On Thursday, the news that the facility would retain its current functions came as a relief. The center will also get an investment of $22.8 million.
After months of uncertainty, the U.S. Postal Service will not downgrade its South Charleston mail processing facility.
The Postal Service’s plan to convert the Charleston processing and distribution center into a local mail sorting hub and send some of its current responsibilities, and potentially workers, to Pennsylvania, stirred anxiety among state and local leaders.
On Thursday, the news that the facility would retain its current functions came as a relief. The center will also get an investment of $22.8 million.
U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito opposed the changes and engaged directly with the Postal Service on the issue, including Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
Kanawha County commissioners and Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin thanked the senators, as well as American Postal Workers Union Local 133.
Tim Holstein, vice president of the local and state postal workers union, said there would be some slight changes at the facility, but workers now have certainty before the holidays.
“Congratulations, West Virginia. We won,” Holstein said.
A postal workers’ union in Kanawha County has entered grievance procedure over the removal of four workers from a Charleston mail processing facility’s schedule.
Four workers at the Charleston Processing and Distribution Center ushered in the new month with unexpected letters from their employers.
Sent by facility management May 1, these letters said that the workers would be removed from the work schedule in a matter of days “due to the needs of this facility.”
In subsequent correspondence with workers, management said they were required to reduce the number of temporary workers at the facility by regional officials with the United States Postal Service (USPS), which oversees the Charleston center.
In response, representatives with Charleston’s American Postal Workers Union Local 133 are pursuing grievance claims on behalf of the four workers, as months-long tensions between USPS and local workers continue to flare.
Union concerns
Tim Holstein, union vice president, alleged that the move from management constituted “pretextual” termination — providing a false reason for removing workers to conceal a reason that violates their contracts.
Holstein said this is especially evident in the fact that current employees are struggling to keep up with demands on the facility.
“How can you say you’re letting these employees go due to lack of work — or you don’t need them on the schedule — when you have all this mail that we’re failing on?” he asked.
All four workers are temporary employees with USPS, which means they have fewer protections than full-time, career employees. They can be dismissed for a lack of work, but dismissal would violate their contracts if it was done for “pretextual” reasons.
In the grievance proceedings, Holstein said union representatives are making the case that the dismissal of temporary staff was spurred by the broader effort to reduce mailing operations in West Virginia.
Ongoing tensions
In late 2023, USPS officials announced they would reduce operations and staff at the Charleston facility, which currently serves as West Virginia’s only full USPS mail processing center and handles a significant amount of the state’s shipping and delivery services.
The facility downgrading — part of a ten-year plan to streamline USPS operations nationally — would move certain mail processing services to facilities in the Pittsburgh area, and possibly require some West Virginia staff to relocate.
Earlier this month, USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced he would pause delivery network changes until at least 2025 as concern over the USPS plan gained traction nationwide.
Members of the Charleston-based American Postal Workers Union 133 hosted informational pickets in 2023 over proposed changes to a local mail processing facility.
Photo Credit: American Postal Workers Union 133
DeJoy’s decision seemingly marked good news for workers, delaying any downsizing planned for the Charleston facility.
But Holstein said the temporary nature of the decision, paired with the reduction in work opportunities at the mail processing center, has only stirred up more concern on the ground.
Holstein alleged that management has kept the temporary workers on staff without providing hours or pay so that they are more likely to quit, and USPS will not have to provide them severance benefits.
“They’re basically putting these employees off the schedule in efforts and hopes that what they’re gonna say is, ‘Screw it, I quit,’ so they’re not responsible,” he said. “Then now they’re off the hook … as far as any low earnings or unemployment benefits.”
In a written statement to West Virginia Public Broadcasting, USPS Spokesperson Naddia Dhalai did not respond to these claims directly. But she said that “operational flexibility” is a key part of the temporary worker position for USPS.
“Like all employers who have a flexible employee category, there is a higher turnover rate with these employees, providing us the opportunity to both capture savings by rightsizing our workforce when making long overdue operational changes and avoiding any career layoffs,” she wrote.
Grievance proceedings
Union workers are bound to a step-by-step grievance procedure established in the union’s collective bargaining agreement.
The first step in these proceedings requires an individual worker to meet with their direct supervisor. Holstein said the union has already completed this step of the process, to no avail.
Local union representatives must then meet with USPS officials. If a decision is not reached, national union representatives must meet with a regional USPS official and come to a resolution, or enter a binding arbitration process.
Holstein said the union’s goal is to get the workers their prior shifts back and secure them compensation for the four hours of work they are guaranteed to receive each day through their contracts. Since receiving the letters, the workers have not received this pay, he said.
But Holstein said the grievance process can be arduous, with barriers to communicating with USPS that can be taxing on staff members undertaking its steps.
“The only thing that’s really becoming difficult for us to fight is the complacency of upper-level management to [not] provide the information that shows they’re wrong,” he said.
Still, Holstein said the union plans to push on with its claims.
“It’s an uphill battle that we fought for a long time,” he said. “It’s nothing unusual to us.”
The United States Postal Service announced Monday it would pause its implementation of further mail network changes until January 2025, which could impact a mail processing facility in West Virginia.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is postponing mail delivery network changes nationwide, which could affect the proposed downsizing of its only full mail processing facility in West Virginia.
Last month, USPS announced it would follow through on plans to move certain mailing operations to facilities in the Pittsburgh area. This followed months of union protests, alongside concerns from residents and lawmakers that the move could increase mail delivery times or negatively affect postal workers.
The Charleston Processing and Distribution Center’s potential downsizing is part of a ten-year plan to restructure USPS operations nationally that has drawn increasing scrutiny from elected officials.
Earlier this month, 26 United States senators — including Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. — penned a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy expressing concern over the “irrevocable changes” underway through the national plan.
“I’m concerned about job loss, and also about delivery and what the accuracy and timeliness will be with all the mail being processed in Pennsylvania,” Capito said during a virtual press briefing last Thursday. “And the loss of jobs. Whether people can move, we want to keep them in West Virginia.”
As many as 90 postal workers in West Virginia would be affected by the proposed changes, through a combination of facility transfers and layoffs.
“It is essential we understand the full impact of these proposed changes, especially on our hardworking postal employees, before moving forward on their implementation,” Manchin said in a Tuesday press release.
Previously, DeJoy said the national plan was “correcting for decades of haphazard decision making and neglect to our physical infrastructure network.”
But USPS announced it was changing course Monday. DeJoy said further facility downsizing plans would not be implemented until January 2025, and promised to notify Congress of any further consolidation plans, and to slow the pace of implementation of facility changes nationwide.
Still, Tim Holstein, vice president of the Charleston-area American Postal Workers Union Local 133, said workers have not received clear communication on the future of their facility.
Holstein said that he and union workers worry that if USPS only pauses “further” consolidation plans, those that have already been approved — like the plans for the Charleston facility — could still be implemented.
“There is uncertainty whether the changes will be implemented,” he said. “Look at that word ‘further.’ Does that mean the ones planned, or does that mean the ones that are already in progress?”
Holstein said the South Charleston workers are awaiting further communications from USPS to verify how USPS’s decision will impact their facility. Susan Wright, USPS spokesperson for West Virginia, did not respond to email requests for comment on this story.
As many as 90 postal workers could have their jobs affected by the downgrading of a West Virginia mail facility. This figure is higher than union representatives anticipated.
As many as 90 postal workers could have their jobs affected by the downgrading of a West Virginia mail facility — a figure notably higher than union representatives previously anticipated.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) announced Tuesday that it would carry out plans to transfer outgoing mail processing from the Charleston Processing and Distribution Center to facilities in Pennsylvania.
The decision followed months of deliberation, as well as intense pushback from union workers and state officials concerned with the fate of West Virginia’s only full USPS processing center.
Tim Holstein, vice president of the Charleston-based American Postal Workers Union Local 133, has been an outspoken opponent of the downgrade.
He said union workers worried that more employees would be impacted than the USPS initially estimated. “Multiple members could possibly be relocated or moved out of state, possibly uprooting families and lives,” he told West Virginia Public Broadcasting in February.
When the final report came out on Tuesday, Holstein said workers’ fears were actualized.
In January, the USPS released an initial report that estimated changes to the facility would bring a net decrease of 24 postal workers.
At a first glance, that number is similar to the net decrease of 23 postal workers from the final plans released in April. But the final report also included a breakdown omitted from the initial report.
This laid bare the full extent of changes in store for workers, Holstein said.
Forty-one career employees — 28 career mail processing clerks and 13 career maintenance workers — could be transferred out of the Charleston facility.
In calculating a net decrease, the USPS offset this number with employees gained at the Pittsburgh-area facilities. But Holstein said transferring facilities is not a simple process, and that it might not be a viable option for some employees.
“It’s very difficult to uproot your family and your life, especially if you’ve lived in a particular area, and move to another place that has a higher cost of living,” he said.
The report also said that 25 postal support employees and 24 mail handler assistants could lose their positions. These are non-career roles, which lack the protections of career positions and can be terminated by the USPS.
Positions At Stake
Position
Number Of Workers Affected
Eligible To Be Laid Off?
Mail Processing Clerks
28
No
Postal Support Employees
25
Yes
Mail Handler Assistants
24
Yes
Maintenance Workers
13
No
According to the United States Postal Service, a total of 90 workers at the Charleston Processing and Distribution Center could have their positions affected in the months ahead. Graphic Credit: Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Together, that means a total of 90 career and non-career workers could be impacted through transfers and layoffs, respectively.
Holstein said that by providing just one number — the net decrease — the USPS misrepresented changes to the facility. The net figure was nearly four times lower than the cumulative number of positions impacted.
In an email to West Virginia Public Broadcasting, USPS Spokesperson Susan Wright did not address these claims.
However, she wrote that numbers included in the initial report were based on USPS estimates at the time.
Wright also wrote that “all bargaining employee reassignments will be made in accordance with the respective collective bargaining agreements.”
Still, Holstein said that the release of the final report reignited concerns over USPS transparency among workers.
While the net employee decrease was included prominently on the report’s third page, the full breakdown was included pages into the report, with terms and figures Holstein described as convoluted.
Hours after the report came out, Holstein said he had to pull out a pencil and perform arithmetic to fully grasp the number of positions affected by the downgrade.
“Once you get deeper into the math, you’re finding out that they’re using a net combined number that makes it more palatable for the public … in hopes that we’re not going to start digging into the numbers,” he said.
Union representatives were not alone in expressing disapproval of the final plans. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., released a statement Tuesday expressing concern over how many workers could be impacted.
“I am disappointed that USPS has decided to move forward with plans to shrink the role of the Charleston facility,” she said. “It is also very disappointing to see the number of jobs impacted by these changes has grown from USPS’s initial findings.”
While the USPS describes their plans as final, Holstein said he and fellow workers will continue to challenge them within the boundaries of their positions.
“The fight is not over,” he said. “Until we start to see a relocation or the non-career employees let go, we’re still on the fight. We’re still going to give it 100 percent.”
Tim Holstein said he had to do handwritten arithmetic to understand the full extent of staff changes at the Charleston Processing and Distribution Center. Photo Credit: Tim Holstein/American Postal Workers Union Local 133
The USPS announced Tuesday it will consolidate a South Charleston facility and move some mail processing operations to the Pittsburgh area. The changes follow months of pushback from union representatives.
After months of deliberation, the United States Postal Service (USPS) announced Tuesday that it will consolidate a South Charleston facility and move some mail processing operations to the Pittsburgh area.
The decision follows intensedebate over the future of the Charleston Processing and Distribution Center, which is the only full USPS mail processing center in West Virginia.
Plans for the consolidation were announced in fall 2023. Union representatives worried the shift would bring layoffs for temporary employees, or location reassignments for career employees.
They also said mail delivery times could increase for West Virginia residents if processing services were moved out of state.
But USPS officials have denied claims that delivery times could be impacted by the facility change.
In a press release Tuesday, they also confirmed that no career employees would be laid off through the new plans.
That doesn’t mean workers will be unaffected. Temporary workers could still be laid off through the restructuring, and full-time employees could be reassigned to locations outside Kanawha County.
However, any staff changes will follow collective bargaining agreements from the local postal workers union, according to the USPS press release.
The changes come as part of a ten-year plan from USPS to restructure operations nationally.
Members of the Charleston-based American Postal Workers Union 133 have hosted informational pickets since late 2023 over the proposed downsizing of a local mail processing facility. Photo Courtesy of Tim Holstein/American Postal Workers Union Local 133
Some union representatives have expressed concerns that the changes will reduce jobs and mail services for rural communities most acutely.
But the West Virginia consolidation also comes with an investment.
According to USPS, nearly $23 million will be invested in the South Charleston facility to modernize services, improve technology and renovate break rooms.
Still, representatives with the Charleston-area American Postal Workers Union Local 133 (APWU) said they do not see the investment as a cause for celebration.
“While it is to no surprise the regurgitated language specified in this release seems to be positive, postal employees across the United States know otherwise,” Tim Holstein, vice president of APWU 133, wrote in a statement provided to West Virginia Public broadcasting.
Holstein wrote that the union’s concerns with increased delivery times and mail costs have not been quashed.
While the USPS might have reached a decision, Holstein said union workers still plan to challenge the changes to come.
“[APWU President Craig] Brown and I will continue fighting this consolidation to the fullest extent our contractual provisions allow,” he wrote.
“We request that members of the public continue to contact their senators, congressmen and congresswomen in opposition to this now planned change.”
The United States Postal Service is hosting a meeting this evening regarding plans to downsize a Charleston mail processing facility. The plans received pushback from union workers and state lawmakers.
Updated on Wednesday, Feb. 14 at 3:45 p.m.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) will host a public hearing Wednesday on its plans to downsize a Charleston mail processing center.
Last fall, USPS received pushback over its downsizing plan for the Charleston Mail Processing and Distribution Center, which is the only USPS processing center in West Virginia.
USPS has since compiled and released findings on the plan, which it will discuss with members of the public Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. in the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center.
Critics say the prospective changes — like processing West Virginia-bound letters and flat packages in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania — could increase wait times for local residents and reduce job opportunities locally.
Sam Holstein, vice president of the Charleston-based American Postal Workers Union 133, said workers also worry that current USPS numbers might not account for all layoffs in the long term.
In its initial findings, published Jan. 30, USPS said that the transfer of some services to Pennsylvania would “not result in this facility’s closure or career employee layoffs.”
But Holstein said this does not account for the tens of temporary employees who work at the center full time and depend on it for an income. For him, these workers are temporary in name only.
“The Postal Service tries to put icing on this to where it looks sweet, and it looks like it’s going to be a good thing,” he said. “But, ultimately, when their plans are done, it’s not.”
Sean Hargadon, USPS spokesperson for West Virginia, wrote in an email that changing employment conditions for noncareer and pre-career mail workers reflect “the very nature of a flexible workforce category.”
“It is important to note we are providing more opportunities for noncareer employees to become career employees — and, in the past three years, more than 165,000 pre-career employees have been converted to career,” he wrote.
On Tuesday, Holstein and fellow union workers lined downtown Charleston during an informational picket. They told residents about the plans and the public hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
Union employees also expressed frustration over the hearing, which was initially slated for Jan. 30 but later postponed with less than a week’s notice.
With the hearing date finalized for Feb. 14, which is Valentine’s Day, Holstein said that union workers have been passing out heart-shaped informational cards to raise awareness for their cause — while keeping with the holiday theme.
“We want to get as many people there tomorrow to show up, listen to what the Postal Service has to say about this, and to voice their opposition,” he said.
**Editor’s note: This story was updated to include comment from USPS officials.
