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Postal Service Suppresses Article Praising Olympia Workers

USPS concerned that praising productivity of workers in Olympia would not send the right message.

For Immediate Release 12/19/05 

Contact Clint Burelson, President 360-970-2965

Statement by Clint Burelson, President

The Postal Service suppressed an article scheduled to appear in a Postal Service publication that praised the Olympia Processing & Distribution Facility for its ranking as the most productive plant in the entire nation for a plant of its size. The article was pulled at Postal Headquarters because a story praising the productivity of the workers at the Olympia Plant could potentially harm the Postal Service’s efforts to transfer mail operations from Olympia to Tacoma. Currently, local, state, and congressional representatives, citizens and the unions are working together to oppose the transfer of the Olympia mail to Tacoma.

The Postal Service announced on November 1, 2005, that they intended to transfer outgoing mail operations from the Olympia Plant to the Tacoma Plant. The transfer of mail operations to another facility is known as Area Mail Processing (AMP) or consolidation. The Postal Service plans to transfer Olympia mail operations to Tacoma on approximately April 1, 2006. The Postal Service has admitted that mail service to the community would suffer as a result of the transfer of the mail.

The Olympia Plant has been the most productive plant in the nation for a plant its size for two years in a row based on Breakthrough Productivity Initiative (BPI). BPI is the system the USPS uses to measure efficiency. In addition, the Olympia Plant ranked 28th in the nation for productivity for plants of all sizes.

The Postal Service decision to suppress the story praising the workers at the Olympia Plant was discovered in an email correspondence. David G. Rupert, the editor of the Postal Service publication, “Western Area Update,