A small and determined huddle of University students, staff and ASUO members convened outside the EMU Post Office Wednesday in protest of the 60-year-old facility’s Dec. 31 closure.
For weeks, the ASUO and International Student Association have been petitioning to save the post office. Former ASUO Political Director Robert D’Andrea said the petition had gathered close to 600 signatures by the time of the rally, with the goal of getting 2,000 by the end of next week.
Jim Kubli, president of the Eugene Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union, also attended the rally and said the Postal Service’s claim that the EMU office closure was being caused by a “decline in mail volume” was questionable.
“From the revenue figures, we don’t think they are losing money,” Kubli said.
The union president said the office’s 2009 fiscal year income was upwards of $378,000 and the 12-month lease for the space was only around $26,000.
This fact has led union business agent Brian Dunn, also present at the rally, to suspect that the closure decision was never precipitated by insufficient revenue.
“No office is closed because of financial problems,” Dunn said. “This is about streamlining; it’s not about saving funds.”
An appeal separate from the one being organized by the ASUO was mailed to the Postal Regulatory Commission on Nov. 16.
Ken Rosemarin, the EMU post office’s lead sales and services associate, said the PRC had received the document as of Wednesday afternoon.
The PRC, following federal law, will allot 120 days before the final closure decision to consider the appeal’s merits.
The picketers drove home the message that the EMU office is the most affordable and accessible service for mail delivery on-campus, and its termination will hamper the ability for thousands in the University community to do business.
Students and classified staff urged postal customers and other passersby to fill out post card petitions, which will soon be sent en masse to the PRC in Washington, D.C.
ASUO President Amelie Rousseau attended the rally and said 85 percent of the student body — roughly 20,000 students — regularly uses the post office. Next year those students will have to trek miles off campus to send and receive parcels.
“We feel that the post office and its public mission is in line with the school’s mission,” Rousseau said.
Rousseau also stated in a Tuesday press release that “students rely on (the) post office to provide affordable, accessible mail service on campus,” and that a publicly-owned post office is vital to the University, which is why students are uniting with staff and faculty to save it.
Service Employees International Union members were also present at the rally, channeling University classified staff members’ frustrations at losing such a convenient and necessary resource.
“I think it’s a very valuable service,” SEIU member and Knight Library database clerk Vonda Welty said. “I have had a mailbox here for 10 years and I can’t (manage going) to 30th and Willamette to collect my mail.”
In the days leading up to the rally, SEIU urged University members’ involvement in order to illustrate the consensus on the issue by the union in general.
Welty said she has discussed the closure with some of her coworkers, who are often in the dark about the matter.
“(Classified staff) don’t like the idea that it’s going away … people who I have heard discussing it (have) said ‘do you know they are closing this? I can’t believe it!’” Welty said.
[email protected]