Every week at All Saints Church we put our faith into action. This week we are asking everyone to sign a petition to President Biden urging him to fill three vacancies on the Postal Board of Governors that oversees the operations and management of the United States Postal Service.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is a public good. They deliver to every address regardless of location, which is important, especially for people who live somewhere rural or hard to access. They deliver essential, lifesaving prescription medication and have continued to deliver important packages for small businesses and families alike. They are the backbone of our democracy, especially during this pandemic, when they delivered over 100 million ballots for the 2020 election. The USPS keeps our society going and has been the truest of essential services.
Louis DeJoy, the current Postmaster General, is a Trump enabler who currently manages the day-to-day operations of the USPS. He has deliberately sabotaged the functioning of the USPS before the election by eliminating overtime pay, reducing retail hours, closing and consolidating post office locations, removing mail-sorting machines, and implementing tactics to slow down delivery speeds.1
These delays disproportionately targeted communities of color, which added insult to injury after decades of voter suppression against Black and non-Black communities of color.2 This was done in service to Donald Trump’s delusional belief despite history to the contrary that mail in voting favored Democrats and to sabotage the post office in order to privatize it, which has been a long-term goal of the extremist right.
DeJoy has said that he’s working on a 10-year plan for the post office that will come out soon, and we can expect it to feature more attacks against Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and rural communities; more price hikes and service cuts; and other measures to carry out Trump’s OMB report calling for the post office to be privatized and sold for parts. He’s already announced plans to cut service to Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. In addition, the Washington Post recently broke the news that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is preparing to put all first-class mail onto a single delivery track that would result in massive price increases and slow down mail delivery.
The board of governors can hold DeJoy accountable for carrying out Trump’s wishes of strategically dismantling the functioning of post offices across the country. The board currently has a majority supporting DeJoy, but only because there are three empty seats. By filling those seats, President Biden and the Senate will ensure that the board can set a new direction for the post office. They can hire and fire the postmaster general, review all practices of the USPS, and along with the Postal Regulatory Commission, set policies for the Postal Service.
The stakes couldn’t be higher: We have seen the effects of Louis DeJoy’s pet project to slow down the mail, jack up prices, and privatize the post office in the middle of a pandemic that is decimating the postal workforce. 20,000 postal workers either tested positive for COVID-19 or were quarantining due to exposure leading up to the holidays. Postal workers were pushed to their breaking point, working double shifts to deliver our packages. The volume increase was entirely predictable, and DeJoy did not plan for it.
If we don’t stop Louis DeJoy now, a national treasure will be lost. The USPS is an agency that has served us well for 246 years tracing its roots back to 1775 when the Second Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin the first Postmaster General. That’s why President Biden and the Senate must fill the empty seats on the Postal Board of Governors as soon as possible with pro-post office members who will prioritize the mandate of the USPS to serve all of us and will stop DeJoy’s ideological project to kill the USPS.
- “Who Is Louis DeJoy? U.S. Postmaster General In Spotlight Ahead Of 2020 Election,” NPR, August 21, 2020 https://act.moveon.org/go/149879?t=10&akid=28979848553507F5eRO
- “The Postal Service is Under Attack. Our Research Shows Who This Hurts Most,” Union of Concerned Scientists, October 19, 2020 https://act.moveon.org/go/149853?t=12&akid=28979848553507F5eRO
- “Postal Service will prioritize ballots over other mail, postmaster general testifies,” The Washington Post, August 21, 2020 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/21/dejoy-testimony-usps-senate/
