times, Maher said, reflect the increasingly effective use of the letter carriers’ time.

“We want them to spend more time in the street and less time in the office,” he said. “Change is hard for everyone. Changing the way people do their jobs upsets them, but we believe this is the best direction for the post office.”

Heim said the public is noticing the changes.

“Longtime customers are asking why they keep getting other people’s mail,” he said. “We’re not trying to stand in the way of the machines. We’re just trying to have some input so we can make them work properly.”