More than 30 protesters bearing signs lined the sidewalk in front of the post office at Bay and Fahm streets Sunday to express their discontent with the planned closure of the Savannah area’s U.S. Postal Service mail distribution center.
Earlier this year, the Postal Service announced plans to close the sorting and processing center at 210 Bourne Blvd., which employs more than 200 people. Fewer than half of those employed at the facility would be offered jobs elsewhere, according to previous reports in the Savannah Morning News, and the mail items processed at the center would be divided between Postal Service facilities in Macon, Jacksonville, Fla., and Charleston, S.C.
“... When a letter is mailed here, it will have to be trucked out to one of these places, and then brought back into Savannah,” said Eddie Wesby, an organizer of the event and vice president of the American Postal Workers Union Local 29. “And that’s going to cause anywhere from a two- to three-day delay.”
Wesby said the first five workers at the center will be phased out by the end of the year. By 2014, he said, the center could be completely shuttered. That’s a problem, Wesby said, for workers who, like himself, have built their lives in Savannah.
“If they move those jobs out of the community, then the people have got to go with them,” Wesby said. “... We want to keep our jobs right here in Savannah and be able to live in the community that we grew up in and also provide our customers with the service they’ve grown accustomed to having.”
Though the APWU Local 29 organized the event, the group was joined by a few other local postal workers’ groups. The protest also garnered the attention of some current and aspiring public-office-holders. U.S. House hopeful Lesli Messinger and Chatham County Commission candidate Willie Brown made appearances, as did Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm and Savannah Alderman and Mayor Pro Tem Van Johnson.
Johnson, like several in attendance at the rally Sunday, said he was concerned not only with the potential loss of jobs, but also the potential loss of Savannah’s postmark.
“Obviously Savannah is Georgia’s first city — it’s an historic city,” said Johnson, who stood with a sign himself. “There’s a postmark that goes back to the infancy of our country. It’s important for us to retain the jobs of the individuals that live here and work here.”
Though not a postal worker, 69-year-old Wilmington Island resident Sandra Crewe came out to show her support Sunday. She said she was concerned about the implications delays in mail processing might have for the senior citizens who, like herself, rely on the mail instead of the Internet for tasks such as paying bills.
“All senior citizens’ checks don’t go to the bank — some of them get them at their homes,” Crewe said. “If (mail has) to go to Jacksonville and then back here, they make their mail two days later. And (some seniors) depend on those checks for their food, their livelihood and everything.”