The U.S. Postal Service announced plans to consolidate 18 mail facilities across the country on Wednesday.
“Consistent with optimization and efficiency efforts paused in 2015, USPS will complete movement of mail processing operations at 18 facilities,” an announcement by the agency states.
The consolidation of these facilities is part of a 10-year infrastructure plan aimed at “financial sustainability and service excellence.”
The latest mail facility consolidations will occur in Pennsylvania, Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, New York and Washington. The transition will be complete by November.
However, the plan to consolidate the facilities has received pushback from the American Postal Workers Union (APWU).
“We have made crystal clear to postal management that any further plant consolidations are a misguided strategy that not only disrupts the lives of postal workers but will further delay mail,” said APWU President Mark Dimondstein.
“The previous plant closings and consolidations were a complete failure and we will fight back facility-by-facility and community-by-community to save these processing plants. After a year of courageous and essential frontline work in this pandemic, management’s actions are a slap in the face of postal workers,” he added.
There are concerns that this will lead to delays in mail, particularly for rural areas, president of the APWU’s Western New York Area Local, Lori Cash, told NBC News.
Along with the consolidation of facilities, the plans look to add 138 package sorters and 45 additional annex facilities.
The announcement of the plans comes as the Senate advances President Biden’s nominees for the Postal Service.