I Believe Our Postal Service is Quickly Changing into a Failing Business Model and Our Universal Service Obligation to America is Disappearing.

The Postmaster General (PMG) has degraded our Service Standards and he isn’t stopping. His business plan is destroying us and has lost the confidence of our customers, which affects our mail volume and revenue. His plan drives us further away from meeting our service obligations. His network plan is not fixing service, nor is it fixing the work environment. The plan includes short staffing, excessing, and losing workers through consolidations. The failure to monitor or train the terrible managers contributes to the hostile work environment. It’s so bad that the Postal Service can’t retain new workers and has a high turnover rate.

Our customers trust us, but the overall rating according to the Pew Charitable Trust, has dropped from over 90 percent to 77 percent. I would surmise a poll today would be under 50 percent as we watch the PMG bulldoze the Postal Service into a “package trucking” business like the one he owned as a USPS trucking contractor. He is destroying many prompt services that America depends on and loves. Express Mail used to be the most affordable overnight service. The PMG’s plan limits Air Mail service, and the latest report shows that the USPS is paying out more refund guarantees than what it takes in for Express Mail, even after his latest rate hike.

The public depends on prompt service to send birthday and holiday cards, letters to and from grandparents and children, postcards, care packages, and packages with items they can’t fit in their suitcase. In some cases, it is difficult to get passports due to low staffing. The Postal Service used to process over 90 percent of passports in America, but not anymore. When there is no First- Class, there goes timely invitations for weddings, graduation parties, baby showers, special events, letters home from college students, care packages filled with love to support their work, letters and care packages from families that support the troops to keep their strength up, and the services that restaurants and businesses utilize through the Postal Service to grow their dreams of success. Let’s not forget certified return receipt services that we use for legal protection in serving or notifying the courts, the Internal Revenue Service, and businesses in a timely manner; local deliveries from pharmacies, hospital mail, veterans’ mail services, and important letters and deliveries that rural communities need; shipments of live animals, bees, crickets, and fertilized eggs, live plants, food, dry ice, and water samples; medical tests and results; business mailers; non-pro t groups; mailing needs of their supporters, religious organizations academia and newspapers; and retail deliveries for those Americans who work from home selling goods online all need an affordable Postal Service. Vote-by-Mail and political campaign mailings could face more delays with this plan, throwing democracy to the wind. Everyone needs to step up and stop the plan that “Does Not Deliver for America,” before it is too late.

As workers and community members, we want the Postal Service to provide mail services in a prompt, efficient, reliable, affordable manner, that does not discriminate as to the service you receive, based on where you live. Take action now! Write your letters to the Postal Board of Governors, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the Office of the Inspector General, your congressional representatives and state attorney generals, and get at least three other community members to write too. Track the delivery of the letters sent to their offices.

Save our mail service by using it now!