I actually work at the facility. They may say this is the reason, but the fact of the matter is that our lease came up for renewal in April. We were not set to be downsized yet, in fact we were passed over this last year when two other plants closed. We even had brand new flat screen computer monitors put in for ALL of the computers in the building minus about 10 after the announcement was made that we were not going to be closed(4-6 months ago). We would have been downsized eventually in the next few years but not right now. It was for no other reason than they did not want to renew our lease. Yes our jobs will eventually disappear because of newer technology, but we process over a million pieces of various types of mail daily at our plant. By no means did our volume decrease at our facility. If anything we've had more than usual. Unfortunately, our lease was up...so they announce right before Thanksgiving that our jobs will be eliminated. Those "part-time" employees, a great deal of them work 37.5 hours which is the only way to keep them from being careers or having benefits and extra pay. Basically you work 7.5 hours a day instead of 8, unless they call overtime and then you work 9.5 hours, but you are still part time. There are people who built their lives around this job, those "part time" employees who do a full time job that hoped to become careers one day and have job security. Now if they want a job they can go hundreds of miles away to a different plant or go somewhere else. There are many older and physically handicapped people that have no where else to go. Those who have given years to this facility, but since they are not careers they are not guaranteed anything. The loss of this facility also extends farther than its employees to the various charities that are contributed to with the cfc campaign, where you commit a portion of your check to go to a charity of your choice. We had over $50,000 in commitments for the coming year. It is unfortunate that they have chosen to conceal the reason we are closing. I thought that when they explained it to us, that they would at least have the decency to say the same thing in their press release. No one expected this, it literally came out of the blue, the supervisors were crying along with some of the other employees. I just think to be fair, they should acknowledge how important those "part-time" workers were, how much they mattered since they comprise a vast majority of the employees, instead of just focusing on the careers and telling the remainder of us that we will begin lay offs beginning in January. Many of the workers will be forced to retire (the lucky ones who can), including the careers, since the only option is to move. They say they will help us find new jobs, but they also shifted the story around to give the media a fluffy reason for our closing, forgive me if I don't believe they are entirely telling the truth about that either.