UPDATE: Thursday, Nov 30, 2023 · 12:42:11 AM +00:00 · zbob
Wow. I had no idea how bad it is.
While I encourage Kossacks to read the comments, I can summarize:
- Lots of our readers have effed-up mail service.
- People are furious that Biden has not terminated DeJoy.
- And, what I think is most disturbing, both the USPS and Amazon are absolute hellholes to work. As someone wrote, “it wasn’t called ‘going postal’ in a vacuum.”
A story in the Washington Post titled
A rural post office was told to prioritize Amazon packages. Chaos ensued.
tells the story of how the USPS in the small town of Bemidji MN, was ordered to deliver Amazon packages before US mail. (The story is behind a paywall; sometimes you’re able to read it on your phone vice a computer.)
Although the story focuses on Bemidji, what’s happening there is emblematic of many small towns in the US.
The result has been chaos at the Bemidji post office. Mail is getting backed up, sometimes for days, leaving local residents waiting for checks, credit card statements, health insurance documents and tax rebates. Routes meant to take eight or nine hours are stretching to 10 or 12. At least five carriers have quit, and the post office has banned scheduled sick days for the rest of the year.
A veteran mail carrier said he got so frustrated watching multiple co-workers “breaking down and crying.”
The situation stems from a crisis at the Postal Service, which has lost $6.5 billion in the past year. The post office has had a contract with Amazon since 2013, when it started delivering packages on Sundays. But in recent years, that business has exploded as Amazon has increasingly come to rely on postal carriers to make “last-mile” deliveries in harder-to-reach rural locations.
And now our favorite character enters the picture.
The Postal Service considers the contract proprietary and has declined to disclose its terms. But U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has said publicly that “increasing package volume” — not just from Amazon, but from FedEx and UPS as well — is key to the mail service’s financial future
(my emphasis)
The mail carriers in these small towns are part of the community. They often know their “customers” on a first name basis. Somethings I didn’t know: 1) carriers take an “oath of office” before assuming their jobs; 2) carriers aren’t legally allowed to strike, the union having signed away that right more than 100 years ago
The story goes on to cite specific examples of how the mail delays are having serious impacts to the lives of citizens:
- $400,000 in checks to help cover the recent purchase of $1.3 million in fire equipment were nowhere to be found
- Delays in mail service affecting medicine deliveries from Veterans Affairs.
Are the residents pissed? You betcha. A major complaint was the USPS gave no warning about what was about to happen. It wasn’t like the USPS “eased in” Amazon deliveries to assess the impact on mail service. Nope. More like throwing a switch.
It’s OK that DeJoy is concerned about the financial future of the USPS. But, as to the cost/benefit analysis of the Amazon deliveries: did the potential harm, both physically and financially, to the people in towns like Bemidji ever enter the equation?!
Doubt it.