KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Conversations about the future of the U.S. Postal Service's Knoxville Processing and Distribution Center continue months after the agency announced possible changes coming to the plant. Employees said an email from USPS already shows a start date for the relocation.
Every single day of the year, the center is open and ready for business. Employees work there 365 days a year, and 24 hours a day to help deliver mail. They process mail from every post office in East Tennessee and then get it delivered to homes and businesses.
But employees say changes to the center's operation can delay your mail by around three days.
"I'm really shocked to see that they want to move mail out of this area," said Dan Rudd.
Rudd currently works at the center and has been with USPS for 18 years.
Right now, the USPS is undergoing a "mail processing facility review." The review is part of the postal service's ten-year Delivering for America plan. It aims to modernize the postal delivery network and save money. The Knoxville location is one of several centers the department is looking at.
"The U.S. Postal Service is one of the most intensive infrastructures that we have in logistics," said Ted Stank, the co-executive director of the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee.
According to USPS, the plan would move its distribution operation almost 200 hundred miles away to Louisville, Kentucky. Meanwhile, the local center would stay as a local-only processing center.
"You're adding an extra step in the chain of how your mail gets to you every day," said Mark Ducharme, a second-generation USPS employee and Director of the Clerk Craft.
If the move happens, outgoing packages will have a different route. Instead of dropping a package at the Knoxville center and being sent directly to the location, the package will start at the Knoxville center, then travel four hours away by truck to Kentucky, and then get sent to its destination.
"Because of I-40, I-75 and I-81, Knoxville is a really important crossroads for travel," Stank said.
Some employees said they're being left in the dark by USPS leaders. Some said their questions on the proposed relocation and what's next are still answered.
"Why are they trying to silence employees? There's just an air of uncertainty everywhere you go," Ducharme said.
Employees say they've attended previous meetings with USPS leaders, but their concerns and questions were ignored.
"Without any representation from the Postal Service to give answers to the employees," Rudd said.
Ducharme said an email he received from corporate already shows a start date for relocation. According to the document, USPS will begin moving out Knoxville's outgoing mail starting in March. Employees would be relocated by September.
"We've had people that have been impacted by relocation efforts in the past that have moved from all across the country," Ducharme said.
In a letter from Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) to USPS Postmaster Louis DeJoy, Burchett called out USPS for its lack of communication.
"If the goal was to make USPS employees and customers feel heard, then the USPS failed miserably," Burchett wrote.
He proceeded to request a meeting with DeJoy in person. Burchett's office said DeJoy failed to answer.
"They're not putting this out for the public to know of these changes," Ducharme said.
Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-TN) and Rep. Chuck Fleischman (R-TN) called out DeJoy in another letter. They co-signed a letter asking for answers about the plan and for information about what's next for the Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Johnson City mail handling centers.
In response, DeJoy said, "There will be no service impacts because of the changes," and there "will not result in any career layoffs."
But employees disagree. USPS union workers say employees with fewer years on the job are usually the first to go.
"In all reality, you either move or you know, you basically resigned," Rudd said.
