In a statement,
organizers said they expect a dozen people to occupy and risk arrest near the
airport mail facility to protest the subcontracting of postal jobs. Jaime Partridge is a retired postal mail
carrier and an organizer of the protest.
“We’re going to be demanding that the
corporation who is subcontracting with the postal service to drop the contracts
to do mail processing and mail handling of the people’s mail. They have an agreement with the Postal
Service to negotiate a contract to do mail handling and mail processing since
the Salem mail
processing plant last month. This is the
first time we know of where the postal service is actually contracting out the
work to the private sector.”
In April of this
year, five protesters went to jail for a civil disobedience action at the Salem
mail plant, which is now being dismantled with mail processing machines moving
to Portland.
Partridge says the protests have had limited success, but help keep the issue on the public radar.
“We did stop a
number of corporate truck runs a couple of weeks ago when we had a
demonstration out at the same facility, but we haven’t been able to reverse the
trend toward dismantling the postal service....yet”
Organizers say postal
mail handlers and processing clerks are losing their jobs in Salem
as the work is being subcontracted to the non-postal, non-union Matheson
corporation in Portland. Sorting
jobs in a space leased by Matheson will be staffed by twelve non-postal mail
handlers and six non-postal processing clerks, hired by Matheson. USPS management says the sub-contracting is necessary
to save labor costs. :58
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