An important resolution from the Oregon State Association of Letter Carriers that impacts Oregon postal services

Resolution: Oppose Processing Plant Consolidations and Local Transportation Optimization

Whereas: Postmaster General (PMG) Louis DeJoy’s “Delivering for America” (DFA) Ten-Year plan now includes the consolidation of local mail processing to 60 Regional Processing and Distribution Centers, RPDCs, which in Oregon involves trucking local mail from Medford and Eugene/Springfield P&DCs (which are now called Local Processing Centers, LPCs) to Portland’s P&DC (now an RPDC) for processing then trucking back to Medford and Eugene for distribution, delaying mail and eliminating clerk and mail handler jobs, and

Whereas: the DFA includes “Local Transportation Optimization” (LTO), which will eventually involve over 10,000 post offices nationwide, eliminating the evening truck at stations over fifty miles from a processing plant and with less than 30,000 population, and which has already been rolled out in close to 200 (nearly half) of Oregon’s post offices, delaying their mail, and

Whereas: Oregon’s Senators Merkley and Wyden have joined twenty other Senators to call on the PMG to “stop any changes that will result in job losses and further degrade mail delivery performance across the network”, and

Whereas: Congressional Representatives in Oregon (Rep. Bentz and Rep. Hoyle), Nevada and Maine have introduced legislation to pause these consolidations, and

Whereas: Oregon’s Rural Organizing Project is pushing to reverse Local Transportation Optimization, and

Whereas: Oregon’s Attorney General is considering suing the USPS (as they did along with thirteen other state attorneys general in August, 2020) to halt these changes as they threaten the timely processing and delivery of mail ballots and discriminate against rural communities, which is expressly forbidden in US Code 39 section 101, therefore be it

Resolved: that the Oregon State Association of Letter Carriers oppose the consolidation of processing and delivery centers (P&DCs) into regional processing and delivery centers (RPDCs) and the Local Transportation Optimization (LTO) program, and be it further

Resolved: that the OSALC support legislation and/or lawsuits that will reverse these changes as well as legislation to return delivery service standards to those of June, 2012, and be it further

Resolved: that the OSALC share this resolution with Oregon’s congressional delegation and attorney general, and be it finally

Resolved: that this resolution be forwarded to the national NALC convention for concurrence.

Passed by Oregon State Association of Letter Carriers in convention, April 16, 2024, Seaside OR

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