For two and a half centuries, Americans have depended on the United States Postal Service. To this day, communities nationwide rely on the world’s largest postal operator for daily essentials, including medications, household items, and more. Last week however, the Trump administration seemingly began taking steps to decrease the capacity of the United States Postal service, decommissioning sorting machines and removing drop-off boxes in Portland, Eugene and across the country. At a time when millions of working people plan to cast their ballot for the November election using a USPS drop box, the implications of an impending service slowdown have alarmed many within organized labor, including American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein.
"What we're hearing from the workers throughout the country is that the policies that the new Postmaster General has implemented—cutting back the hours that employees are working, changing transportation and cutting back transportation of mail, strict guidelines where somebody can't wait 10 minutes to get all the mail on a truck to get delivered that day, even though it should be delivered that day—that all these policies are slowing down the mail," Dimondstein said on Sunday.
On Tuesday, following heavy criticism, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced that the USPS would suspend any changes to the postal services’ operations until after the November 3rd election. Despite this encouraging turn of events, additional funding for the USPS is critical to maintaining its future functionality. The HEROES Act, which was passed by House Democrats nearly 100 days ago, includes $25 billion towards the Postal Service and lifts the Treasury Department’s hold to the $10 billion originally allocated to the USPS by the CARES act. Unless our elected officials continue to support the Postal Service and its 600,000 employees, its future will remain uncertain.
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