March 6, 2006 -- An employee from El Paso's Postal Distribution Center talked exclusively to KFOX and said mail is piling up untouched at the main post office and some of it's been there for over a week. It's a problem also affecting all El Paso post offices.

"They're missing statements, checks, they're several things that they are missing," said the employee from the Boeing Post Office.

According to him, the complaints of missing mail are on the rise and he says the problem stems from the city's main distribution center. Since he is still an employee there, he said he wanted to remain anonymous.

"If you go into the plant right now, you'll see the wire containers full of mail just sitting there waiting to be process," he said.

The employee added that some of that mail has been untouched for up to eight days.

"We are all working extra hours trying to compensate, but we just don't have the manpower."

U.S. Postal spokesperson James Coultress acknowledged the problem, but only when it comes to advertising mail.

"Currently, we are experiencing some delay with our standard mail." He added, "The levels that we are experiencing now are higher than what we predicted, and we are also in the process of bringing on some additional staff right now to help with those higher levels."

The employee said that another problem is the mail they don't get to is shipped off to Dallas, where already-late mail gets even more delayed. But Coultress said the Dallas office only assists them.

"Dallas not only processes mail not only from El Paso, but for a lot of other sites across the country, so when you say is it helping out El Paso, yes, it's helping everybody out," he said.

The employee also said that, despite what the San Antonio spokesman says, all types of mail is being delayed from first to third class. He says advertising mail is the biggest problem now, and that mainly involves large companies.