US Postal Service

Prisons Prime Testing Ground For Dehumanizing Hi-Tech ‘Advances’

February 23, 2021 Raul Diego, Mintpress News. Educate! Big Tech, Capitalism, Prison, US Postal Service

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is coming under fire again from Democratic lawmakers, as well as from the American Postal Workers Union, who are calling for President Joe Biden to pave the way for DeJoy’s removal after the Trump-appointee announced higher mailing fees and logistical changes that could further slow down mail. The US Postal Service (USPS) has already suffered a more than 50% drop in on-time arrivals for first-class mail deliveries, according to the service’s own data. Nevertheless, thanks to the ubiquitous presence of high-speed internet, the personal communications of most Americans don’t seem to be fundamentally affected by the problems at USPS. Excluding the mail-in-ballots controversy leading up to the 2020 presidential election, the majority of the country remains little more than a...

The War Against The Postal Service

December 22, 2020 Monique Morissey, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! Louis DeJoy, Privatization, Trump, US Postal Service

The Postal Service is many things—among them, a public service; part of the nation’s critical infrastructure; a regulated monopoly; a good employer, especially for Black workers and military veterans; and a government enterprise competing with and supplying services to private companies. To take advantage of network economies, the United States and other countries shield their postal services from competition in exchange for delivering mail to far-flung and poorer regions. Like transportation and communications networks that are often publicly owned or function as regulated utilities, a national service with standardized pricing promotes commerce and guards against the concentration of economic power.

USPS Ordered To Reassemble Sorting Machines

October 24, 2020 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Resist! 2020 Elections, Legal System, Louis DeJoy, US Postal Service

A federal judge has ordered the United States Postal Service (USPS) to restore previously decommissioned high-speed mail sorting machines at offices that can’t process election mail fast enough ahead of the upcoming presidential election. The order is the result of a lawsuit filed by New York state in late August. In the order, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote that, if a post office or distribution center is unable to process election mail, “available processing equipment will be restored to service to ensure that USPS can comply with its prior policy of delivering Election Mail in accordance with First Class delivery standards.”

Communities Of Color Hurt The Most By Postal Service Attack

October 21, 2020 Taryn MacKinney, the Union of Concerned Scientists. Educate! 2020 Elections, Austerity, Black America, US Postal Service

With just weeks until the 2020 election, the USPS is racing to prepare for a historic surge in mail-in voting. Our recent analysis of USPS records, which we received via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, suggests that the number of mail-delivery complaints has risen since March, especially in communities of color. For nearly 250 years, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has been a cherished giant of public life. Its reach is immense: In 2019, postal workers traveled 1.34 billion miles to deliver nearly 143 billion pieces of mail around the globe.

California Is Ready To Pilot A Postal Banking Solution

October 14, 2020 Thomas M. Hanna and Jeff Olson, The Hill. Create! California, Postal Banking, Privatization, US Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is under attack and at grave risk. But with that many Americans are awakening to both the value of the USPS and the manifest dangers of privatization. The crisis has also sparked renewed interest in postal banking, a win-win approach that could both make the USPS more financially resilient and provide badly needed financial services to tens of millions of Americans. Over the past several months, this constitutionally enshrined and highly-regarded public institution has been sabotaged from both within and without.

Vandalizing The Post Office

October 6, 2020 Larry Cohen, Democracy Journal. Strategize! 2020 Elections, Postal Banking, Trump, US Postal Service

Undermining democracy to win elections and protect investors and property interests in the United States is well documented and has been a consistent part of our history. However, Donald Trump’s attacks on our democracy, including his effort to privatize and disparage the public Post Office are unprecedented, and unpopular with most voters. Article 1 of the Constitution requires Congress to establish the post office, and the enabling legislation dates back to 1792. Donald Trump is constantly expanding his party’s decades-long reliance on holding down turnout to win, as white supremacist Democrats once did for nearly 100 years, beginning after the Civil War with poll taxes, literacy tests, and other restrictions on voting rights.

How Residents Rallied To Get Their Post Office Back

October 3, 2020 Jessica Kutz, North Country News. Resist! Arizona, Austerity, US Postal Service

On an otherwise typical summer day, rumors started spreading in the small rural mountain community of Munds Park in northern Arizona: The local post office had been shuttered. As the chatter and gossip grew on social media, Allison Tiffany, a seasonal resident, drove down to check. She found a suspension notice taped to the building’s glass door. “It was so shocking that you had to find out for yourself,” she said. “Sure enough, the doors were locked.” The closure was “extraordinarily disruptive,” said Tiffany, who became the de facto organizer of the community’s response.

The US Postal Service Is A National Asset

September 30, 2020 Max B. Sawicky, CEPR. Create! 2020 Elections, Postal Banking, Privatization, US Postal Service

The financial problems of the United States Postal Service (USPS) are the result of misguided policy decisions — some of them long-standing — not declines in first-class mail, its primary source of revenue. With the increased demands of voting by mail in a national election and a boom in home package delivery, the pandemic makes a well-resourced postal service more important than ever. Nostrums about the public debt have contributed to a decades-long, bipartisan attack on the US public sector, including the postal service.

New Hotline For Postal Service Whistleblowers

September 15, 2020 Project on Government Oversight. Resist! Corruption, US Postal Service, Whistleblowers, Worker Rights

The United States Postal Service provides safe, timely communication for all Americans. Increasingly, that includes supporting U.S. elections by handling mail-in ballots, a function of vital importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. But unprecedented turmoil has shaken the institution in recent months. Concerns are mounting that administrative changes could undermine the agency's basic mission: to deliver all Americans' mail safely and on time. This dedicated effort is being undertaken to ensure that POGO is able to help investigate and advocate for reforms relative to critical and essential Postal Service functions and operations.

DeJoy’s USPS Changes Violate Federal Law

September 10, 2020 the Constitutional Accountability Center, Popular Resistance. Educate! 2020 Elections, Constitution, Louis DeJoy, US Postal Service

Before USPS leaders may implement changes that will impact mail delivery on a substantially nationwide basis, the law requires certain procedures to be followed. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, however, ignored that law, instead pushing ahead with changes that have slowed mail delivery across America. Removing collection boxes. Dismantling high-speed mail sorting machines. Reducing employee overtime pay and delivery hours. Telling 46 states and the District of Columbia that the USPS could not guarantee timely delivery of mail-in ballots for the November election.

Wall Street Moving To Make A Mint Off The Mail, JPMorgan Postal Bank

September 1, 2020 Raúl Carrillo, Take On Wall Street. Educate! JP Morgan Chase, Postal Banking, US Postal Service, Wall Street

Imagine if activists and elected officials were clamoring for emergency provision of food and McDonald’s offered to place a drive-thru window in every post office. Calling it #postalfood. That makes as much sense as JPMorgan’s Chase recent attempt to place its own ATMs in every post office and call it #postalbanking. According to recent reports, Chase — the largest bank in the United States, with $3.2 trillion of assets — has offered to lease space from USPS in exchange for the “exclusive right” to solicit postal banking customers. Wall Street has consistently opposed the return of postal banking since its destruction in the 1960s. Chase and other nefarious actors are attempting to prevent competition before it even forms. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform and Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force recommendations both call for postal banking. But they also call on policymakers to separate retail banking institutions from more risky investments and protect consumers from high rates, onerous fees, inequitable credit reporting, and other harms.

Trump And DeJoy’s Main Objective: Incapacitate The US Postal Service

August 31, 2020 By Michael Payne, Nation of Change. Educate! 2020 Election, Donald Trump, Louis DeJoy, US Postal Service

Why in the world would anyone want to do great harm to one of America’s oldest and most revered institutions, the USPS? Why? It’s the upcoming presidential election, stupid! Talk about a massive dilemma by which our democracy may very well be destroyed! Americans have watched as Louis DeJoy, the newly appointed Postmaster General testified before the Senate and House committees relative to the current conditions of the U.S. Postal Service; conditions that are now at one of the lowest points in USPS history. At these hearings, we saw a snide, arrogant DeJoy make statements that almost everyone knew were false and misleading. He tried to minimize the entire crisis in the USPS by saying that, while it has some problems, they aren’t that bad. He stressed that there would be no problem in delivering the mail-in-ballots to states on time. There is no way in the world that Democrats will ever believe that.

#SaveThePostOffice Call-In Day! Wednesday, August 26

August 25, 2020 A Grand Alliance to Save the Post Office, Popular Resistance. Resist! 2020 Elections, Congress, Neoliberalism, US Postal Service

Since the Coronavirus crisis hit, USPS has become more essential than ever, from delivering life-saving medicine, to sustaining our democracy through mail-in voting. It has also become more endangered than ever, facing a massive budget crisis. Postal workers and the public are united in urging Congress to pass $25 billion in emergency COVID-related relief for USPS. Through mass public outcry, we’ve begun to roll back Trump’s new appointee Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s most recent plans to reduce service.

Postal Workers Defy Order To Not Restart Sorting Machines

August 23, 2020 John Ryan, KUOW. Resist! Louis DeJoy, Post Office, Sorting Machines, US Postal Service

Despite a national order not to reinstall letter-sorting machines that had been dismantled over the past month, the Postal Service plants in Tacoma and Wenatchee have done just that, according to workers there. Forty percent of the letter-sorting machines in the Seattle-Tacoma area had been disconnected by Tuesday, when the Postal Service announced a halt to a nationwide machinery purge until after the November election. “I have seen a lot of machinery that has been taken out,” Postal Service truck driver Bob Bockman of Tacoma said.