Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 25, 1994 TAG: 9405250154
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The U.S. Postal Service said in a letter that it will take over Orkand's remote bar coding facility in Lynchburg on Feb. 22 and a similar operation on Apperson Drive next April 25.
Together, the centers employ nearly 1,000 people.
It is expected that most of the processers will be hired for the new operation, said John Gracza, program manager for Orkand. The 20 or so managers don't have similar assurance, however.
For example, Margaret Overton, a Richmonder hired as a manager when the Salem facility opened, said she probably will go home to look for work.
She said other managers in Salem are from the Roanoke region, however.
The Postal Service plans to pay processors, who now make from $6.50 to $7.79 an hour, an hourly wage of $9.74, but will discontinue benefits such as holiday pay and health insurance. The processors will be classified as transitional workers.
Because the data-entry equipment is owned by the Postal Service, it is expected that there will be little change with the new management. Gracza said Tuesday that the Postal Service has agreed to pick up Orkand's option through November 1996 on the Salem building, which is owned by Lewis-Gale Hospital. The city of Lynchburg owns the Orkand building there.
Orkand, which has its headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., opened the facilities in late 1992 when the Postal Service decided to contract with outside firms the computerized coding of incorrectly addressed mail. Electronic pictures of letters that can't be processed automatically by machines in postal mail-sorting centers are transmitted to sites such as the one in Salem, where workers key in corrections. The corrections are translated into a bar code which then is applied to the envelope.
After getting the new coding, the mail can be processed automatically. The Salem center, which handles about 500,000 pieces a day, processes for postal centers in Buffalo, N.Y., and Northern Virginia.
The Postal Service chose private contractors to save money. Processors working for the private companies are paid less than regular postal workers. However, the American Postal Workers' Union protested the move of jobs outside the Postal Service and an arbitrator ruled a year ago that the jobs had to be offered first to postal workers.
Information was not available Tuesday on how many postal workers might be interested in the data-entry jobs, but Gracza said he doubted there would be many considering that the Postal Service is not paying for relocation and the jobs would pay at least $1 less per hour than the lowest-paid postal worker earns.
Gracza expects to return to Maryland in about two months to try to obtain other government contracts to offset his company's loss when the bar coding centers are transferred in the spring.
He said the bar coding centers account for about 15 percent of Orkand's $65 million annual business.
Memo: ***CORRECTION***