Postal workers union sounds alarm about USPS staffing, service and election preparedness

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• Geoff Bennett:

  U.S. postal workers held rallies across the country yesterday, warning of what they call substandard performance by the U.S. Postal Service.

  The rallies were organized by the American Postal Workers Union, which is calling for the public's help in demanding improved staffing for postal workers, better customer service, and more opportunity for public input. All of this comes ahead of the presidential election, where millions of Americans will be voting by mail.

  Mark Dimondstein is president of the American Postal Workers Union, and he joins us now.

  It's great to have you here.

• Mark Dimondstein, President, American Postal Workers Union:

  Great to be here. Thanks so much.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So the Postal Service says it's committed to the secure and timely delivery of election mail and ballots in this election season. Is the Postal Service up to the job?

• Mark Dimondstein:

  We believe they are. Postal workers are absolutely dedicated to our mission in general, and specifically around making sure that the people of this country have that kind of access to the ballot box and their cherished right to vote on a nonpartisan basis that the Postal Service can bring to the people of this country.

  It's interesting. In 2020, almost half the people in the country voted by mail. In the midterms, about a third of the people voted by mail. It works. It's not fraudulent. Everything says that, the audits, the recounts. Vote by mail is a great way to vote, increases participation, makes it easier for people to vote.

  I'm a lucky one. I get a ballot automatically to my home in Washington, D.C., and my wife and I can vote at the kitchen table. And so we encourage people to have full confidence in the Postal Service and the postal workers that will get their ballots there through the system, on time. The Postal Service has put in a lot of extraordinary measures to make sure it gets done.

  So the people of this country can have absolute trust and confidence in us that we will be there, just like we were in 2020 and 2022.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Is the effort focused on election mail coming at the expense of the rest of the Postal Service?

• Mark Dimondstein:

  Well, in a moment, it might, but it's such an important aspect of the public Postal Service's role in our society, that we accept that election mail, they are putting in what they call extraordinary measures.

  And some of those include moving election mail ahead of other mail. Now, those measures also include more overtime, more transportation, more clearing the election ballots. And that's all part of why we have the confidence and the people of this country should have the confidence that we're going to come through.

  But we also are saying yesterday, part of our message yesterday, is, as good as election mail is going to be, as important as it is, and as how much trust and confidence the people should have in it and will have in it, we want the people's mail to be treated that way every day of the year, because however we choose to use the Postal Service, that's important to us as a postal customer and patron.

  So part of our message is trust election mail, we're confident, but let's make sure that postal management puts into place those kind of things and make sure people get this kind of service every day of the year. We need more staffing, for example. We can't serve the people of the country unless we have better staffing.

  We have 10,000 less postal clerks who we do represent now than we did a few years back, and we got tons and tons of more packages to move because that's part of the way the mail is changing. So there is a lot of work ahead of us to fix the problems. And management has to do that.

• Geoff Bennett:

  I reached out to the U.S. Postal Service in advance of speaking with you, and they provided a statement, part of which reads this way.

• It says:

  "We are executing on strategies to pull together the people, technology, transportation, equipment and facilities into a well-integrated and streamlined mail and package network."

  In your view, is the Postal Service investing in the work force and the staff in a way that is sustainable?

• Mark Dimondstein:

  Maybe the verdict is still out on that.

  We accept, postal workers accept, our union accepts that the Postal Service is going through some needed change. The communication habits of the people of the country have fundamentally changed with the advent of the Internet. Letter mail is down, still very important, but down. Packages are rising.

  And that may result in changes in transportation, changes in machines, changes in buildings and so on. But along the way, while we accept the need for change, we want to make sure that that change is always improving service. And so far, the implementation of that change and some of the changes is actually going to slow down mail more.

  We're completely against that. We were out there yesterday standing with the people of the country for that prompt, reliable and efficient service promised under the law. So there's some growing pains. We will have to see where it ends up. Some of the things we have been advocating, the Postal Service has listened to.

  For instance, we believe that local mail, mail that you mail in your area for your area should stay in your area and not go on a truck ride five or six hours somewhere to come back. Postal management has begun to address some of those concerns. And there are other things like that, and we want everybody to be treated equally, whether you're in rural America, urban America, suburban America.

  And some of the plans that postal management is putting into place, we believe will punish particularly rural America. That's not the fundamental mission of the Postal Service. No matter where we live, no matter who we are, we should get the same good service.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, thanks for coming in.

• Mark Dimondstein:

  Thank you.