“Postal workers and allies to protest DeJoy’s Ten-Year Plan at BOG meeting, Save the Post Office, Steve Hutkins I missed this announcement at Steve Hutkins “Save The Post Office” blog. Apparently a large number of US Post Office supporters went to the Governor’s meeting and expressed their opinion on Postmaster Louis DeJoy’s plan to centralize sorting away from the neighborhood post offices. In effect, this action places a much larger burden on postal workers who will have to travel to these centers, sort their mail, travel back to their routes, and then deliver that mail. It is a cost shift to Labor without compensation for costs and time. Obviously, I missed the meeting, You may want to listen to the meeting on the link below and the public
Topics:
Angry Bear considers the following as important: Hot Topics, politics, Save The Post Office, Steve Hutkins, Taxes/regulation, Ten Year Plan Protest, Uncategorized
This could be interesting, too:
Editor writes In search of radical alternatives
Stavros Mavroudeas writes «Οι καταστροφικές επιπτώσεις της ΕΕ στην Ελλάδα και τους εργαζόμενους» – Στ.Μαυρουδέας ΠΡΙΝ 20-21/4/2024
Stavros Mavroudeas writes «Κοινωνικές επιστήμες: είδος υπό εξαφάνιση;» – εκδήλωση Παντειέρα-Attac, 23/4/2024, 5.30μμ Πάντειο
Joel Eissenberg writes Credit where credit is due
“Postal workers and allies to protest DeJoy’s Ten-Year Plan at BOG meeting, Save the Post Office, Steve Hutkins
I missed this announcement at Steve Hutkins “Save The Post Office” blog. Apparently a large number of US Post Office supporters went to the Governor’s meeting and expressed their opinion on Postmaster Louis DeJoy’s plan to centralize sorting away from the neighborhood post offices. In effect, this action places a much larger burden on postal workers who will have to travel to these centers, sort their mail, travel back to their routes, and then deliver that mail. It is a cost shift to Labor without compensation for costs and time.
Obviously, I missed the meeting, You may want to listen to the meeting on the link below and the public commentary.
Community and Postal Workers United (CPWU) is encouraging people to speak out during the public comment period at the Postal Board of Governors’ meeting on November 10. Here’s the CPWU announcement.
Postal Board of Governors – Public Meeting
Thurs. Nov. 10, 8:30am ET
Listen to public comment (after a short board mtg. at 8:30am ET) at the
Meeting of the Board of Governors
The US Postal Service, run by dedicated postal workers, is protecting our votes and delivering for the holidays, even when burdened with understaffing, cuts, delays, and price hikes by top postal management.
Despite two years of calls for the removal of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy by postal unions, advocacy groups and many Congress people; the Postal Board of Governors continues to support DeJoy. Two pro-DeJoy governors – Lee Moak and William Zollars – end their terms on December 8, 2022. President Biden has the opportunity to replace them with pro-public, pro-worker nominees and tip the balance to finally dump DeJoy.
An activist network, Communities and Postal Workers United, is circulating this petition:
“Tell President Biden: Nominate the Final Two Members of the USPS Board of Governors Needed to Fire Louis DeJoy and Expand Postal Services Now”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is rolling out a massive change to mail sorting and delivery, beginning with 200 post offices by February, 2023. Instead of sorting mail in the back of the local post office, mail carriers will commute to a distant “Sorting and Delivery Center” to sort their mail then travel back to the neighborhood to deliver it, then travel back to the S&DC to complete their day and then commute back to their home.
This new “Delivery Unit Optimization – DUO” (local office) and “Sorting and Delivery Center- S&DC” (distant hub) plan will severely impact postal workers and the public.
This from Steve Hutkins of Save The Post Office, a nationally recognized postal expert . . .
”consider what’s in store for individual letter carriers. For most of them, their new workplace at the S&DC will require a longer commute than the post office where they currently work — probably about 10 extra miles, another 15 minutes of driving time each way. That’s 2.5 hours more each week, 120 hours more a year — the equivalent of three weeks’ work, unpaid. Over the course of a year, the carrier will drive 5,000 more miles than the current commute requires. Figured at the IRS mileage rate of 63 cents per mile for gas, maintenance, etc., the increased cost would be $3,150 (non-reimbursable).”
This assault on mail carriers’ working conditions will accelerate their exodus from the postal service. Already, due to understaffing and long hours, mail carriers are retiring early. The retention rate for new carriers is 30% and job fairs are producing few applicants. The postmaster general’s new plan will only make this bad situation worse.
DeJoy has announced the conversion of thousands of post offices and the displacement of tens of thousands of mail carriers (DUOs) in the next few years. Steve Hutkins suggests the retail units that lose their “back end” delivery units will also lose postal clerks (who sort parcels and mail for the carriers) and supervisors. Inevitably, without a full clerk complement, retail hours are cut, post offices are moved to smaller, out of the way buildings and strip malls, merged, contracted out or closed. This is what happened to most post offices where thousands of routes were DUO’d in the 2011-2015 period.
CPWU is urging all postal service supporters to sign petitions protesting mail carrier removal, organize town hall meetings against it, and speak out at the Postal Board of Governors’ national meeting on November 10.
Many speakers will no doubt emphasize the adverse economic impact on postal workers and the communities they serve, particularly in rural areas. On the eve of Veterans Day, some will also remind the board that military veterans, now wearing the uniform of the postal service, will be among the first casualties of yet another public service restructuring scheme inherited from Trump but still unfolding on Joe Biden’s watch.
A copy of a letter to be sent to Congressional Representatives and Senators calling on them to sponsor hearings and legislation to stop this bad plan. can be found here.