postal regulatory commission

The Postal Service has said the shift in work from Flint is part of an effort to improve productivity and increase efficiency, will start within the next few weeks and will be completed by October.As a result of the transfer, overnight delivery of first-class mail to Saginaw will now take two days rather than one while first-class mail to metro Detroit will improve from a two-day wait to overnight, according to the Postal Service.


U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee, D-Flint, is asking the Postal Regulatory Commission to reconsider the decision to move up to 30 mail sorting jobs from Flint to Pontiac's new, $100-million mail sorting center.In a letter Tuesday, Kildee said the Flint area "cannot suffer another economic blow related to the loss or realignment of jobs.The Flint Journal reported Tuesday on the Postal Service's plans to move some mail processing jobs from Flint to the Pontiac area, a move that will also cost the city its local postmark on almost all outgoing mail.Flint's unemployment rate is one the nation's highest at 28.6 percent.

The Regulatory Commission is an independent agency that has exercised regulatory oversight over the Postal Service since its creation by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970.That oversight includes conducting public, on-the-record hearings concerning proposed rate, mail classification or major service changes, and recommending decisions for action by the postal Governors, according to the PRC Web site.KIldee's letter to PRC Chairman Dan G. Blair said he believes the planned consolidation of Flint jobs in Pontiac "is based on an unsound ... process with inconsistent information.