Pols Blast Closing Of Processing Ctr.
Despite the protests of postal workers and elected officials across Queens, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced last week that it intends to close the College Point Processing and Distribution Center.
Over 1,000 USPS workers are employed at the facility where most of the letters and packages shipped to and from Queens residents is sorted and distributed. The facility will now be consolidated with the Brooklyn Processing and Distribution Center based in East New York.
“After review of the individual installations, it was decided that the consolidations were in the best interest of the Postal Service,” according to a Feb. 22 letter written by Frank J. Calabrese, district manager of the USPS Triboro District, to American Postal Workers Union Local 2286 President Robert Yaccarino, which was forwarded to the Times Newsweekly.
“The decline in mail volume and revenues due to the economic downturn has only heightened the need for … improvements,” Calabrese wrote. “These consolidations will allow us to accomplish this goal by making better use of excess space, staffing and equipment, and to process mail more efficiently.”
Calabrese indicated in the letter that “some affected career employees” at the College Point facility “may be reassigned to other vacant positions … in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement” between the USPS and the union.
The approximate date of when the College Point site will shut down was not announced, though the USPS in- dicated that no action would take place prior to May 15.
News of the impending closure of the processing center was denounced by Rep. Joseph Crowley and State Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky in statements sent to this newspaper.
“I am disappointed that USPS put their bottom line above the livelihoods of over 1,000 New Yorkers,” Crowley said. “At a time when New Yorkers, like all Americans, are struggling during these difficult times, relocating or possibly layingoff the workers at this facility could be devastating to the local Queens economy. Closing this facility and cutting services won’t get USPS out of the red, but it will hurt Queens families and businesses.”
“Rather than take advantage of the time that has been bought for USPS by Congress in a recent moratorium on post office closures, USPS has decided to finalize their plans to shut down this facility,” Stavisky stated. “This is like governmental Jeopardy!-the USPS has the answers before we’ve asked the questions.”
She added that the postal service has “refused my and my community’s requests for more information and more time to study the closure before executing it. This will be devastating to our neighborhood and many of my constituents’ livelihoods will be in peril.”
