General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A Letter From A Former Letter Carrier [View all]mikekohr
(2,312 posts)Example: Dover, Illinois 61323 has 111 people. 27 families have a box at the Dover Post office. The remainder of the residents receive their mail via a rural carrier that travels through the town.
The Post Office in Dover is open 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year, 8 hours a day. Estimated costs of keeping that office open are approx $70,000.00 per year.
A rural carrier could deliver those 27 family's mail, and pick up any outgoing mail and boxes in about 1.5 hours per day, or about $9,000.00 per year.
There are thousands and thousands of offices like Dover, Illinois. The math is staggering to all but the willfully blind.
There are multiple bargaining units at the Post Office, and that's yet another problem that needs to be addressed. In the Spring Valley office (61362) in which I last delivered out of, there were 13 employees and 5 differant bargaining units or unions. It causes problems. To compare it to the United Parcel Service operating center in nearby Peru, Illinois we had +70 employees and one union or bargaining unit.