Postal workers may get Census duties

When the census comes knocking on your door next year, some say it should be your mail man, not a stranger, who starts asking you questions.

Congressman Vern Buchanan is asking the Commerce Department to consider employing letter carriers for the 2010 count.

"Why not?" Buchanan said. "Instead of going out and hiring hundreds of thousands of people to try to get the census right, why not have people who are going to your door anyway?"

Taxpayers could save billions, according to Buchanan. The postal service staff is roughly equal to the number of temporary workers the Commerce Department hires for each census.

Buchanan says the move would also prevent groups like the embattled ACORN from doing work for the census.

"I think people in America have lost confidence in them with all the shenanigans," Buchanan offered.

The postal service union seems split on the potential switch. A national spokesman said "we're definitely all in favor of it."

But on their appointed routes, there is skepticism.

"I'm really not in favor of it," said Les Stroup, president of the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers in Pinellas Park.

Stroup says that his members already complain of stuffing 10 to 12 hours of work into an eight hour day. He's perplexed as to how they could add census duties.

"Who's going to give them the time to do it?" Stroup said. "Is the postal service going to say you get an additional hour every day to do those duties? I don't see that happening."

A Utah congressman is proposing a mail "holiday" next April. Delivery would be suspended for one day to allow postal workers to complete census rounds.

Buchanan says he hopes for swift action.