Mail sorting equipment is being removed from U.S. Postal Service (USPS) offices amid a slew of operational changes implemented by new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, according to the head of the Iowa Postal Workers Union.
Numerous reports have detailed how changes made by DeJoy, a top donor to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, have cut overtime and changed policies, which have slowed down mail delivery across the country. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week that DeJoy had “confirmed that contrary to prior denials and statements minimizing these changes, the Postal Service recently instituted operational changes” shortly after he assumed office.
“We believe these changes, made during the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, now threaten the timely delivery of mail — including medicines for seniors, paychecks for workers, and absentee ballots for voters — that is essential to millions of Americans,” they wrote in a letter to DeJoy, calling the cost-cutting measures “counterproductive and unacceptable.”
The USPS, which underwent a controversial staff shake-up after DeJoy took over, recently advanced a proposal that would nearly triple states’ postage costs for mail-in ballots and is also reportedly planning service cuts. But Kimberly Karol, the head of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, told NPR that there have been even more changes than previously reported.
“We are beginning to see those changes and how it is impacting the mail. Mail is beginning to pile up in our offices, and we’re seeing equipment being removed,” she said on Tuesday. “So we are beginning to see the impact of those changes.”
“Curious,” exclaimed host Noel King, “I hadn’t heard about this one. Equipment being removed. What equipment?”
“The sorting equipment that we use to process mail for delivery,” said Karol, who is also a postal clerk. “In Iowa, we are losing machines … so that also hinders our ability to process mail in the way that we had in the past.”
USPS spokesman David Partenheimer told Salon that the equipment removal was among actions the agency was taking “focused on increasing operational efficiency.”
DeJoy, who took over the cash-strapped agency in June, said the USPS was “vigorously focusing on the ingrained inefficiencies in our operations” in a Friday statement.