Post Office Undoes *Most Of* Louis DeJoy's F*ckery, We'll Take The Win
The United States Postal Service is, traditionally, pretty great. It's super reliable, it allows you to send cards and letters for the price of a stamp (50 cents), it brings you the things you need, and it's one of the few remaining solid union jobs in America where one can get a decent salary with benefits without a college degree. So, naturally, Trump wants to destroy it. He put Louis DeJoy in charge of doing that — but, alas, it has not worked out all that well for him. Two separate judges filed injunctions on the changes he's been making to the USPS, like getting rid of overtime, mailboxes, and sorting machines to help Trump ratfuck the election.
In a memo issued this week and leaked to VICE titled "Ready to deliver Election Mail for the nation," the USPS walked back a number of DeJoy's more controversial plans and informed workers that no one was going to be screwing with the delivery of the nation's Election Mail.
The Postal Service's number one priority between now and Election Day is the secure, on-time delivery of the nation's Election Mail — and we are ready to deliver for our country. There has been a lot of media coverage — including many reports with inaccurate information — about Election Mail. To clear up any confusion, and to ensure compliance with a recent court order requiring certain practices, management has been given operational instructions. These instructions will remain in effect until further notice.
Said instructions include going back to normal use of overtime and scheduling "work hours based on workload," acknowledging that overtime is necessary (obviously) to do their job. It also noted that there would not be a hiring freeze, retail hours would no longer be reduced, and no one would be getting rid of any mailboxes unless doing so was made necessary by inclement weather, civil unrest, national security interests, or other things not related to "just making it harder for people to mail stuff in hopes that it will help Trump win."
Additionally, late trips and extra trips will not be banned and "they should not be restricted if they are reasonably necessary to complete timely mail delivery"... and mail won't just be randomly left on the floor, but will instead be delivered to the people to whom it is addressed.
Focusing on the transportation schedule does not mean that mail should be left behind — it should not.
About those sorting machines?
No mail processing facilities will be closed or consolidated, and no letter or flat sorting machines will be removed before the November elections. We have more than sufficient capacity to process current and anticipated mail volumes with our existing machine supply. Available machines will be returned to service if Headquarters or the Regional Vice President determine that doing so is necessary to fulfill our Election Mail service commitments.
While Louis DeJoy has yet to explain why the sorting machines were disappeared and "disassembled for parts," he insisted in a hearing yesterday that he would not restore those that had been dismantled, for reasons. We don't know what they are and neither does he.
Via Washington Post:
House Democrats repeatedly pressed DeJoy to roll back the changes himself. In a five-minute monologue, [Massachusetts Rep. Stephen] Lynch told DeJoy, "You have ended a once proud tradition" of reliable mail delivery.
As DeJoy began to respond, Lynch cut in, "Will you put the machines back?"
"The rest of your accusations are actually outrageous," DeJoy said.
"Will you put the machines back?" Lynch asked again.
"I will not," DeJoy said
The fact that the memo was released the day DeJoy was giving his testimony suggests that either someone went rogue, he's simply submitting to pressure, or — and we hope this isn't it — it's a ruse. In any case, it does seem as though the USPS, under his leadership, has every intention of restoring all of the very bad shit he wanted to do after the election. Good thing he'll probably be on his way out before he can do too much more damage.
[VICE]
Robyn Pennacchia is a brilliant, fabulously talented and visually stunning angel of a human being, who shrugged off what she is pretty sure would have been a Tony Award-winning career in musical theater in order to write about stuff on the internet. Follow her on Twitter at @RobynElyse
