The email, sent hours after DeJoy’s public suspension of changes on Tuesday, instructs postal workers not to reconnect mail sorting machines previously.
“Message last night to your respective Maintenance Managers,” wrote Kevin Couch, a director of maintenance operations. “They should not reconnect / re-install machines that were previously disconnected without HQ Maintenance approval, regardless of what direction they are getting from their plant manager.”
DeJoy announced Tuesday that he would pause many of the new policies he put in place, including the removal of high-volume sorting machines, after postal workers, the public and some lawmakers sounded alarms that the changes caused massive delays in delivery, potentially endangering the November elections.
It is unclear if there have been any further indications since Couch sent the email, which turned out to have been sent to managers in the western region.
The USPS has not attempted to collect or replace the mail sorting machines as letter collection recently removed in at least nine states, according to the unions CNN spoke to in those states.
CNN spoke with unions in the U.S. at the local, regional and national levels, and was able to identify only two facilities – Dallas and Tacoma, Washington – that attempted to re-assemble and re-assemble e-mail sorting machines. perform in the day-to-day operations of USPS.
The Postmaster General and USPS have been intensively monitoring recent weeks about changes set in motion for the 2020 election. Many Americans have since grown concerned about the USPS’s ability to handle the expected influx of votes, because more voters choose to vote by mail because of the global pandemic Covid-19.
Dallas facility tried to repair removed machines for removed mail
Yared Wonde, president of the Dallas Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union, told CNN that management at the Dallas Processing and Distribution Center, which serves almost all of Dallas, unsuccessfully attempted to restore four delivery barcode sorting machines. .
DBCS machines make up the bulk of the mail sorting action across USPS, and handle envelopes that enclose referrals to voters.
The machines, which Wonde says were removed in July, could not be put to use because they were missing pieces. Wonde said it was not clear what management moved at the Dallas facility to try to reassemble the DBCS machines.
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