Postmaster General Louis DeJoy confirmed that he will not restore mail collecting and processing capacity that the U.S Postal Service has lost in recent weeks, when pressed by U.S. Senator Tom Carper in a Senate Homeland Security Committee Friday.
“Senator, as I said, I did not direct that, I stopped it. It’s insignificant, it’s not material to anything that we do, and we’re sticking with where we’re at right now,” said DeJoyOver the past few weeks, Carper noted during the hearing on August 21, 2020, that his office of constituent services has received thousands of complaints about delayed paychecks and prescription medications due to decreased mail capacity.
“And it’s not just my office, it’s Senate offices and House offices all over the country, and frankly they coincided with the time that you took office,” said Carper, who’s a senior member of the committee.The Postmaster General and USPS have been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks over changes put in motion ahead of the 2020 election. Many Americans have since grown concerned over the USPS’ ability to handle the expected influx of ballots as more voters choose to vote by mail because of the COVID-19 global pandemic.
During the hearing, LeJoy maintained the USPS would “deliver every ballot and process every ballot, in time, that it receives.”
While DeJoy may be suspending changes to postal service operations, it doesn’t necessarily mean machines that had been removed will be put back in use, according to an email obtained by CNN.
The email, sent hours after DeJoy’s public suspension of changes on Tuesday, instructs postal workers not to reconnect any mail sorting machines that have previously been disconnected.
“Please message out to your respective Maintenance Managers tonight,” wrote Kevin Couch, a director of maintenance operations. “They are not to reconnect/reinstall machines that have been previously disconnected without approval from HQ Maintenance, no matter what direction they are getting from their plant manager.”
DeJoy announced Tuesday he would pause many of the new policies he put in place, including the removal of high-volume mail sorting machines, after postal workers, the public and some lawmakers, sounded alarms the changes were causing massive delivery delays, potentially putting the November election in peril.
The postmaster general’s announcement coincided with a news conference outside a USPS facility in Wilmington, where Delaware’s delegation blasted changes that they claimed put upcoming elections at risk, as record numbers of Americans across the country plan to vote-by-mail amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’ve got a president who doesn’t want to have vote-by-mail. We’ve got a president who would like to suppress the vote; we’ve got a president who would like to see the postal service not do well,” he said. “When I see what’s going on with the president who wants to degrade the postal service, wants to get rid of vote-by-mail, you shouldn’t be surprised that we’re alarmed that we’re seeing that kind of degraded service.
We’ve got a lot of people who are sick and afraid of going out and voting this year because they don’t want to stand in line and come down with a virus that could take their life; this is a serious matter, and I just urge you to work with us–not be apart from us…work with us as we…build the kind of postal service that we can all be proud of,” said Carper at the Senate hearing.It’s unclear if there’s been additional guidance since Couch sent the email, which appeared to have been sent to managers in the western region.
The USPS has not been attempting to reassemble or replace the mail sorting machines or letter collection recently removed in at least nine states, according to the union officials CNN spoke to in those states.
Delaware U.S. Senator Chris Coons, said various postal employees, who wished to remain anonymous fearing retribution, invited him to a USPS facility near New Castle to see what they called “government destruction of property.” There, Coons said he found a dismantled mail sorting machine that he said was left out in the rain. The senator said employees told him the dismantling happened in a “late-night operation.” It’s unclear whether this machine can be fixed and costs associated with fixing it are unknown.
Prior to the hearing, Coons had said he planned to seek a written commitment from DeJoy that he will reverse the costly changes he’s made to the delivery standards for our mail.
CNN spoke with union officials across the US on the local, regional and national level, and was only able to identify two facilities — Dallas and Tacoma, Washington — that had attempted to reassemble and reintroduce mail sorting machines back into USPS’s daily operations.
As it was Carper’s turn to speak during the hearing, he experienced technical difficulties, and as the committee chair moved to skip over him, Carper’s mic was unmuted and dropped several “F” bombs. Carper continued on to ask his questions of LeJoy.
He later acknowledged the flub in a tweet:
“Those who know me know that there are few things that get me more fired up than protecting the Postal Service! #DontMessWithUSPS”