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Arson attacks paralyze French high-speed rail network hours before start of Olympics, the Obamas endorse Harris for President; A NY county creates facial recognition, privacy protections; Art breathes new life into pollution-ravaged MI community; 34 Years of the ADA.

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Harris meets with Israeli PM Netanyahu and calls for a ceasefire. MI Rep. Rashida Tlaib faces backlash for a protest during Netanyahu's speech. And VA Sen. Mark Warner advocates for student debt relief.

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There's a gap between how rural and urban folks feel about the economy, Colorado's 'Rural is Rad' aims to connect outdoor businesses, more than a dozen of Maine's infrastructure sites face repeated flooding, and chocolate chip cookies rock August.

TN Observes National Postal Worker Day on Saturday

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Friday, June 30, 2023   

This Saturday is National Postal Worker Day, celebrated annually to show appreciation for postal workers in Tennessee and across the country.

The U.S. Postal Service delivers mail and packages to nearly 165 million addresses across the nation, including every home and business in Tennessee.

American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein said it's good to be recognized for the work they do, much of it behind the scenes at thousands of locations.

"It's an impressive operation - 600,000 or so people, and it's still an amazing thing," he said. "You can put a 63-cent stamp on a letter and it can go from one side of the country to the other. And it takes a lot of people to make that happen and a lot of dedication to make that happen."

Some 92% of mail deliveries have been on-time. However, like many businesses, the Postal Service is facing serious staff shortages. Turnover at the agency jumped from more than 38% in 2019 to nearly 59% last year.

Dimondstein said the Postal Service has addressed some of the short-staffing on the mail processing side, but added that they still don't have enough people on the retail side.

"If the lines are too long, that's a product of short-staffing," he said. "And, of course, that short-staffing also impacts the working conditions that we have to work under as postal workers, and every worker should be able to have those kinds of conditions that are conducive to getting the job done."

Dimondstein said the union would like to see the Postal Service become more competitive by expanding its range of services at post office locations, from banking and bill-paying to voter registration or issuing fishing and hunting licenses.

Disclosure: American Postal Workers Union contributes to our fund for reporting on Consumer Issues, Livable Wages/Working Families. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


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