ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Postal workers in the region have been facing a surge of violent attacks, with mail, packages, and postal keys being stolen. This troubling trend has prompted local union leaders to seek federal intervention.
The head of the mail carriers local union met with Congressman Joe Morelle to discuss the increasing number of attacks on mail carriers.
“There’s definitely fear, we’ve never had fear, it didn’t matter where we delivered, we always felt like we were part of the neighborhood,” said Monique Mate, President of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 210.
The Postal Service is working to phase out universal postal keys, but progress has been slow.
“They’re trying a few things, right now they have a key that you need a scanner with and we don’t have them in Rochester yet but they are coming,” Mate said. “Almost like a key with a fob that basically gets a code every night and so every day it’s a different code, if it’s taken it can be shut off right then so it makes the key useless for anybody else.”
But in the meantime, the union believes those who attack postal workers should have the book thrown at them.
