Letter carriers gathered in Charlotte and across the nation Tuesday to urge their local members of Congress to support a bill that carriers said would save the United States Postal Service from financial ruin.

At around 4 p.m. a crowd of Postal Service employees - including letter carriers, mail handlers and clerks - gathered at the Charlotte offices of U.S. Rep. Mel Watt and U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick.

There they handed congressional staff members a petition supporting House Bill 1351. The bill, co-sponsored earlier this month by Rep. Watt, a Charlotte Democrat, calls for a review of the surplus in the Postal Services' retirement system, and for the Postal Service to use most of that $6.9 billion to meet other obligations, such as workers' compensation payments and payments to a health benefit fund.

Members of the National Association of Letter Carriers said the Postal Service overfunded the retirement system after legislation in 1996 required that the post office begin funding the retirements for employees up to 75 years in the future.

"It's nice to have it paid, but that's for people who haven't even been born yet," said John Walden, local branch president for the letter carriers association.

Monica Robbs, spokeswoman for the Postal Service, said employees are free to rally during non-work hours. She said House Bill 1351 is beneficial, but it does not tackle all the service's problems, such as the requirement to pre-fund health benefits for workers.

The bill would take money from the retirement package to pre-fund the health care package, she said.

The Postal Service has watched revenue dwindle in recent years, thanks in part to the Internet and an increasing number of competitors.

Walden said postal employees rallied in all 435 congressional districts Tuesday. Many wore shirts or held signs that read, "Save America's Postal Service."

Walden said the gatherings were not confrontational. They were not about pay, working conditions or contracts. The rallies merely promoted a bill that workers believed would sustain the Postal Service, he said.

Walden added that passing House Bill 1351 would not affect the later delivery times Charlotte has battled recently. Those problems were mainly caused by a change in routes and sorting techniques.

Local representatives began planning for the rallies in early September, said Tim Rorie, president of a second Charlotte branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

Rorie helped organize the gathering at Rep. Myrick's office on Morrison Boulevard.

"We're talking about jobs across the nation," Rorie said. "It's not just Charlotte."

To save money, the Postal Service announced last week the possible consolidation of 252 mail-processing facilities nationwide.

Five facilities under consideration are located in North Carolina, though none is in the Charlotte area.

In July, the Postal Service released a list of more than 3,600 offices up for closure. Twenty of those offices are located in North Carolina. None is in Charlotte.

Robbs said offices in Jacksonville, Greenville and Surf City are no longer under consideration.