Congress must approve the plan, but some officials said the proposal seems to be a reasonable and effective strategy to remedy the postal service’s large operating deficit. The postal service lost about $15.9 billion in the last fiscal year.
Carol Black, 56, of Hamilton, said she didn’t like news of the service shutdown.
“Usually I get a lot of things on Saturdays, mail from my family and things like that,” she said. “It’s going to be kind of difficult for a while but then I’m going to have to adjust to it.”
Fred Tyson, 75, of Middletown, said not providing Saturday home delivery is not a good idea because it would delay mail.
“If you mail something, it usually takes two days,” Tyson said. “A lot of times things are time sensitive, like a bill that you’re paying, you have to make sure it gets there on time. Now you may have to mail it a day or two earlier.”
Patricia Thomin, of Hamilton, said she does not like the postal service’s decision because she prefers to get home delivery on Saturday, especially if she’s waiting on a letter or a check.
“This will be hard on everybody,” Thomin said.
Not everyone was against the Postal Service’s decision.
For Bill Reichle, of downtown Hamilton’s Integrated Network Systems, the Saturday pickup would mean not being able to ship out packages from his office to customers but “nothing critical that would make a difference.”
“It’s a good idea by the post office on saving some money and reducing their costs,” Reichle said.
Stephanie Lynch, 25, of Middletown, said she doesn’t send much mail out and not having Saturday pickup from her home won’t have that much of an effect.
“It’ll take longer to mail something out, but just by a day,” she said. “That’s not terribly long.”
Jacob Shiflett, 30, of Middletown, said he felt the same way.
“I don’t really look forward to mail on Saturday, just during the weekdays, basically,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll miss it on Saturday.”
Some union officials and other groups said ending Saturday delivery could burden consumers and companies, and the postal service should consider a different and less drastic approach to addressing its financial woes.
“This will limit the availability of the postal service to consumers,” said Terry Grant, president of the Ohio Postal Workers Union, which represents about 8,000 employees. “I think it will have a very big impact.”
The postal service will stop delivering letters, magazines and large flat envelopes sometime during the week of Aug. 5, said David Van Allen, Ohio spokesman for the postal service.
The agency began delivering mail to homes and businesses in urban areas in 1863, and it began delivering to rural areas in 1891, Van Allen said. The postal service delivered mail seven days a week until 1912, when it stopped Sunday delivery at the request of religious leaders and organizations.
In recent years, the postal service also asked Congress for permission to end package delivery on Saturdays, but its parcel volumes have increased by 15 percent since 2010 because of the popularity of online shopping, officials said. The postal service said it has revised its proposal to keep package delivery at six days a week.
Consumers with PO boxes will continue to receive mail on Saturdays. Post offices that are open on Saturdays will remain open.
Eliminating Saturday delivery makes sense because Saturday has lower mail volumes than weekdays, and the move will reduce costs related to labor, transportation and fuel, Van Allen said.
“Mail comes more during the beginning of the week and peters out at the end of the week,” he said.
Some postal workers who work Saturdays will be reassigned while some jobs will be eliminated through attrition, officials said.
“We don’t anticipate any layoffs, but we anticipate losing people through attrition, and we’ve been keeping a lot of positions open for quite some time,” Van Allen said. “We are working with our unions to make the process as smooth as possible.”
Wednesday’s announcement comes just weeks after the Postal Service Board of Governors directed postal management to “accelerate the restructuring” of postal operations to get a handle on the agency’s finances, officials said.
The postal service said market research has shown that the vast majority of Americans support scaling back to five-day delivery to reduce operational costs.
The proposal still requires Congressional approval, and it is unclear whether elected officials will support the measure.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said he is still studying the proposal, but he supports reforms that will prevent taxpayers from having to bail out the agency.
“Last year alone, the Postal Service ran a deficit of $16 billion, and without cost-saving reforms American taxpayers will be stuck with the bill,” he said in a prepared statement. The postal service does not receive government support.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said Wednesday’s announcement could have been avoided if the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill he supported that would allow the agency to pursue new revenue streams and evaluate alternatives to canceling Saturday delivery.
“I remain committed to modernizing the Postal Service while preventing job loss and preserving service,” he said.
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