According to the US senator and numerous officials of the postal workers union, the US Postal Service is considering cutting service and closing locations, as the agency faces a cash crisis before an expected increase in voting by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Senator Joe Manchin, DW.Va., sent a letter to newly installed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy demanding an explanation about reports of closings and outages of postal workers in their home state. Concerns arose after DeJoy, a major Trump donor, lobbied for drastic cost-cutting measures when he took over the agency last month, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press.
Manchin’s letter details reports that “numerous post offices in my state and across the country … are slated for an impending shutdown or significant reduction in hours and service.”
Some post offices in West Virginia have hung signs announcing their proposed closure in late August, he wrote.
A West Virginia postal workers union official corroborated reports received by Manchin, noting that 26 offices in a single region of the state are forced to reduce service to less than four hours a day (along with service cuts in another 31 locations).
“Much of this has been dropped with little or no communication,” Elizabeth Coonan, delegate to Local 3264 of the United States Postal Workers Union in Clarksburg, told Vice News. “The times when they’re hitting [the offices] closing is when they do a lot of business. “
A New Jersey union official told the establishment that 40 post offices in the state also face reductions. Post offices in Alaska, California, Ohio and Tennessee have also announced plans to cut hours, according to Vice.
“This would likely be a violation of both federal law” and USPS rules, Manchin said in his letter, demanding a detailed list of the changes led by DeJoy since he took office last month.
“It is silly to think that you can close something or speed it up in terms of the pandemic when basically the lifeline to voting and democracy will be in the hands of the Postal Service,” Manchin told the AP on Wednesday.
Mark Dimondstein, who heads the United States Postal Workers Union, which represents more than 200,000 workers and retirees, told the media that “there were definitely rumors” about the impending closings, but without details.
DeJoy said in a statement earlier this week that USPS was unable to continue operating under its existing model. The USPS reported a loss of $ 4.5 billion in the first quarter, but saw its revenue increase slightly in the second quarter amid the coronavirus crisis.
“The Postal Service is in a financially unsustainable position, stemming from a substantial decline in mail volume and a broken business model,” said DeJoy. “We are currently unable to balance our costs with available funding sources to fulfill our universal service mission and other legal obligations. Because of this, the Postal Service has experienced more than a decade of financial loss, with no end in sight, and we are facing an impending liquidity crisis. “
DeJoy said in the statement that the situation made “critical that the Postal Service review our operations and make necessary adjustments.”
“The logical conclusion is that it will try to close some post offices,” Dimondstein told the AP.
Manchin noted in his letter that Congress approved up to $ 10 billion to help rescue the USPS.
“Unfortunately, not only little or none of that funding has been used,” he wrote. “Now he is proposing the cuts we seek to avoid with that emergency line of credit.”
The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with the USPS on the terms of its loans, but the agency was able to continue operating without additional debt.
“While USPS can finance its operating expenses without additional loans at this time, we are pleased to have reached an agreement on the material terms and conditions of a loan, if necessary,” Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “I look forward to continuing to work with Postmaster General DeJoy to meet the President’s goal of establishing a sustainable business model under which the USPS can continue to provide the necessary mail service for all Americans, without shifting costs to taxpayers.”
The House of Representatives, led by Democrats, approved another $ 25 billion to help the USPS as part of its $ 3 billion HEROES Act package in May after the agency warned that its losses could increase by $ 22,000 million in the next 18 months. But the Republican-controlled Senate counterproposal submitted by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., This week does not include funds to help the USPS.
Trump, who has frequently criticized the USPS for its budget shortage, more recently has tried to raise questions about its ability to handle mail voting, which he opposes based on discredited conspiracy theories alleging possible fraud. Mail-in ballots have a fraud rate of approximately 0.00006%.
The president suggested Thursday delaying the election because of his unfounded fears about fraud. However, he has no authority to move the date, and there appears to be no appetite in Congress to do so.
Advocates for voting by mail have expressed concern that DeJoy’s plans for an “operational pivot” could delay mail delivery before an election in which record numbers are expected to vote by mail due to the pandemic.
“While these changes in a normal year would be drastic, in a presidential election year when many states rely heavily on absentee mail ballots, increases in mail delivery time would affect the ability to receive and count ballots in a timely manner “An unacceptable result for a free and fair election,” Representative Carolyn Maloney, DN.Y., chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said in a letter to DeJoy.
Surveillance groups warned earlier this month that DeJoy’s appointment could “corrupt a key institution before Election Day.”
“Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has attacked democratic institutions and weakened independent agencies. Now, as millions of voters rely on the Postal Service to support our elections during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump is politicizing another government agency. that was previously nonpartisan. Having an Allied policy with ethical and competition questions like DeJoy’s leadership, the agency potentially puts the November elections at risk, “Donald K. Sherman, deputy director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, and Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause. she wrote in a joint opinion piece on NBC News.
“Installing a loyalist like DeJoy is another way Trump could undermine the agency and suppress voting in 2020,” they added. “These actions are another desperate and potentially dangerous attempt to undermine the general election as its approval numbers continue to decline.”
