US Postal Service Ends Saturday Mail in August, Ames Post Office Cutbacks Already Affecting Customers

The United States Postal Service announced Wednesday that it will stop Saturday mail delivery in August to save up to $2 billion each year, according to the release.

The changes would take effect Aug. 5. Package delivery would continue six days a week. And post offices open on Saturday would remain open.

The announcement comes after Ames residents feared that they could lose two of their post offices. Both the post office at the Memorial Union and another post office on Welch Avenue were on a list of post offices being reviewed for closure in 2011.

While that didn't happen, Ames postal customers are already experiencing longer lines due to cutbacks in services, staff and hours at local post offices.

All mail requiring pick up can only be gathered at the main post office on Kellogg Avenue and the windows at Welch Avenue now close at 2:30 p.m. and the Memorial Union post office windows close at 1 p.m. The Memorial Union Station is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only. Neither the Welch Avenue nor the Memorial Union Post office are open weekends, sending everyone to the post office on Kellogg.

Moving to delivering mail to just five days a week and service changes at local post offices are part of a bigger restructuring within the Postal Service.

“The Postal Service is currently implementing major restructuring throughout its retail, delivery and mail processing operations. Since 2006, the Postal Service has reduced its annual cost base by approximately $15 billion, reduced the size of its career workforce by 193,000 or 28 percent, and has consolidated more than 200 mail processing locations,” the postal service said in a release Wednesday.

Ken Sagar, President, Iowa Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, said that ending Saturday delivery will cause economic hardship and increase the workload of mail carriers during the week.

“This action will impact over 22,000 postal employees and millions of Americans from small business to the elderly and the disabled,” Sagar said in a statement Wednesday.

He attributed the loss to Congress' inability to work together.

“It is regrettable that the Postal Service is caught up in a political crisis caused by an uncooperative Congress. A Congress that is requiring them to pre-fund retiree expenses 75 years into the future. The requirement is costing the post office billions of dollars to fund and the employees have neither been hired nor, in some cases, even born yet,” Sagar said.

The Postal Service alluded to reform legislation in the statement released Wednesday, saying that the USPS “continues to seek legislation to provide it with greater flexibility to control costs and generate new revenue.”.

How will ending Saturday delivery affect you? How have you been affected by cutbacks to services in Ames?

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