The U.S. Postal Service is mulling a plan to move some mail services from City of Industry to Santa Ana as the deficit-strapped government corporation seeks to trim millions from its budget.
If completed, the move would expand operations in Santa Ana but wouldn’t mean a lot of new jobs in the city.
The Santa Ana facility now employs 1,025 workers, according to spokesperson Richard Maher. The Industry site employs about 800 people, he said.
Most of the added processing work in Santa Ana would be done by machines, Maher said.
The plan calls for sending mail now handled in Industry to Santa Ana for processing. The mail then would be sent back to Industry for delivery.
The Santa Ana and Industry facilities operate 24 hours a day and handle thousands of pieces of mail daily.
Shifting processing to Santa Ana “would save $1 million a year,” Maher said.
Long Beach Move
The move would be a continued expansion for Santa Ana, which took over processing for a Long Beach site in 2009.
Forty-eight jobs were eliminated and Long Beach workers were shifted elsewhere within the post office, according to Maher. The combination saves the Postal Service more than $2.7 million annually, he said.
The Industry-Santa Ana consolidation has yet to be approved and is opposed by the American Postal Workers Union.
Businesses in Industry also could protest the plan as it could mean longer delivery times as trucks deal with traffic between Santa Ana and Industry.
Two prior proposals to shift operations to Santa Ana didn’t end up going anywhere.
The Postal Service is pursuing the move again as it deals with losses from the downturn and the ongoing impact of the Web and other forms of digital communication.
For the 12 months through September, the Postal Service posted an $8.5 billion loss. Revenue was down slightly from a year earlier to $67 billion.
“We need to align operations to volume and one way to do that is consolidation,” Maher said.
The Postal Service has shared its plan to consolidate its Industry Processing and Distribution Center with Santa Ana with public officials, employees and unions.
The Santa Ana site already is facing challenges in processing Long Beach mail on time, said Barnesa Chatterfield, spokeswoman for the California area local chapter of the postal workers union in Upland.
“There will be some delays in service,” Chatterfield said. “That’s too much for one of the facilities to handle.”
A public hearing on the plan is scheduled for Jan. 26 in Hacienda Heights.
“A decision will be made as soon as possible,” Maher said.
