Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled plans for big changes he plans to implement in order to overhaul the United States Postal Service (USPS).
He detailed plans for “organizational change” as he insisted the changes are crucial and necessary in a statement on Friday.
According to DeJoy, many areas of the postal service will undergo changes. A management hiring freeze will be put in place along with a request for future voluntary early retirements.
The postal service regions will also be reduced from seven to four as the agency is split into three operating units: “retail and delivery, logistics and processing, and commerce and business solutions.”
“This organizational change will capture operating efficiencies by providing clarity and economies of scale that will allow us to reduce our cost base and capture new revenue,” DeJoy said.
He continued, “It is crucial that we do what is within our control to help us successfully complete our mission to serve the American people and, through the universal service obligation, bind our nation together by maintaining and operating our unique, vital and resilient infrastructure.”
DeJoy’s plans have been met with opposition from the American Postal Workers Union. Mark Dimondstein, the union’s president, has criticized the overhaul, deeming it “a White House agenda” aimed at privatizing the postal service.
According to Dimondstein, the staggering mail delays are an intentional attack on the nation’s postal service.
“These changes are happening because there’s a White House agenda to privatize and sell off the public Postal Service,” Dimondstein said. “But there’s too much approval for the organization right now. They want to separate the service from the people and then degrade it to the point where people aren’t going to like it anymore.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Trump has adamantly refused to bail out the post office as many Americans may turn toward mail-in ballots for the upcoming election.
Now, USPS is nearing a dangerous financial tipping point. While the postal service did see a $547 million-dollar increase in revenue for the quarter, the postal service is still in a “dire” financial position, as previously reported on IJR.
Due to DeJoy’s plan to slash overtime compensation for postal workers, many cities across the United States face delays in mail delivery.
Democratic leaders are now calling for an investigation into DeJoy’s changes that have contributed to the mail delivery delays.
