HAMPDEN, Maine — The first time she met with Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to discuss his plan to close the Eastern Maine Processing and Distribution Center in Hampden as a cost-cutting measure, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins took out a Maine road map and unrolled it on the coffee table.
“I showed him where my hometown of Caribou was and showed him where this plant in Hampden was,” the Republican senator said Friday during a visit to the Hampden facility.
“And then I showed him where Scarborough was and I explained that to get mail from northern Maine to Scarborough and back would involve a trip of more than 600 miles,” Collins said.
“I will say I don’t think he had fully realized just how enormous our state is. That was the first time that I attempted to educate him about what the consequences of closing this plant would be,” she said. “I made the case that simply because of the geography of our state — its large size — we need two postal processing facilities.”
That move, and more like it, apparently had an effect. Earlier this week, Donahoe told Collins that he had established new standards of service, including those for overnight delivery, that will ensure the continued operation of the Hampden facility at least until 2014.
The standards are part of a postal reform bill that Collins co-wrote. The legislation has been passed by the U.S. Senate and is expected to go before the U.S. House of Representatives next month. If the House passes the bill, the Hampden plant will remain open for the foreseeable future.
The postmaster general’s policy shift came just over 24 hours before the USPS was scheduled to begin the Hampden plant’s consolidation, which would have involved shifting all of the facility’s processing duties to the Southern Maine Processing and Distribution Center in Scarborough. It also would have meant the loss or relocation of 170 of the plant’s 183 jobs.
“The problem is if you close plants like this, that are essential to good service, what happens is businesses and individuals start pursuing alternatives to using the postal service,” which would result in the loss of even more volume, Collins said. “Driving away customers are actions that should not be taken if you want to restore the post office’s fiscal health.”
“If this plant had been allowed to close, it would have meant two-thirds of our state would have lost access to overnight delivery of mail,” she said. “That would have had consequences for businesses that are advertising, for newspapers that are being delivered through the mail, for seniors who are relying on prescription drug delivery and for so many others, so I think this is a happy day for the region.”
During her visit, Collins met with workers at the Hampden plant and municipal and elected officials from area communities.
Debbie Brodie of Bangor, who has been working at the Hampden plant for 13 years, said she and other employees are grateful that the plant will stay open.
“It is wonderful. It’s just for a couple more years but it’ll give us time. They did a great job, Sen. Collins and her staff. They kept in contact with everybody. They did great,” she said.
Had the Hampden plant closed, workers would have been offered positions at the southern Maine plant, she said.
“That’s the tough part,” she said. “We all would have had jobs down in [Scarborough] but our family’s up here. That’s why most of us live in this area.”
“It’s been bad for the past six months for us .. We all put things on hold to make sure and find out what’s happening.”
Hampden Town Manager Susan Lessard also was pleased with this week’s turn of events.
“This is an important regional facility and its location in Hampden is one more tool in the tool kit for attracting business,” she said. With regard to the good-paying jobs that are staying, “It’s not just the payroll but the spin-off effects. The ripples are felt way beyond this facility,” she said.
Rep. Andre Cushing, R-Hampden, said that the Hampden plant has a great deal of impact on commerce and communication.
“We’re in a society where you don’t wait a week to get information and for businesses that choose to be in Maine to continue to be here and do business elsewhere, this would be just another blow to that business,” he said.
I’m happy that these folks still have jobs. Now if we could just find something for them to do….
There is plenty to do Bangorian. Maybe someday you and Knightcross should request a tour. I’d be happy to show either or both of you around and to show you exactly what the workers there do.
Now I’m not saying there aren’t ANY “union bums’ there, but %90 of the employees at EMPD are good, hard working people.
You have obviously never been inside the plant where 183 employees working nights and weekends are sorting your mail, that you count on daily to arrive at your home. There is no downtime, there are only 2 fifteen minute breaks, and the machines dictate that you be present and running them at all times. The expensive high speed equipment sorts 20 times more mail than any human ever did, therefore, less humans are required for the same amount of mail, reducing our employee numbers the past few years.
“The problem is if you close plants like this, that are essential to good service, what happens is businesses and individuals start pursuing alternatives to using the postal service,” which would result in the loss of even more volume, Collins said. “Driving away customers are actions that should not be taken if you want to restore the post office’s fiscal health.”
The lunatics are running the assylum….
If companies don’t get timely delevery they will either close or move to a state were they can get a timely develery
The truth be known Portland can’t handle half of the mail they get and they ship it to Hampden to be processed. It has happened for years. Thanks Sen. Collins in your hard work..
Isn’t Suzie up fpr reelection in Nov ???????
Collins can’t keep this obsolete Boondoggle open forever. The Postal Service is bankrupt and can’t pay welfare to Union Bums that do nothing all night. Glad you don’t manage my business Suzie. Id be broke and on welfare along with the Postal Welfare Recipients too. The Postal Service use to sort mail now Suzie turned it into another government welfare program for lazy Union Workers. Hampden needs to be closed immediately to Save what is left of the Postal Service.
Union bums? You have no clue as to what you speak! Are you comparing hard working people who actually want to work for a living to those in Amercia who are to lazy? Or are you comparing them to non-unionized laborers who barely make minium wage and have no benefits? Or how about comparing them to say someone like you who isn’t smart enough to read, for if you had you would have known that it is because of Senators like Collins that the postal service has no money, yet she ignored the rest of the country and saved HER area PO’s! And refuse to consider the $50-80 billion that Congress took from the USPS and won’t give back!
If the Hampden plant is soooooo bad why don’t you take “your” business” , and your husband who works at EMPD, down to Scarborough? I’m sure they would except a transfer from him.
I would really love for your husband to come on here and actually give some examples of those “lazy union bums” instead of your constant second hand crap. I could give you plenty of examples of both good and bad workers but I refuse to classify everyone in the union bad and everyone not, good. It’s ridiculous the hatred you have for union workers, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t agree %100 with the union.
The Postal Service could and should consolidate facilities. But it makes no sense to consolidate those that would impact the service. They could easily get down to 100 or so plants nationwide by having them placed in the correct areas of each state. The Southern Maine plant and the Eastern Maine plant handle the state of ME and it should stay that way in the future.
Is she part of the problem; or part of the solution?
Part of the problem in the sense that she knows the USPS has overpaid into their CSRS by millions, yet she like the rest of Congress, who in fact imposed this requirement on the USPS refuses to face the fact that in order to sustain a SERVICE to Americans, they MUST give back all of the money, not just $11 billion as her bill proposes!
Thank you, President Obama….