If you like the United States Postal Service, you’re in the majority. According to an April 2020 PEW Research Center poll, 91% of Americans have a favorable view of the service. However, President Donald Trump’s recent war with USPS and subsequent cutbacks of their funding threatens the USPS. (1)
The Conditions Of USPS, Due To Cutbacks
At the mail processing plant where Florence Avenue and Central Avenue meet in Los Angeles, there are some grisly conditions. Before things got bad, Aukushan Scantlebury, a 47-year-old mail sorter, said that COVID-19 had overwhelmed their facility. The postal workers were working six days a week because of how many people turned to online shopping in the wake of the pandemic. Whether to avoid going out to get needed supplies or just for something to do, people were ordering at higher than usual volumes. (2)
USPS Overtime Cutbacks
The Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, then gave the order–less overtime. If the post office was swamped before, this devastated it. There were too many packages and not enough people. Food rotted on the floor. Animals, which can be shipped through USPS, died. Eddie Cowan is president of his branch of the National Postal Mail Handlers’ Union. He works as a mail sorter in the L.A. area. Sometimes, he says, people ship live crickets, which are often used to feed lizards, iguanas, and other reptiles. Usually, you can see them hopping in their packaging. Now, “you can see in the packages those crickets are dead.”
Another postal worker said that boxes with baby chicks in them once peeped joyously are now silent. Scantlebury said his “whole building was filled with gnats,” due to all the decaying packages. (2)
USPS Sorting Machine Cutbacks
Sumi Ali runs a coffee subscription company. As a result, he’s in and out of the mail sorting facility all the time. It takes a lot to shock him, but this did. “It was like Armageddon. It was a total maze. You could not walk through the facility without having to move things out of your way,” he says. “I don’t know how they got forklifts through there. There were only inches of space between containers.”
This could perhaps be due to the fact that 10% of USPS sorting machines are to be removed from facilities as part of their cutbacks. Western regional coordinator for the American Postal Workers Union, Omar Gonzalez, says that 70% of the bar code scanners in the Florence and Central processing plant have been closed down. (2)
The USPS Cutbacks Lawsuit
Bob Ferguson, Attorney General of Washington State, is leading a group of states in suing over the cutbacks, which he says violate the law. “For partisan gain, President Trump is attempting to destroy a critical institution that is essential for millions of Americans,” claims the AG. According to the Washington Attorney General’s office’s statement, “law requires that changes at the U.S. Postal Service that cause a nationwide impact in mail service must be submitted to the Postal Regulatory Commission . . . . The Trump Administration’s failure to perform this mandatory duty deprived the states of their statutory right to notice and comment on USPS’ nationwide service changes.” (3)
