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US Postal Service

How Residents Rallied To Get Their Post Office Back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

US Postal Service Employees Ordered Not To Speak To Press

While the U.S. Postal Service is under attack, everyone from letter carriers to union chairs and those working behind the doors in processing facilities has sounded the alarm about what they’re seeing from the top as part of the intentional mail slow down. VICE News reported Thursday that USPS staff were sent a letter telling them that they can’t talk to the press under any circumstances. The memo, dated Aug. 14, explains what staff should do if contacted, but it also says that if customers are asking questions, then employees should be “suspicious.”

Congress: Postal Service Delays ‘Far Worse Than Previously Acknowledged’

House Democrats on the Oversight and Reform Committee released documents Saturday showing that Postal Service delays they say are “far worse than previously acknowledged.” The assessment from the lawmakers comes a day after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, where he apologized for a “dip” in service but assured the panel that the "nation’s election mail" would be delivered "fully and on time.” Democrats in both chambers of Congress have been been concerned about the operational changes that DeJoy announced earlier this summer that included a shuffling of personnel, a curtailing of over time and a removal of mail-sorting machines, among other things.

Rotting Food, Dead Animals And Chaos At Postal Facilities

Six weeks ago, U.S. Postal Service workers in the high desert town of Tehachapi, Calif., began to notice crates of mail sitting in the post office in the early morning that should have been shipped out for delivery the night before. At a mail processing facility in Santa Clarita in July, workers discovered that their automated sorting machines had been disabled and padlocked. And inside a massive mail-sorting facility in South Los Angeles, workers fell so far behind processing packages that by early August, gnats and rodents were swarming around containers of rotted fruit and meat, and baby chicks were dead inside their boxes.

Postal Service Halts Some Changes Amid Outcry, Protests And Lawsuits

Facing mounting public pressure and a crush of state lawsuits, President Donald Trump's new postmaster general announced Tuesday he is halting some operational changes to mail delivery that critics blamed for widespread delays and warned could disrupt the November election. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said he would "suspend" several of his initiatives — including the removal of the distinctive blue mail boxes that prompted an outcry — until after the election "to avoid even the appearance of impact on election mail." "We will deliver the nation's election mail on time," DeJoy said in a statement. The abrupt reversal from DeJoy, who is set to testify Friday before the Senate, comes as more than 20 states, from New York to California, announced they would be suing to stop the changes. Several vowed they would press on, keeping a watchful eye on the Postal Service ahead of the election. 

Protect The Vote And End Privatization Of The Postal Service

As we were warned earlier in the year, the US Postal Service is failing due to a long term effort to weaken it plus the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, recession and intentional efforts by the Trump administration to suppress the vote. Members of Congress and state leaders are starting to take notice because of the magnitude of the crisis and public outcry, particularly over valid concerns that mail-in voting will be disrupted. Now is the time to not only protect the vote but to use this moment to end privatization and selling off of the US Postal Service and expand it as a critical public institution that provides high quality jobs and services to all communities, rich and poor, urban and rural, across the country.

Protesters Make Noise At Postmaster General’s Home Over Cuts

Protesters filled the streets outside the head of the U.S. Postal Service's home in Northwest Washington, D.C., on Saturday, some carrying signs that read "Don't mess with the USPS" and "Don't stamp out our democracy." The demonstrators blew airhorns and banged pots as a few of them walked to the front door of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's building and pinned fake ballots to his front door, as protesters accused him and the White House of working together to undermine main-in ballots and the election. "Hey hey, Louis DeJoy, the Postal Service is not your toy!" the protesters chanted. It was not known if he was home.

‘Attempted Murder Of Your Post Office’

Postal workers and their allies in Congress are vowing to fight back after the new head of the U.S. Postal Service—a major donor to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party—moved this week to impose sweeping changes to the popular government agency as it faces a financial crisis manufactured by lawmakers and exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Washington Post reported late Tuesday that Postmaster General (PMG) Louis DeJoy, who took charge last month, issued memos announcing "major operational changes" to the USPS "that could slow down mail delivery, warning employees the agency would not survive unless it made 'difficult' changes to cut costs."

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