Public criticism growing against USPS leaders
SEATTLE - The United States Post Office at Bitter Lake Station in Seattle was buzzing with customers on Monday.
Holly Stein was one of them, and had a stack of envelopes addressed to the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service (USPS).
“I have letters to the Board of Governors for the postal service asking them to hold Mr. [Louis] DeJoy accountable and have him stop sabotaging the mail,” said Stein. “There’s a lot of news about the rural areas where they’re not able to get their medicine now, and veterans and so on, because of the mail slowdown.”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will testify before Congress Monday (Aug. 24), along with the Chairman of the Postal Service Board of Governors.
DeJoy is under fire for actions that have slowed down the mail service since he started in June, accusations the Trump administration has denied.
Federal lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic parties have come forward with concerns about voter suppression this upcoming presidential election in November.
“Everything has slowed way down,” said Ron Tennison, USPS customer. “It’s like quicksand, like molasses, trying to get through the postal system right now and watching tracking numbers slow down every day. It’s kind of frustrating.
President Trump said on Monday he is encouraging everybody to speed up the mail, not slow it down.
In a statement, David Yao, vice president of the Greater Seattle Area Local American Postal Workers Union (APWU), said he worries about all the change.
“We are worried that the numerous changes being made will hurt service to our customers, who rely on us more during the pandemic. While the public has great confidence in the Postal Service, we would not want to see that faith undermined at such a critical time.”
Brian Warden is a union representative for the local branch of APWU and has worked as a mail processor for USPS in south Seattle for nearly 25 years.
Warden works with high-speed letter-sorting machines and said, “We had ten as of a month ago and they removed four, so we’re down to six.”
Warden said machines are being removed in Redmond, Tacoma and across the country.
“If you get rid of 'X' amount of machines, even though the same amount of mail has to go out the door, you can get by with less employees,” said Warden, who fears this could set off layoffs in the future.
Warden said he does not know the motive behind the rollbacks, but that the timing of it is suspect ahead of the election.