Postal Service Heading for Winter of Our Discontent

By SAM URETSKY

Chutzpah! Everybody knows the classic: “when a man kills both his parents and begs the court for mercy because he’s an orphan.” but there’s an equal at (https://bit.ly/3h5LHGH), which is an online advertisement promoting the US Postal Service in the presidential election. It begins, “Understanding Your Voters,” and continues, “The 2020 presidential election is poised to have record voter turnout. That means more opportunities for your campaign to get that plus-one vote that could make a pivotal difference, ultimately leading to a victory speech. Constituents today are constantly tuned in to a range of devices across multiple platforms, making it harder for candidates to stand out among the onslaught of political messages.” So use snail mail?

There’s a story, probably apocryphal, that when President Truman was asked the meaning of the Postal Service motto, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” he replied, “It means they deliver mail in the winter.” That, of course, was long before Donald Trump appointed Louis DeJoy, a major Republican fundraiser, as Postmaster General. DeJoy shook up the organization of the USPS and imposed new rules, ostensibly to reduce costs but causing major delays in mail delivery.

The Washington Post reported “Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. All told, 33 staffers included in the old postal hierarchy either kept their jobs or were reassigned in the restructuring, with five more staffers joining the leadership from other roles.”

The USPS web page says, “… the Postal Service is an essential service for purposes of its compliance with state or municipality shelter-in-place orders or other social distancing restrictions. The Postal Service delivers medications, Social Security checks, and is the leading delivery service for on-line purchases. The statute that created the Postal Service begins with the following sentence: ‘The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by an Act of Congress, and supported by the people.” [39 U.S.C. §101(a)].

Postmaster DeJoy has imposed new rules that have at least delayed and in some cases blocked delivery for days and even weeks.

Headlines include “Philly mail delays are raising alarms about the 2020 election: This is a huge problem” from the Philadelphia Inquirer; “USPS Mail Delivery Delays Upset Baltimore County Residents,” from a local Baltimore news source; and “Their mail was not delivered for days. Now these Minneapolis residents are worried about their votes counting,” reported by the Washington Post. Similar complaints have come from Colorado, Tennessee. Texas and Kentucky.

President Trump has insisted that the USPS must raise its rates to balance its budget and these delays are part of an essential cost cutting program. This may simply be part of his war against Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, which has been critical of the president. The Guardian reported, “Trump has promised to block aid for the agency unless it quadruples its prices for package shipping, which could cause the company to take its business elsewhere.” Amazon has its own delivery system and could take its business to FedEx or UPS.

More significantly, the slowdown may be linked to the President’s concern for the coming election. Because of the coronavirus epidemic, there has been increased interest in voting by mail. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote, “With a political crony leading USPS, Trump’s manipulation of the mail means delayed delivery of medications, essential packages, and ballots. ...Americans deserve to know that when they post their ballot, it will be delivered safely and on time. We need to investigate the Postmaster General, provide emergency critical funding for USPS, and fix this problem immediately.”

On Aug. 5, House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Schumer met with Postmaster DeJoy. The following day, Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Schumer sent a letter to Postmaster DeJoy, which included, “At this meeting, you confirmed that, contrary to certain prior denials and statements minimizing these changes, the Postal Service recently instituted operational changes shortly after you assumed the position of Postmaster General. These changes include reductions of overtime availability, restrictions on extra mail transportation trips, testing of new mail sorting and delivery policies at hundreds of Post Offices, and the reduction of the number and use of processing equipment at mail processing plants. … Now more than ever, our nation deserves a fully functioning Postal Service that is accountable to the American people. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.”

Sam Uretsky is a writer and pharmacist living in Louisville, Ky. Email sdu01@outlook.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2020

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