State and local union leaders reacted with relief as the U.S. Postal Service said it would keep its Charleston mail processing facility.
Craig Brown, president of the American Postal Workers Union Local 133, said his national president called late Wednesday and told him to expect some good news.
He’d been bracing for something else.
“I fully expected the whole year that whenever they did give us the final result, they would downgrade the plant and send the mail to Pittsburgh before they send it back. So, I was very shocked, to be quite honest about it.”
The U.S. Postal Service late last year announced a plan to convert the Charleston Processing and Distribution Center into a local processing hub. The change would have sent other functions, and workers, to southwest Pennsylvania.
Instead, those workers will stay in Charleston, Brown said, with minimal changes to their work.
“They’re telling us, no impact on jobs,” he said. “No one will leave the facility. No jobs will be lost.”
Just the uncertainty created by the proposal had dampened morale among local workers. Tim Holstein, the union’s local and state vice president, said that all changed on Thursday.
“There was a definite shift in change in the facility, in the mood,” Holstein said. “There were smiles, there were some heads being lifted.”