Letter carrier Henrietta Dixon, a nearly 30-year
veteran, sorts mail to be delivered before she sets out on her route in
Philadelphia in May. Changes within the U.S. Postal Service could make
some deliveries late.
On his first day on the job last month, new Postmaster General Louis
DeJoy addressed the nearly half-million U.S. Postal Service career
employees in a video message.
He
talked of a "trajectory for success" and said that "we will focus on
creating a viable operating model that ensures the Postal Service
continues fulfilling its public service mission."
That message
has since been followed by a number of directives and orders that prompt
some to wonder just what DeJoy has in mind for the agency, which dates
back to the nation's earliest days.
DeJoy, the nation's 75th postmaster general — a line that stretches back to Benjamin Franklin — is a major donor to President Trump and other Republicans. He previously headed a North Carolina-based logistics company.
Managers have told postal workers that under DeJoy, the post office
is about to embark on what's been called a long-overdue "operational
pivot." It means that among other things, late-arriving mail will now be
left behind by carriers and delivered the next day. Overtime will be
eliminated.
Those moves upset some workers, who take seriously the unofficial motto of the Postal Service
that holds: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays
these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" — a
phrase from the Greek historian Herodotus chiseled into the granite of
New York City's general post office.
"There seems to be a sea
change here," says Philip Rubio, a history professor at North Carolina
A&T State University and a former letter carrier. Rubio says DeJoy
seems intent on making the Postal Service more of a business than a
service.
"If they're talking about delaying mail, if they're talking about
sending letter carriers out to the street, even if the truck is late,
that means there's a lot of first-class mail that's going to be left on
the workroom floor. And there's an almost cavalier attitude about this,"
Rubio says.
Agency in difficulty
The Postal Service, which doesn't receive any tax dollars for its operating expenses, has longstanding financial issues.
It
reported a loss of nearly $9 billion last year. Some of that is due to a
congressional mandate that the post office prepay the health care costs
of retirees. Some of it is due to a years-long decline in the volume of
first-class mail.
The coronavirus pandemic has also meant a
reduction in some mail. But it also meant an increase in package
shipping as people shop online from their homes. That has postponed an
imminent cash crisis the Postal Service had predicted might strike
earlier this summer.