Protect the Postal Service
Leading up to national elections, the USPS is as crucial as it’s ever been
My father was working for the United States Postal Service (USPS) before World War II, and it’s where he met my mom. When he returned from service with the US army in Iran (helping to keep the Russians away from the oil fields), his job was there waiting for him. When he retired from the post office in the early 90s, he had become the longest-serving postal employee in the county where we lived, in upstate New York. One of my brothers has been driving a postal truck between branches there for years now, and he met his wife at one of those branch post offices where five times a week he’d drop off and pick up mail.
As kids during family vacations, as soon as we saw a post office, we’d yell out its zip code as we passed; I’m really not sure why. It may have just been the thrill of feeling like we were a part of a proud tradition, part of an institution older than the country itself.
Partially due to all of that, I still get a kick out of writing and sending postcards, and not just while on vacation. I use postcards to scold elected officials and celebrity journalists, and console political prisoners, like Reality Winner, and Mumia abu-Jamal.
And I surprise many friends of all ages — who these days expect to find nothing but junk mail in their boxes — with postcards sent out of the blue. So yes: I come from a postal family, a fact I often share at the postal counter with a friendly clerk, if I can see they’ve got a minute.
Last month, my niece sent me a type-written letter that had been handed down to her, dated August 5, 1972. In it, my father had written to his oldest son:
I’m back working alone at the post office. We got back from Montreal on July 23, and Bob D– went on a two-week vacation. Besides Bob D–, there have been 2 and 3 clerks on vacation each week. Now next week Bob is being sent to W. branch, to cover the one supervisor there. Joe C–, superintendent of [a zip code], has suffered a heart attack. No telling how long [he’ll be out]. There has been a big economy move on since March 28 in the Post Office. There’s a freeze on hiring. To make matters worse, the retirement program was made more lenient in June, and 19,000 postal employees retired before July 1. Of this 19,000 there were 5,000 supervisors. I’ve been working 10, 11 and 12 hours every day … including my day off. In the R. post office, because of the agreement to have 92 carriers on vacation each week during the summer, we’ve had to pivot routes to get all of the mail delivered each day. When I’m short 1, 2, 3 or 4 carriers, i have to ‘split up’ a route, and have other carriers deliver a part of each of these routes. It’s caused a lot of extra work for the supervisors at the Stations. At this point, no one knows how much longer it can last … or we can last.
Now that letter is a historical artifact, and a testament to the dedication to service that I think typifies most postal employees.
The current occupant of the White House has now appointed as Postmaster a major fund-raiser for the Republican party named Louis DeJoy, who seems intent on tearing down the USPS.
That in itself should come as no surprise. Espousing the tenets of neo-liberalism, the apostles of free-market capitalism have for decades dedicated themselves to destroying government by selling off its component parts (privatization) leaving corporations to benefit from the plunder. The Post Office (which it’s worth remembering is not funded on tax-dollars) and Education are two of the big battles remaining to be fought, and DeJoy is only the latest in a series of federal foxes tasked with overseeing the dismantling of chicken-coops.
DeJoy’s company New Breed Logistics (later merged with XPO) was a contractor to the USPS for more than two decades. His new position allows him to make decisions that might hugely benefit his personal finances.
With the upcoming presidential election, it seems likely that the president and one of his cronies, the new postmaster, will openly attempt to further weaken this cherished institution, and just at the hour of our greatest need: to have the Post Office efficiently handle the flood of mail-in ballots from citizens around the country as well as overseas, doing their best to keep from spreading Covid-19 further.
As the ACLU’s Chad Marlow has written: Congress should do everything in its power to ensure the USPS remains vibrant and strong, and that burden falls largely on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs (and its chair, Sen. Ron Johnson), and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform (and its chair, Rep. Carolyn Maloney). Those two hyperlinks connect to the committee members (with links to their Twitter and Facebook accounts) Get in touch and tell them: we demand protection for the Postal Service, now more than ever. Better still: send them a postcard!
I think it’s best to start with the Republicans, who — more so than their Democratic colleagues — might need to be convinced of the need to defend the Postal Service. Can you imagine their offices overflowing with postcards from citizens clamoring for deJoy’s removal?!
