Metro Postal Union Rallies Against Pitt Office Closing

The Chief-Leader/Michel Friang THROWN IN THE PITT: New York Metro Area Postal Union Legislative and Political Director Chuck Zlatkin, left, warns Lower East Side residents that the Pitt Postal Station faces elimination if the U.S. Postal Service does not receive financial relief from the Federal Government. With him from left are union Executive Vice President Clarence Wall, City Council candidate Pete Gleason and Democratic District Leader candidate Norma Ramirez.

The New York Metro Area Postal Union Sept. 10 protested against the possible closing of the Pitt Postal Station on the Lower East Side as a part of the U.S. Postal Service's attempt to downsize its operation.

The relatively small station is one of 14 post offices in the city that could close, and many patrons passing by the union protesters noted that service there has decreased over the past few months, including fewer windows being open and the absence of a mobile postal truck that used to be stationed at Clinton St.

Hurts Seniors, Disabled

Chuck Zlatkin, the union's legislative and political director, said closing the station would have an acute impact on senior citizens and the disabled, and would force many of them in the neighborhood to use Access-a-Ride to travel to more-distant post offices.

Mr. Zlatkin noted that while the USPS had decreased the number of stations it wanted to close in the city, none had been given a 60-day notice letter and the union did not know how the USPS determined which stations should be closed.

"They say they take into consideration all these criteria, but in terms of getting the statistical information from the Post Office, the union has to file a formal information request," he said. "It's not that they're giving out this information easily to us or to the media or to elected officials."

The union is pushing a bill in Congress that would temporarily relieve the USPS of having to pre-fund retiree health benefits, which the union estimates costs the company $5.6 billion annually. Mr. Zlatkin noted that the current postal laws mandate the company to pre-fund those benefits for the next 75 years over the course of 10 years. He believed this was an impossible task financially, and could be done more practically if the payments were spread over the next 30 years.

"The stated case was this would be an incentive for the Postal Service to still make savings because they'll have to meet this control," Mr. Zlatkin said. "But other people say this wasn't about that; this was about future retirees' health benefits is an unfunded liability, and if you fully fund it within 10 years then it would be easier to sell to a private company."

Prelude to Privatization?

He said that this, along with the provision of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 that mandates caps on how much money the USPS can borrow, appeared to be an attempt to strangle the operation.

"It seems to me it was designed to bring about this crisis so that they could reduce the postal service or make it leaner to continue to privatize," Mr. Zlatkin said.

Joining the union was civil service attorney Pete Gleason, a former Firefighter and Police Officer who is running for City Council in the Democratic primary against incumbent Alan Gerson.

Mr. Gleason, whom the local union endorsed in the race, argued that postal workers were the anchor of American civil service.

"It's the longest tradition in the United States of getting the job done," he said.