"Improved Efficiency at USPS" Topic

"… in July the Postmaster General] ordered drivers to start leaving post offices and distribution centers exactly on schedule and curtailed extra trips to pick up any mail that missed earlier cutoffs."

"Workers … described troubling details about how the rigid schedules have played out: Some trucks have traveled empty, and mail left behind has accumulated at massive processing centers, creating backlogs in a system that is not designed to store mail. … in at least one case, a large shipment from Amazon was turned away because facilities had no space to process it."

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CALIFORNIA
Empty trucks, falsified records: How Louis DeJoy's changes at the Postal Service brought chaos
Mail carriers load letters and parcels from large carts into their trucks at a U.S. post office in Van Nuys.
A policy requiring all trucks to leave on time from U.S. Postal Service facilities, like this post office in Van Nuys, led to chaos in the system, a Times investigation found.(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
By MAYA LAU, LAURA J. NELSON
SEP. 17, 20205 AM UPDATED6:51 AM
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For new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who wanted the U.S. Postal Service to operate more efficiently, it seemed like an obvious fix: Just run the trucks on time.

So in July he ordered drivers to start leaving post offices and distribution centers exactly on schedule and curtailed extra trips to pick up any mail that missed earlier cutoffs.

The stricter deadlines sparked far less public outcry than the removal of more than 700 high-speed sorting machines at mail processing facilities around the country — but they were far more disruptive to the U.S. mail system, according to a Times investigation.

Weeks-long delays began to ripple through a system already reeling from COVID-19 absences and a surge in package delivery during the pandemic, shaking Americans' faith in one of the country's most popular services and raising concerns about how the Postal Service will handle mail-in ballots in November.

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The abrupt scheduling move also raised more questions about DeJoy's stewardship of the Postal Service, which has been marked by severe delivery snafus and charges by critics that he is

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is seen framed between dark patches on either side of the photo
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testifies before a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the U.S. Postal Service on Aug. 24.(Pool Photo)
Workers who spoke to The Times described troubling details about how the rigid schedules have played out: Some trucks have traveled empty, and mail left behind has accumulated at massive processing centers, creating backlogs in a system that is not designed to store mail. Loading dock managers have falsified records so it appears that trucks are departing earlier, some mail has been sorted twice, and in at least one case, a large shipment from Amazon was turned away because facilities had no space to process it.

At a post office in Carmichael, near Sacramento, employees ran out of storage space and refused to accept about 1,500 packages from Amazon drivers Aug. 29, said Saintil Perry, president of the local chapter of the American Postal Workers Union.

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"That's a no-no. That's revenue, regardless of how heavy the shipment is," Perry said about refusing incoming parcels. "But they literally don't have space. The letter carriers don't have space. If they take on this mail, they won't have time to leave because they would have to process it."

At a massive mail facility in Santa Ana, tractor-trailers began pulling away from the docks even if workers were in the middle of loading them, said Will Khong, president of the postal union's Orange County-area chapter.

"That left-behind mail muddled one of the Postal Service's key automated processes: sorting hundreds of thousands of letters into the exact order that they will be delivered along postal carriers' routes. Workers had to sort some pieces of mail twice to ensure they were put in the proper order for the next day."

A federal judge just put a stop to changes that he said were politically motivated.

Actually, those steps/improvements don't sound like bad ideas.

My guess is the union workers, and/or contractors don't like change, or being told what to do, AND don't like being held to account, so are probably doing a lot of the above on purpose, at every opportunity, to embarrass the top brass, and/or their immediate bosses.

All part of the "resistance" which has been going on for quite some time.

Who they've decided to endorse in November is a big tell also.

Following the debate about the USPS from the UK it appears that many of the steps taken are intended to weaken the role of the post office and limit its ability to handle postal voting in the up-coming election.

I doubt that Thresher, the answer is much simpler.

Here in the UK our Royal Mail got a new management style and imported managers from other sectors. They applied practices that were rigid and inflexible and blamed the workforce for 'sabotaging' the new system.

Public service isn't the same as other organisations and the flexibility is needed to deliver the service effectively. Treating what is, on the whole, a competent workforce as automatons who have no stake in their organisation was a major error.

In less than a year the system was admitted as a failure and better systems were put in place, this time in consultation with the workforce.

If you start with the assumption that the workforce are idiots and have to be told when and how to do everything then they soon start to behave that way. This isn't sabotage it is demoralisation.

I have a couple of parcels coming to Australia from the US, the shipper sent them via UPS (despite not being asked to do so), UPS waited a week before collecting them and then immediately dumped the parcels at the local USPS rather than ship them to Australia – they are still somewhere in New York waiting for a USPS flight.

I received a package from Arcane Scenery in England to my home in Los Angeles in exactly 2 weeks, which I thought was pretty good.

Note that I did not try to post that entire article. I carefully snipped excerpts, even snipping inside paragraphs to stay within TMP quoting limits. No idea what happened there.

First of all the la times,and apparently the op, have an agenda regarding postal reform.

While I'm not employed or connected to the postal service, other than being a user, I have several friends that are either retired or current postal employees

The problems impacted the postal service have been around a long time.

When the post office signed the delivery contract with amazon, several administrations ago, they were contracted at rates below the break even point. And as the volume of amazon deliveries grew the additional losses compounded. So, when a year or so ago amazon was told they would have to start paying competitive rates for their packages, they started moving to their in-house delivery vehicles.

The issue of mailboxes being removed is another straw man. Mailboxes are constantly removed, or location changed, based on the actual usage of the box. Most boxes removed saw an average of 1 or 2 letters a week. And the box is a natural target for vandalism which requires replacement of the box. Plus, you have to add in the time and expense of a worker and his vehicle making rounds to empty/service the boxes even if they are unused by the public. You look at any box and they will have posted the daily pick-up times. More waste of time and wear on equipment.

Added to this the annual volume of letters has been dropping for years as more people use electronic payment for bills and personal communication.

Regarding postal processing/sorting machines. I know a young man who is employed to service the machines at the Denver distribution facility, one of the largest west of the Mississippi. The facilely which is so large that he cannot do his rounds on foot but uses a golf cart to get around quicker. The repair/service shifts run 24/7 and he says he is busy every day all day repairing the machines. He told me most of the equipment is so old they have to fabricate repair parts themselves as they are no longer made. He also told me a number of machines are actually beyond repair and are just sitting there taking up space waiting to be removed.

So yes, the postal service has issues, and I'm not even going to discuss the massive pension cost to the postal budget, that have been caused by mus-management and incompetence in the past. And as we all know fixing a problem after it has gotten worse is always harder than if you addressed it at the start. And failure to do so will only make the problems worse.

So, given all of the above, I have no issue with the changes being made to the postal service, in fact they are long over due.

Getting rid of sorting machines seems like a bad idea.

Closing at lunch hour sounds like a bad idea. Has no one ever used their lunch hour to go to the Post Office to either mail something or pick something up?

re. Denver distribution center. Sounds like they need to hire more repairmen AND install more – newer – machines. But removing them w/o replacing them – that is not very bright. Of course, adding enough people for the work required would not fit the agenda of reducing the wage cost.

The PO may have been poorly run before but now it is poorly run and politically motivated.

First class mail volume has dropped 50% since 2001, and continues to drop. USPS decommissions sorting machines every year in line with that. Many of these machines are old and are crazy expensive to maintain.

Sorry, there is not some tinfoil conspiracy to cut down on mail delivery for the election. And how would that help the current administration, who favors a quick election decision, not an election delayed by poor mail service?

And from a personal standpoint, I've sent and received numerous packages/letters over the past 6 months, and have had no issues with USPA. UPS and FEDEX have been a different story, though.

Yep, take off the tinfoil hats, and smell the fresh (and/or smokey) air.

Can't say too much without getting political here, as others have done with spurious, silly, and completely groundless accusations, but the USPS has needed reforms for quite some time, and some of those started under the last guy in charge of the country, 4+ years ago, if not before.

Yea, requiring workers and drivers to adhere to an actual schedule is "crazy talk". Much better to just let them operate when the whim grabs them, AND then to falsify the records so things look better.

I'm okay with a little flexibility, on an occasional basis, but schedules serve a necessary purpose, and adhering to them is important to make things work well.

I suspect many of the olde guard don't like that.

As I said, the changes they are implementing, including removing unused postal boxes, setting firm schedules, and other things makes perfect sense to me, and they do need to improve efficiency and cut costs.

Of course, to socialists and union organizers/members those changes are heresy, and they shouldn't have to adhere to rigid dogma just for the sake of efficiency. Much better to just let them do things when they feel like it, or not at all, as we can see from various socialist country success stories around the globe.

You were right Thresher, you couldn't keep your own political views/prejudices out of it. You vastly exaggerate the situation with just as little hard fact.

One fact is that many counties that you would consider 'socialist' have excellent public postal services.

You can't have efficiency if the service is ineffective. Too much rigidity and dogmatic management will always stifle an organisation, public or private.

I'm glad public transportation is not run as inefficiently as USPS, especially when it comes to adhering to schedules. Wait a minute. What did I just say?

Article: Dead Birds, Missing Drugs, and Lost Human Remains: USPS Workers Blame a 'Manufactured Crisis'

link

It's nice to know that some canadians are deeply concedrned about the US postal service. And have made informed decisions, based on extensive analysis of the issues, about its operations. One would hate to assume they are merely parroting talking points they read on the web.

It is safe to say that many Canadians are concerned about the situation down South, and rightly so.

So if I am to believe that running the postal service like a business will not work, then how do we explain Deutsche Post?

From the owner of game publisher Avalanche Press:

I can't help but feel this is meant to stampede us (meaning sellers of stuff in general) away from USPS to the private services. We're now shipping more stuff than can fit on the little USPS truck, so we take it in ourselves. But I had to ask the postal lady a question about a package when she stopped by our building, and she tried really hard to get me to let her load our stuff up anyway. Our actual conversation:

"It's okay. I'll come back if I have to."

"You're not getting overtime for that."

"So what? This is what we do."

And the actual conversation between my assistant and the last UPS driver to make a delivery:

"We're getting three packages. This is just one. Where are the others?"

"On the truck."

"Well, can I have them?"

"They're behind some other packages and I don't have time to unload those to get to yours."

And off he went.

%*#$ UPS. We sent over 1,000 packages USPS today.

Yep, that's resistance alright. Working unpaid to keep the system going.

"Sorry, there is not some tinfoil conspiracy to cut down on mail delivery for the election. And how would that help the current administration"

A question that answers itself.

"First class mail volume has dropped 50% since 2001, and continues to drop."

Months ago, everyday mail volume increased to peak holiday levels. USPS (and other carriers) always bring on lots of additional staff for the holidays. USPS was not allowed to add staff, but had to cut worker-hours by banning overtime.

"Tinfoil hat conspiracy" does not equal "qui bono?". A survey of the last 20 years reveals what lawyer-y types like to call a "pattern of conduct." Along with motivation. Look at where campaign donations are coming from.

ugh. I'm so tired of everything being politicized by both sides. I could scratch my backside and the both sides would tell me how it was an indictment of the other.

mail seems no different to me (for both domestic and international), but maybe I should tune into a tv station on one side or the other to tell me how it really is…