Four mail processing centers in Iowa are among 252 in the nation that are being studied for closure, according to a letter from the United States Postal Service to union leaders. …
Under study is moving the Waterloo, Carroll and Creston operations to Des Moines and the Cedar Rapids operations to the Quad Cities in Illinois.
The processing facilities in question are related to the first three digits of ZIP codes. Here’s a map.
Cedar Rapids is broken into three segments: 522 (area cities A-L), 523 (area cities M-Z), and 524 (city/suburbs proper). Waterloo has 506 (area cities) and 507 (city/suburbs proper). Creston is 508. Carroll is 514. Tama County is split among Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, and Des Moines.
This isn’t the first move in Iowa on this level. The USPS already announced the closure of Fort Dodge (505), moving that work to Des Moines, and Sioux City (510/511), moving to Sioux Falls.
But here’s the big catch: It already planned on moving Decorah (521) to Waterloo by January. What happens when the Waterloo office closes? Do they plan on sorting Decorah’s mail in Des Moines?
Mason City’s work was moved to Waterloo 20 years ago. In a report sent to Sen. Chuck Grassley in April 1994, the GAO said that the move, and installation of an automated service in Waterloo, didn’t save money or time (full report as PDF):
The planned benefits of the Mason City to Waterloo mail processing consolidation, chiefly labor cost savings, were not achieved. After the consolidation, mail processing workhours and costs at the consolidated facility significantly exceeded preconsolidation levels at Mason City and Waterloo. Labor productivity declined in spite of the shift to automation.
How would the USPS save money with what it’s doing now? By killing off next-day delivery. Straight from the USPS’ mouth:
The mail processing network itself was constructed to process and deliver First-Class Mail within a 1–3 day window depending on where the mail is sent and delivered. With the proposed change, the new service standard would become 2–3 days, meaning that on average, customers would no longer receive mail the day after it was mailed.
Sheldon still has its facility, but lost four jobs because of Sioux City’s closure. I haven’t found anything related to Dubuque, Spencer, Ottumwa, or Burlington. At some point in the past, either the facility for the southwest corner of the state (516) was moved to Omaha, or there was never one there to begin with.
UPDATE: Fixed for style and item on the 516 sorting facility.