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United States Postal Service workers from four Wisconsin cities are planning to take part in nationwide protests Friday against consolidation of postal centers, which would shut down the USPS plants where they work.

Postal Service centers in Wausau and La Crosse are scheduled to be shut down at the end of March. The center on Milwaukee St. in Madison would follow at the end of June and Eau Claire at the end of September. Seventy-eight other locations nationwide will be closed starting in January. The Wisconsin closures would mean a net jobs cut of 143 jobs.

Workers at the four Wisconsin facilities are scheduled to take part in the "National Day of Action to Stop Delaying America's Mail," according to a news release by the American Postal Workers Union. Postal workers nationwide are planning nearly 150 demonstrations in a push for a last-minute moratorium on the closures.

The shutdowns are part of a consolidation plan the Postal Service put in place in 2011 to stop its budget deficits and prevent possible bankruptcy.

Postal workers argue that the closures would result in slower mail and lower service standards, which would hurt the agency in the end rather than help.

"The mail has already been slowed down. We're trying to keep it from being slowed down even more," said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, which represents 200,000 postal workers and retirees, in a comment to the Huffington Post. "Two days will become three days and four days. It will be a slowing down of the mail throughout the country."

The Postal Service plans to reduce service standards for certain mail categories, including first-class mail. The company said personal letters, bills and greeting cards that normally reach their destination overnight would take two days after the closures, according to the postal service. Priority mail and packages wouldn't be affected.

The Postal Service said the action is a response to falling mail volumes, especially first-class, which has dropped 53% over the last 10 years. Postal officials say the closures are necessary for the agency to stop bleeding money.

"There are now fewer letters and considerably more packages, and the network must reflect that," Sue Brennan, an agency spokeswoman, said in an email to the Huffington Post. "With major volume decreases in first-class mail, the Postal Service has significant excess capacity in its network and cannot sit idly by and do nothing. The Postal Service firmly believes that the operational changes being implemented are necessary."

The Postal Service had a net loss of $5 billion in the 2013 fiscal year.

The new round of consolidations was originally scheduled for February 2014, but it was pushed back for undisclosed reasons.

A Senate bill introduced before the Postal Service decided on the delay would place a two-year moratorium on plant closures. The bill has cleared committee and is awaiting a vote on the floor. Most Senate Democrats support a moratorium, but Sen. Tom Carper (D-Delaware), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that oversees the postal agency, has said he would support a delay in closures only if it's part of a larger postal reform bill.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe moved forward with the plan when Congress didn't reach an agreement on legislation.

The Postal Service closed about 141 facilities as part of the first phase of its "network rationalization plan" that began in 2012. The closures save $865 million annually and resulted in only "negligible" service impacts, according to the Postal Service.

Combined, all the consolidations are expected to save $2.1 billion annually. The plan will result in a net loss of 7,320 jobs, according to an analysis by the publication the Government Executive.

The Eau Claire, La Crosse and Wausau plants were among five Postal Service centers in Wisconsin that have been under study for closing going back as far as 2011.