Alex Slitz/Daily NewsElizabeth Hisle (left) of Louisville and Julia Thomas of Sarasota, Fla., dress Thomas’ dog Attila in a pro-postal workers shirt during the rally at the Warren County Justice Center. Thomas’ mother has been a window clerk for the Postal Service in Sarasota since 1988.

Lee Taylor, a U.S. Postal Service clerk from Beaver Dam, stood Tuesday outside the Warren County Justice Center. She came with two purposes: to make her voice heard and to make others aware of why the Postal Service is vital to the country.

Taylor joined several other current Postal Service employees as well as retirees as part of a national day of action on behalf of postal workers.

The rally was outside the justice center in hopes of catching the attention of U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green. Guthrie has yet to sign on as a sponsor of HR 1351, a bill that addresses the Postal Service’s future retirement funds, among other items.

“I appreciate the concern of this group of citizens,” Guthrie said in a statement. “And like them, I am deeply concerned how the United States Postal Service decisions will impact the Second District and its ongoing efforts to consolidate and terminate postal operations nationwide.”

The group’s goal was to inform the public about the Postal Service’s financial situation, as well as explain how the bill can solve the Postal Service’s problems.

“Postal employees are within their rights to express their opinions on these issues,” David Walton, a U.S. Postal Service spokesman in Louisville, said in an email to the Daily News. “They are also within their rights to participate in an informational rally on their own time.”

Participants came from all over the state’s 2nd Congressional District, including Owensboro.

Taylor lives in rural Ohio County, where she says the likes of UPS and FedEx will often have Postal Service carriers finish rural routes, and where residents depend on the Postal Service every day for the delivery of medicine.

Taylor is also afraid that she may be laid off soon. She said a move by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., could make it so that those qualifying for retirement such as Taylor could be laid off.

“They’re wanting to lay off people with 36 years in the Postal Service whether they want to go or not,” Taylor said. “And I’m not ready to go. I think it’s a travesty they’re even thinking about it. (Issa) has got an agenda to privatize the Postal Service.”

The National Association of Letter Carriers says HR 1351 takes the necessary first steps toward ensuring a financially sound future for the Postal Service.

National organizers said the $20 billion in postal losses doesn’t stem from mail, but rather from a 2006 congressional mandate that the Postal Service pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years and do so within a decade.

The Postal Service faces a $10 billion deficit at the end of this fiscal year. Measures such as layoffs, ending Saturday delivery and closing processing centers have all been part of the discussion to solve the Postal Service’s problems.

The NALC believes HR 1351 can solve the issue without using taxpayer money.

“The media has painted a bad picture out of everything,” local rally organizer Jim Williams said. “It’s up to us to prove it’s different.”

Williams spent 30 years as a postal carrier in Bowling Green before retiring in 2000.

He remains active with various issues, including those addressed Tuesday.

The struggles of the Postal Service have been seen firsthand in Bowling Green.

Earlier this month, the Postal Service announced that Bowling Green’s postal center on Scottsville Road, which lost its outgoing processing services in July, is one of 250 centers being studied for closure in 2012.

The Daily News reported in late July that the Postal Service was studying closing 3,700 rural post offices, including 161 in Kentucky.

“We’ve just got to keep (the Postal Service) going,” Williams said. “It’s what makes the U.S. go, the post office with the communications it has.”