
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 4, 1993                   TAG: 9311040042
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON BROWN and SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

RULING SHORTENS ORKAND JOBS

A postal workers union on Wednesday won a decision that appears to put the Orkand Corp. and its 1,200 Virginia workers out of business by the end of 1994.

Orkand's contracts to code mail for the U.S. Postal Service expire in October and November 1994 at its Salem facility on Lee Highway and in November 1994 and January 1995 at a similar center in Lynchburg.

Under the agreement the American Postal Workers Union reached with the Postal Service, work done by Orkand will be taken over by the Postal Service when those contracts expire.

The Postal Service hopes to take over the Orkand center in Salem and probably would hire some of its workers, said Lou Eberhardt of the Postal Service in Washington.

Orkand employees put sorting codes on mail that cannot be handled by the Postal Service's electronic sorting system.

The deal with the union says 30 percent of coding-center workers must be career postal employees. The rest of the jobs, classified as "transitional employees," could be offered to Orkand workers.

But there's a chance the Orkand centers will remain in operation until 1996, said John Gracza, the company's program director.

The Postal Service said it will retain some private-contract centers during a transition period. Gracza said the ones in this area stand a good chance of being kept because "currently Orkand is the best contractor in the program."

Ironically, Gracza said, the news of a possibly short future comes as he desperately needs more workers at the Salem facility.

Orkand wants to hire 100 people immediately in Salem and will need another 200 at each center by December. The jobs pay $6.50 an hour.

Gracza said it is crucial that the Salem facility get up to capacity so it can prove its value and be considered for retention until 1996.

"Lynchburg is the best site in country right now; Salem is falling short in hours," he said.

The Postal Service's decision to phase out private-sector contractors follows an arbitrator's ruling in May that postal workers had to be offered newly created jobs held by contract workers.

Contractors such as Orkand are sorting letters at 27 sites. Use of contract labor was one of the ways the Postal Service had hoped to cut labor costs, which account for about 81 percent of its budget.

by CNB