Area mail carrier representative 'concerned' over Trump's words

The business agent who represents postal workers in Southeast Missouri says he is “very concerned” about statements President Donald Trump has been making about the United States Postal Service (USPS) leading up to the November general election.

“Postal employees don’t enjoy being used as a football,” said Mike Birkett, agent for Region 5 of the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) in Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska.

Birkett said NALC’s 28-member executive board, of which he is a member, voted unanimously Thursday to endorse the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris presidential ticket.

“The positions the president has taken are less than supportive (of USPS),” Birkett said, “so (the endorsement) was a no-brainer.”

Trump said he is supportive of absentee ballots but has alleged universal mail-in voting will lead to widespread fraud Nov. 3.

On Monday, the president told Fox News the debt-ridden USPS “is one of the disasters of the world,” while promoting the recent selection of Louis DeJoy, a Republican Party fundraiser, as postmaster general of the agency.

DeJoy, the first leader of the USPS in two decades without previous experience with the agency, is overseeing substantial alterations at the Postal Service and Birkett said the changes are happening “pretty quick.”

Too quickly, suggested the business agent.

“We were notified (Monday) the agency is not making extra runs with (postal) trucks,” Birkett said, “plus mail processing sorters are being taken out of service.”

Birkett was a letter carrier for 25 years in Dubuque, Iowa, and said the mandate of USPS always has been to get letters and packages delivered promptly.

“Making it harder for people to get mail is not the answer,” he said.

“The attitude is totally different now,” said Birkett, who represents 14,000 letter carriers in four states, including approximately 120 in Cape Girardeau-based NALC Local 1015.

“(The agency) always sent out extra trucks and paid overtime in the past to make sure the mail made it on time,” he added.

Democratic leaders in Washington are pushing back.

The House Oversight Committee has called DeJoy to testify Aug. 24 in what Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls “an urgent hearing” due to complaints USPS changes aimed at efficiency may actually “sabotage” ballot-handling.

Pelosi said Sunday she will summon the House of Representatives back from its August recess this week to deal with the Postal Service controversy.

The Democratic-controlled lower chamber is expected to vote as early as Saturday on a bill to block the White House plan for overhauling the Postal Service.

Former President Barack Obama recently alleged the Trump administration is trying to “kneecap” the USPS.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Birkett said, “but there is certainly circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction.”

Birkett said the USPS has been cash-strapped since Congress approved a 2006 law mandating the agency pre-fund health benefits for retirees up to 2081.

“Understand what this burden means,” Birkett said. “(USPS) has to do what no other government program and no private company has to do — pay for health benefits for employees who haven’t even been born yet.”

Trump, in his Fox News interview, said the USPS is not charging Amazon and other companies enough to take parcels the last mile to customer mailboxes and wants the agency to raise its rates on such deliveries.

Despite the recent turmoil, the post office remains popular with the public.

In January, the American Marketing Association called the USPS the most trusted brand in the country, with 42% affirming the statement the post office “will do what’s right.”

In the AMA brand survey, Amazon finished second and Google third.

Asked how Region 5 letter carriers are feeling about the current debate about the agency, Birkett said reaction is all over the map.

“Angry, concerned, beleaguered, resigned — all of that, I’d say,” Birkett said.