postal-service – COMMUNIST PARTY OF MAINE

_{^{Postmaster General Louis DeJoy | Tom Brenner/AP}}

_{Reposted from Peoples World}

WASHINGTON—Pressure from postal unions, led by the Postal Workers, plus at least two dozen U.S. senators of both parties, forced Donald Trump-named and controversial Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to “pause” his postal sorting center closures.

But in correspondence with the lawmakers, DeJoy, a Republican big giver and former CEO of XPO Logistics—a package delivery firm that competes with USPS–still won’t commit to junking his scheme to shut down local sorting centers in favor of his consolidations. DeJoy still is a big XPO shareholder.

DeJoy called the changes “not…consequential” and “important elements to provide reliability in a cost-effective manner.” That means thousands of Letter Carriers (so far) must still drive hundreds of miles one way to pick up the mail they deliver before driving back and even starting their routes.

DeJoy’s 10-year “Delivering for America” plan for the Postal Service emphasizes packages and parcels and downgrades first-class mail, including medicines and checks. It also de-emphasizes mail-in ballots, senators and an Illinois Letter Carrier leader worry. DeJoy claims USPS will roll out ballot delivery plans in July.

The practical result of DeJoy’s controversial closures is to force thousands of Postal Workers to choose between keeping their jobs by picking up and moving, complete with forced sales of their homes, or quitting. And to drastically slow down first-class mail.

That’s produced a national uproar to Congress, over missing, late, or non-existent mail, notably in Atlanta, Baltimore, and Richmond, Va. It’s drawn the most ire from both the workers and the senators.

In a letter to lawmakers, the imperious DeJoy—who once sneeringly called a veteran postal worker-turned-congresswoman from Detroit “out of touch”—announced the pause, but wouldn’t go farther than that.

“In response to union, community, and political pressure, DeJoy…agreed to pause, at least until January, a number of the planned mail consolidations that are part of the ‘network modernization’ changes currently underway,” the Postal Workers reported. DeJoy did so only after 26 senators from both parties, led by Government Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., called him on the carpet in both a hearing and a letter about the postal problems.

“From the very beginning of these plans, APWU leadership has advocated that management needs to slow down to ensure the rights of the workers are upheld and respected and that planned changes must improve service,” union President Mark Dimondstein said as he released the written exchange between the Postmaster General and the lawmakers.

“While we acknowledge the need for change in light of changing technology, changes in the mailing habits of the people, and to the mail mix, the network changes have thus far been implemented in a chaotic and detrimental way. Slowing down the process, and commitments to improve service are welcome and needed steps,” Dimondstein said.

The senators aren’t convinced. They criticized the consolidations’ “effects on service” i.e. delays.

“We call on USPS to pause all changes, pending a full study of this plan by its regulator,” they wrote DeJoy. “While USPS claims these changes overall will improve service while reducing costs, there is evidence to the contrary in locations where USPS has implemented changes so far.

“USPS must stop implementation, restore service in those areas where changes were implemented, and fully understand the nationwide effects of its plan on service and communities” before it goes ahead, they said.

“DeJoy acknowledged issues in the plan’s rollout, especially in Atlanta, Ga., and Richmond, Va.,” the Letter Carriers reported in their website’s legislative section. NALC quoted DeJoy as saying “We apologize to the constituents that have received that service. But in the long term, if we don’t make these changes, that will be every day everywhere around the nation.”

DeJoy also claimed “significant progress” in postal efficiency under his Delivering for America plan, NALC said. The senators retorted there have been more problems than progress.

“Metro Atlanta area families and businesses continue to face lengthy delays,” an upset Ossoff wrote DeJoy on May 9, after continuing complaints about lost and late mail—and data showing only 36% on-time delivery ever since all local centers’ consolidation in Georgia’s capital. The senator wants answers, which DeJoy at the April 16 hearing had promised to deliver, and hasn’t.

“As we have discussed throughout the past few weeks, it is urgent that the performance of USPS delivery in Georgia improve immediately…Postal workers working diligently every day to deliver the mail on time deserve the infrastructure and the management competence to enable them to do so.”

Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both D-Va., and one Virginian representative from each party raised similar customer screams about Richmond in a closed-door meeting with DeJoy. They called the conversation “productive,” which is often a D.C. euphemism for “disagreement.” The mail delays in Richmond are “severe,” the senators said.

The Postal Service’s own Inspector General backs the Virginians up. His office’s investigation of the Richmond regional sorting center, the first consolidated center DeJoy opened—while closing local sorting offices—found “an egregious lack of attention to detail” there, with “pieces of mail falling off conveyor belts and being lost.”

The Inspector General also reported “poor synchronizing between machines processing mail at the facility and the trucks transporting mail to and from the facility, and broader questions about whether the Regional Postal Distribution Center model is generating the promised cost savings and efficiency improvements.” DeJoy, in rolling out Delivery For America, made those promises.

_{We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!}

_{Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People’s World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.}

_^NALC

_{Reposted from Peoples World}

BALTIMORE—Slowing down the U.S. mail, especially first-class letters, Social Security checks, holiday and birthday cards, pension payments—and probably mail-in ballots this fall—is one offense laid at the feet of Trumpite Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, because it’s actually occurred.

But pulling U.S. Postal Service police away from pursuing thieves and protecting Letter Carriers from theft, injury and even murder, and sending the cops to protect buildings instead, is quite another. And that action’s compounded because U.S. attorneys don’t treat thefts and injuries as a top priority.

The Letter Carriers (NALC) want to change that scenario. So they’ve put the bipartisan Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, HR7629, atop their legislative priority list for the rest of this Congress.

“We are here to send a very clear message: Enough is enough is enough,” new NALC President Brian Renfroe said in days before another “Enough is enough!” rally on April 30 in Baltimore. It featured local NALC and other union leaders and Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., one of the legislation’s 58 co-sponsors.

“The next step is critical, and that next step is federal legislation that will deter these attacks from happening, prosecute every criminal who attacks one of our members, and protect Letter Carriers while doing their jobs,” Renfroe said.

The big problem is thefts, often organized by gangs or pairs of thieves working together, of mailbox keys which Letter Carriers use to open banks of post boxes, the modern-day replacements for individual mailboxes at personal homes and apartments.

The thieves use the stolen keys to rob the businesses and homeowners of checks, including Social Security and pension payments. But they also shoot at, injure and even kill carriers.

Whether the union’s message gets through to DeJoy, a GOP big giver whom Republican former President Donald Trump foisted on the Postal Service as Postmaster General, is another matter.

Has slowed down letters

DeJoy’s the corporate chieftain whose 10-year-plan to “reform” the USPS has slowed down first class letters in favor of packages. The former CEO of XPO Logistics, a package delivery firm, has been credibly criticized for conflicts of interest—a common development in his class—while running USPS.

And during his reign, the USPS police have been shifted from protecting Letter Carriers and pursuing thieves to protecting buildings, the USPS Inspector General reports.

Armed thieves shot and wounded several Letter Carriers in Chicago last year. Carrier Jonte Davis of Warren, Ohio, was killed in a drive-by shooting there a month ago. Authorities in Warren link his murder to the thefts. And Daquan Wilson and a 17-year-old were arrested in the last full week of April in Camden, S.C., and charged with attempted armed robbery, possession of a stolen firearm and criminal conspiracy in connection with a robbery try against a Letter Carrier there.

“Since 2020, there have been more than 2,000 crimes committed against Letter Carriers on the job,” an NALC summary of the legislation says. “Many of these attacks involve a gun or another weapon. This bipartisan legislation would address this problem by ‘devaluing the key infrastructure’” i.e. replacing regular mechanical post office box keys with electronic ones only the carriers could activate.

It would also order more prosecution and impose tougher sentences on convicted thieves.

The measure would establish special Assistant U.S. Attorneys in each of the nation’s 91 federal court districts specifically assigned, with a staff, to prosecute the thefts. “This bill would strengthen sentencing guidelines for these crimes, ensuring they are treated in the same manner as assaults on federal law enforcement officers,” which are felonies, the NALC fact sheet says.

“Due to workload and other priorities, these cases often sit on District Attorneys’ desks, are not federally prosecuted, and the alleged assailants are not held accountable.”

And HR7629 allots $7 million over five fiscal years, starting this October 1, to step up the pursuits and prosecutions of postal thieves.

Mail theft has skyrocketed since 2019, the U.S. Postal Service’s Inspector General reports. There were 300,000 mail theft complaints from March 2020-February 2021. Thefts were up 161% then from the prior 12 months. And while 286,000 checks were stolen from the mail in 2019, that number has more than doubled since, to 742,000 last year.

The union is marshalling public support for HR7629 via its website, http://www.nalc.org. Besides opposition from DeJoy and the corporate cabal the former XPO Logistics CEO brought in to run the USPS, the legislation faces another roadblock: The Republican-run House.

When Rep. Mfume, lead sponsor Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and 56 other lawmakers dropped HR7629 in the hopper on March 12, it went to committees two of the most-rabid Trumpites in the U.S. House control: Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability.

Judiciary Chairman Jim Justice, R-Ohio, and Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Texas, are leading their Republican majorities in a joint fruitless hunt for evidence to impeach Democratic President Joe Biden—shoving aside almost everything else.

_{We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!}