Ko Lyn Cheang photo
Al Alston, a Wallingford postal worker, at Thursday’s protest.
A steep slowdown in mail processing isn’t just the subject of a red-hot national political debate for Al Alston.
The Wallingford postal worker has seen that reality play out first hand at the station he works at in the New Haven suburbs — where he’s seen massive backlogs caused by two mail sorting machines dismantled and left unused, as well as by his fellow mail carriers losing overtime pay.
Alston was one of over a dozen postal workers and union leaders to join U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro and state Attorney General William Tong Thursday Thursday morning outside the New Haven Brewery Street Post Office at 50 Brewery St.
The elected officials and postal workers held a press conference at which they expressed concerns about the operational changes that President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy recently unveiled as a series of cost-cutting measures for the USPS, and that critics have said will delay the delivery of absentee ballots for the November election and depress the vote.
Alston said he has seen an 80 to 90 percent slowdown in mail process at his Wallingford station because of those changes, which DeJoy this week began to publicly walk back.
William Tong.
Tong is one of 14 state attorneys general who have filed a joint federal lawsuit against President Trump to block changes to the U.S. Postal Service and secure a federal court order mandating the reversal of cost-cutting measures, including by reinstating the decommissioned mail sorting machines and replacing mailboxes that have been removed.
“It’s not a good day when you have to sue the President of the United States,” said Tong at the press conference. “But we were compelled on Tuesday to sue the President, to sue the postal service itself, and to sue Postmaster General DeJoy because we know what they’re up to.”
“This is about our democracy,” said DeLauro. “This is about an assault on the postal service. This is about an Administration that is trying to thwart a pillar of our democratic system — voting — for political purposes. To obstruct the postal service, a constitutional institution, for political purposes is illegal.”
“Delivering For America Act” Pitched
Rosa DeLauro.
In Connecticut, 57 percent of voters voted by absentee ballots during the August 11 primary election. Tong said he expects that number to increase for the November general election because of the unprecedented health emergency.
DeLauro highlighted how during the pandemic, the mail has become “a lifeline.”
Thirty-five million stimulus checks, 20 percent of Census responses, and 100 percent of medication from the Department of Veteran Affairs to veterans have been and continue to be sent through the postal service, she said.
Despite DeJoy’s statement on Tuesday that he would temporarily suspend further operational changes until after the November election, DeLauro said at the press conference that there is no plan by the Trump administration to reverse the damage already done and to provide the Postal Service with the funds requested by the USPS Board of Governors.
“It’s not enough. I believe it’s a smokescreen,” she said about DeJoy’s announcement.
DeLauro will be travelling to Washington, D.C. to vote in Congress this Saturday on an emergency bill called the “Delivering for America Act” introduced last week by New York U.S. Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney.
The act would prohibit the postal service from implementing any changes to the operations or level of service it had in place on Jan. 1, 2020, until the COVID-19 pandemic has ended.
It will also provide $25 billion in emergency funding for the postal service, the same amount that President Trump said he would not approve on August 12. On the same day, Trump said, “They don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it, I guess,” Trump said.
The bill will also require all election mail to be sent as First Class Mail, which arrives in two to five days, prohibit the removal, decommission or stoppage of mail sorting machines, prohibit the removal of mailboxes, and explicitly reverse any changes already implemented to delay the mail.
“Like Garbage In A Parking Lot”
Nadine Larcomb, representative of Clerks’ division at American Postal Workers’ Union
Postal worker union leaders harshly criticized what they called a unilateral action by the postmaster general, made without consulting or informing union leaders.
Joan Levy, president of the Greater Connecticut Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union and director of the Connecticut State Postal Workers Union, said she has received reports that two sorting machines in Wallingford have been dismantled and four high-speed machinery in Hartford have been destroyed and are “sitting in pieces like garbage in the parking lot.”
“It’s a disgrace,” she said.
Levy said that if the machines had to be decommissioned due to current low mail volume, they should have been kept on the working floor, covered with a tarp, and readied for when the surge of absentee ballots arrive. “That is not what happened. They are in pieces on the working floor.”
The machines were dismantled about two months ago, well before DeJoy made public his cost-cutting measures.
But Levy said the six machines were on the list of 671 machines that the Postal Service targeted for decommissioning before August 1, which was made public knowledge in the past day.
Levy added that the American Postal Workers’ Union headquarters received an email shortly after DeJoy’s announcement on Tuesday, stating that he would not be putting the machines back in service or replacing the blue mailboxes that have been removed.
“For the postmaster general to say he is going to put it all back together is a farce,” she said. “This is not just about the mail. This is about our democracy.”
“Don’t Stand In Our Way”
Rosa DeLauro (right) talks to postal worker union leaders.
Vince Mase, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 19, dismissed allegations that voter fraud would be widespread during the election.
He explained that the postal service has two police units in it, the Postal Inspection Service and the USPS Office of Inspector General, which investigate any attempts at mail tampering.
He also pushed back against claims that the postal service will not be able to handle the volume of absentee ballots during the election. “That is 100 percent wrong,” he said. “All postal workers, American Postal Workers Union, the clerks, truck drivers, mail haulers, letter carriers, you give us the mail, we will get it delivered on time no matter what. Don’t stand in our way. We know our job and we know what we have to do.”
“I have confidence that if they give us the tools, postal workers can do anything,” said Levy. “We came through Anthrax, we came through storms, we can do this again.”
Watch the press conference here:
This attempt to destroy the postal service is an outrageous overreach of this administration. Vote early by mail, vote by dropping your ballot into an official ballot collection box, vote in person six feet apart and with a mask and hand sanitizer. Vote for the economy and jobs, vote for virus prevention, Vote for access to healthcare, vote for social services programs like Social Security, vote for the restoration of the US mail, vote for liberty and justice for all. Vote for your civil rights and our Democracy, Vote as if your life depends on it, as indeed it does.