Five days a week, Lori Cash leaves her home when it’s still dark to get to her job at the Depew Post Office in upstate New York.
Cash, a 22-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service, is responsible for opening post office doors and greeting the waiting trucks at 2:30 p.m.
These days, her early morning work schedule is not what causes her to lose sleep, she said. Instead, Cash is concerned about the dramatic changes she has witnessed at the Postal Service, which she said are forcing unusual delays in mail delivery.
“In all the years I’ve been with the Postal Service, I’ve seen a lot of changes. I’ve seen changes in the operation. I’ve seen changes in delivery standards. But I’ve never seen an email delay,” Cash said. President of the American Postal Workers Union Western New York Area Local 183.
“That has always been our cardinal rule, is not to delay the email. So to get someone in and suddenly tell us that we will not deliver all the emails every day is a complete change in the culture that ‘. t we were taught from day one, “she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Cash and other postal workers say there have been dramatic and potentially catastrophic changes in mail delivery since Louis DeJoy took over as postmaster general in June.
During his two months in the job, DeJoy – a longtime Republican donor and ally of President Donald Trump’s who did not hold any positions in the Postal Service before his appointment – oversaw major operational changes he said were aimed at reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Among the changes: elimination of overtime and instructions to postal workers to put on their routes, even if it means leaving mail arriving later at distribution centers.
According to NBA News correspondents, the changes have halted the mail delivery system and significantly slowed down the delivery of items, including express mail.
“If the mail does not reach the dock, it does not reach the truck,” said Daleo Freeman, president of the American Postal Workers Union in Cleveland, who joined the post office in 1994. ” “We had mail left over from the plants. Then they’ll pick it up the next day on the truck.”
Michael Cinelli, a director for the Postal Service in Long Island, New York, has seen similar delays.
“The way they stop it, the email just does not make it for transportation,” said Cinelli, who is a steward for the union. “It just stays where it is. It comes in and just does not make it.”
Cash said a significant number of express mail items, which the post office promised customers would be delivered the next day at noon, did not arrive on time as a direct result of the new mandates.
Freeman said he is not sure what the motive for the delays is.
“Maybe it’s because of the post-in balloting. Or maybe it’s because [DeJoy is] try to make sure they continue on their way to privatizing the people’s post office, “Freeman said. The evidence is in the pudding. That’s what I’ve told people. And his actions speak for themselves. “
Cash said she is extremely reluctant to look at the number of long-time customers at her post office asking where checks and other valuable items are.
“We have many more questions at the window of customers searching for their packages, asking us why it takes so long for a package to just get a state or two away, and asking us why they are sending letters send or send their tickets and they get there much later than they once arrived, “she said.
The postal workers NBC News spoke with insistence that if the operations were not reviewed this summer, handling post-in votes this fall would not be a problem.
“We process more than a billion vacation cards each year,” Cash said. “So if we can get any holiday cards through each year and deliver almost all of them on time, we can process the election votes. The problem we will have is, you know, Postmaster DeJoy is apparently on this track to make changes. until the election. Can we address that? Yes. Is he trying to stop us from dealing? Yes. “
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The postal workers say they, outside the election, are most concerned about what the erosion of the Postal Service could do to Americans in rural communities who rely heavily on critical supplies, from mail order to medicine.
“I think everyone feels the pain of, you know, why do we do this? Why do we cut service? And why do we cause such unrest for our customers?” Cash said. “Everyone basically sees the beginning of the dismantling of the Postal Service.”
Freeman said he hopes postal workers will get the resources to perform the tasks they take so seriously.
“We just want to do our job to the best of our ability and the resources are given to do that,” he said.
