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Overnight Delivery To Come To An End with Postal Service Changes

Kevin Dooley
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Flickr (Creative Commons License)

The local chapter of the American Postal Workers Union is preparing for the end of overnight delivery as the US Postal Services consolidates and changes its standards.

Paducah Local 2500 Vice President Gerl McKinney says the postal service standards will change Jan. 5, 2015, and the Paducah processing facility is set to close April 1, 2015, eliminating overnight delivery.

“For most mail customers if they mail a postcard or a letter or birthday card or whatever to someone in the 420 area, it’s going to take a minimum of two days to get it rather than next day delivery like we’ve seen for the past 50 years or so,” McKinney said.

He says mail collected in the 420 area will be sent to Evansville, Indiana, once the Paducah facility closes.

“It’ll end up getting mixed in with mail from Henderson, Kentucky, and Evansville, Indiana, and Morganfield,” McKinney said. “And it’s all going to go into one big pile, and so what happens is instead of just having a small amount of mail in Paducah to process and having fewer places for it to go to we’re going to have more mail from more places going more different places. And it’s going to create more opportunities for mail to get missent or delayed.”

McKinney says latest estimates show 25 people will be impacted from these changes, some moving to Evansville and other non-career workers losing their jobs. He adds that the union plans to participate in a “Day of Action” against these changes Nov. 14.

Whitney grew up listening to Car Talk to and from her family’s beach vacation each year, but it wasn’t until a friend introduced her to This American Life that radio really grabbed her attention. She is a recent graduate from Union University in Jackson, Tenn., where she studied journalism. When she’s not at WKMS, you can find her working on her backyard compost pile and garden, getting lost on her bicycle or crocheting one massive blanket.
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