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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – The scope of the challenges for the US Postal Service did not end with the November general election and tens of millions of postal votes. The pandemic-depleted workforce fell further into a hole during the holiday rush, resulting in long hours and a mountain of delayed mail.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy pledged to make improvements after facing heavy criticism and called for his impeachment for his actions which slowed mail delivery ahead of the election. Some critics were hoping that President Joe Biden would fire DeJoy, but a president cannot. Instead, Biden could and likely will use nominations to reshape the Board of Governors, which is meeting Tuesday for the first time since being elected.
It’s unclear how quickly Biden’s administration will evolve. A White House spokesperson declined to comment on the upcoming appointments.
Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, said he hoped for “bold appointments” from Biden.
“We want a Board of Governors that basically understands that this is not called the United States Postal Business,” he said. “This is not a for-profit business. He is there to serve the people.
A change of tone, at least, would be welcomed by postal workers after former President Donald Trump called the Postal Service a “joke” last year by criticizing business practices that have led to a growing operational deficit.
Despite the pandemic, first-class mail on-time rates topped 90% for most of the year until DeJoy took office in June and began implementing changes that raised concerns about delivery postal ballots. Workers decried DeJoy for limiting overtime and late or overtime travel, which resulted in mail delays and the dismantling of sorting machines before the election.
In total, the postal service successfully delivered more than 130 million ballots to and from voters during the general election.
But by the time Christmas arrived, the situation was so bad that more than a third of first class mail was late, a dismal performance, even though DeJoy had backed down on some of his changes by then.
During the holiday season, tractor-trailers full of mail were left idling outside some mail sorting facilities across the country because there was no room inside. Parcels and letters stacked in distribution centers. The delays increased by days, then by weeks.
A number of factors contributed to the nightmare.
Americans were using the postal service at an unprecedented level due to the pandemic. Overtime could not compensate for the impact of COVID-19 illnesses and postmen’s quarantines. Commercial flights that carry the mail operated on reduced schedules. And FedEx and UPS threw the packages on the postal service when they reached their limit.
“At Christmas you could barely move around the facility,” said Scott Adams, local president of the American Postal Workers Union in Portland, Maine. “The aisles were blocked by mail.”
Jay Geller said it took 30 days for a birthday card sent after Christmas by his stepmother in Iowa to reach his 8-year-old grandson at his Cleveland home. And don’t throw it on the homemade Minnesota scones, which were late and inedible.
“By the time they got there they were rock hard and crashed flat,” he said.
Terri Hayes experienced “Christmas in January” when several of her packages arrived late in Medina, Ohio. The last gift to arrive was a necklace and charm sent by a friend to Maryland on December 5th. He arrived on January 28.
She sympathizes with the overworked postal workers, but also worries about the delay of more important items, like bills.
“I just wish they would put things back to how they were when it was working,” Hayes said. “Put the sorting machines back on. Let them work the overtime.
The Postal Service claims it has now returned to “pre-peak” conditions, and DeJoy and six board members said they learned of the election and the record-breaking holiday season in which more than 1 , 1 billion packages were delivered. The post office manager and council are working on a ten-year plan that will include improvements.
“We need to confidently plan our future – what we think is bright for the Postal Service and for America,” they said in a statement.
Critics have called for DeJoy to be fired. And Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey, wants Biden to dismiss the entire Postal Service Board of Governors for what he called dereliction of duty.
The Board of Governors, which selects the Postmaster General, is currently made up of people appointed by Trump. The vice president resigned to protest the actions of the Trump administration. That leaves a president, Robert Duncan, who is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, with three other Republican members and two Democratic members.
If Biden fills all the vacancies, Democratic members would hold a majority, despite the board being officially bipartisan. No party may hold more than five seats on the nine-member board of directors.
The Postmaster General and Deputy Postmaster General vote on some but not all of the issues referred to the council.
Dimondstein said the recent announcement of more than 10,000 more permanent jobs at the distribution centers was a down payment to fix the issues. DeJoy needs to make further changes to improve service and morale, he said.
“Either he’s going to do good by the locals. Or he has to go, ”Dimondstein said.
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