July has been A wave of confusion and stress for postal workers, as a barrage of new measures threatens to fundamentally reform and undermine the culture and operations of the United States Postal Service.
Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported on a memo from the new USPS Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, urging postal staff to drop mail at distribution centers if they thought it would cause a delay for mail carriers. Another memorandum indicated that USPS would seek to reduce transportation costs and overtime, causing “immediate, lasting, and impactful changes” for the federal agency.
The following week, postal workers learned of another new pilot program called Accelerated for Street / Afternoon Sorting, or ESAS, that would launch in 384 delivery units across the country starting July 25. The crux of this program, as described in an unsigned document, the memo dated July 16, is to send postmen to deliver mail faster in the morning by prohibiting them from sorting any mail at their offices before they leave.
These changes could delay mail delivery to its final destination by at least a day, if not more. While the USPS memorandum billed ESAS as an effort to “improve consistency in delivery time” to customers, reduce overtime, and increase efficiency, postal workers were alarmed and surprised by these new dictates, which they seemed to directly undermine a core value of their work.
“These are changes intended to change the entire culture of the USPS,” said Mark Dimondstein, national president of the American Union of Postal Workers. “The culture I grew up with, and from generations before me, is that you never leave the mail. You serve the client, you receive mail to the client. Fast, reliable and efficient. “
Dimondstein said the union is implementing an ESAS monitoring and reporting plan to assess the impacts of these new changes in service. “We are definitely educating our members and we will fight this post office by post office, community by community,” he said. The union is also coordinating with members of Congress to discuss strategies, and Dimondstein said he expects supervisory hearings in early fall.
“I think the best way to say it is that we are concerned,” said Arthur Sackler, manager of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, an advocacy group for the postal industry. “Perhaps this will only delay mail delivery once, but we are concerned if there is no real time to sort, and there are no overtime hours, so there could be an increasing cumulative impact.”
Sackler said his group has not yet received information or clarity about these new rules and their possible consequences from the federal agency. “They haven’t told us anything, we haven’t been consulted, and in the past three decades, the Postal Service has had a good record of talking to unions and industry groups if there are going to be changes.”
“The culture I grew up with, and from generations before me, is that you never leave the mail behind.”
In a statement, USPS spokesman David Partenheimer told The Intercept that the Postal Service “is developing a business plan to ensure that we will be financially stable and able to continue to provide reliable and affordable mail and package delivery to all Americans. as a vital part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. The plan, which will be presented to the Board of Governors when finalized, will include new and creative ways to help us fulfill our mission, and will focus on the strengths of the Postal Service to maximize our prospects for long-term success. ” In addition to developing a broader business plan, Partenheimer said, “The Postal Service is taking immediate steps to increase operational efficiency by emphasizing existing plans that have been designed to provide fast and reliable service within current service standards.”
Postal workers have been on high alert since May, when it was announced that the USPS Board of Governors had selected DeJoy to serve as the new post general manager and CEO. DeJoy has been a major fundraiser for the Republican Party, including for the Republican National Convention and the president’s reelection effort, raising questions about how exactly he got his new gig.
DeJoy previously worked as president and chief executive officer of New Breed Logistics, a mass storage and distribution company, and is the first chief postal officer in more than two decades to never work at USPS. He replaced the outgoing general manager of post, Megan Brennan, who was appointed in 2015 and had been a USPS employee throughout his career, starting as a mail carrier in Pennsylvania.
A group of worker violations and complaints have accumulated on DeJoy’s former lot. When he was CEO, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that New Breed’s hiring practices were “motivated by anti-union morale” when he avoided hiring any member of the Longshore union after obtaining an Army contract in California. Between 2001 and 2015, New Breed and its affiliates paid more than $ 1.7 million for violations of labor law, wage and hour regulations, employee discrimination, and aviation regulations. In 2014, the New York Times reported on four women working in a Memphis warehouse for New Breed who suffered miscarriages after their supervisors rejected their requests for light duty during pregnancy. That same year, New Breed merged with XPO Logistics, and since 2015, XPO and its affiliates have paid more than $ 30 million for a variety of workplace violations. Last year, hundreds of drivers, warehouse workers, and intermodal drivers at XPO facilities around the world protested abuse and theft of wages. Then, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, XPO offered to “loan” workers up to 100 hours of free time, but said they would have to pay for that time.
DeJoy has been a major fundraiser for the Republican Party, including for the president’s reelection effort, raising questions about how exactly he got his new gig.
DeJoy promised to make a change to USPS, criticizing the organization for having “an expensive and inflexible business model” that he said he hoped to tackle head-on. “I did not accept this position despite these challenges, I accepted this position because of them,” he told USPS employees in a video address on June 15.
Postal service workers are particularly nervous about the new ESAS program and DeJoy’s appointment given the Trump administration’s announcement in 2018 that the President would like to restructure and privatize USPS. The White House suggested that USPS could save money by increasing rates, ending door-to-door delivery, and reducing mail service days. Last April, Donald Trump called the Postal Service “a joke” and tried to force the agency to quadruple its package rates in exchange for Covid-19 relief.
Dimondstein argued that delaying mail delivery in the name of reducing costs and efficiency means that people will lose confidence in one of the most trusted federal agencies in the country, which, unlike its private competitors, delivers everywhere, including in rural and unprofitable areas. “Undermining and degrading the Postal Service helps to frustrate the customer, which sets the stage for privatization,” he said. “The Trump administration is registered for raising prices, reducing service, and reducing workers’ rights and benefits. Is [pilot] it may be Trump’s first foray into trying to accomplish some of those things. “
Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., DN.J., pointed out the implications that mail could delay not only in letters and packages, but also in the upcoming elections. “Now that states depend on voting by mail to continue elections during the pandemic, the destabilization of the post office is a direct attack on American democracy,” it said in a statement. Pascrell is a vocal advocate for postal banking and a co-sponsor of the USPS Equity Act, a bill that would repeal the requirement that the Postal Service annually reimburse future retirement health benefits. In May, he called for a general investigation by the inspector into possible political interference by the Trump administration within the USPS.
In terms of reducing overtime, Dimondstein said the obvious way to do it is to hire more workers. Between 2009 and 2018, according to the Government Accountability Office, the USPS reduced its workforce by more than 77,000 employees. “There will always be some fluctuation in the mail, and overtime increases during periods of high mail volume, but also increases when there are not enough staff, and during this pandemic we have had more than 38,000 postal workers quarantined by Covid-19 exposure so someone has to cover those shifts. “
Drew, a postman in Rockford, Illinois, who requested that his last name be hidden in the event of employer retaliation, has worked for USPS for the past two years, and his parents also worked as carriers at different times. “This is the worst that any of us have ever seen,” he told The Intercept. “One of the things that has always been a central tenet of the Post Office is that mail passes, no matter how late you have to work, what weather it is, and now it looks like you are throwing yourself out the window.”
The level of uncertainty looming over carriers is now affecting morale, according to Drew. “We don’t know what kind of reviews are to come,” he said. “It feels like something new is coming down every few weeks.”
