The Save the Post Office Coalition reacts to Louis DeJoy’s 10 year plan

The Save the Post Office Coalition reacts to release of Louis DeJoy’s 10 year plan:

“Asking Louis DeJoy to make a ten year plan for the post office is like asking the fox to build a better henhouse. After his record of destruction, incompetence and self-dealing over the last nine months, the only plans he’s qualified to make at this point are his own retirement plans,” said Porter McConnell of the Save the Post Office Coalition.

McConnell continued: “DeJoy’s plans don’t have a great track record. He planned for the predicted holiday volume and Coronavirus surge by hiring half the number of seasonal workers that UPS did, and 20,000 less than FedEx. Last summer, DeJoy tested exactly none of his changes before implementation on 47% of the world’s mail volume, and he dug in when they led to disastrous slowdowns. It took a lawsuit to get service restored before the election, and when the court order from that lawsuit expired, he went right back to slowing down the mail, hurting seniors, rural communities, people with disabilities, and Black and brown communities. We should spend as much time reading this plan as he spent consulting on it.”

“Instead of expanding to meet the moment, Mr. DeJoy seems intent on sending USPS into a death spiral. His prescription to further slow the mail makes no sense. According to the Postal Regulatory Commission, when mail service slows, people use the mail less. When they tried reducing service standards to cut costs in 2015, it actually ended up costing USPS $65 million.”

“For too long, Mr. DeJoy has been operating with breathtakingly little accountability or oversight from the current USPS Board of Governors. The Senate must move to immediately confirm three new appointees to the board, and President Biden must nominate two additional members later this year, to begin to restore the Board of Governors’ leadership in setting the postal service’s future direction and hiring postmasters general. The postal service needs a visionary leader who will aggressively pursue promising new revenue streams like postal banking, and re-envision the post office as a hub for community services like WiFi access, instead of pursuing a losing strategy of cutting the USPS to health.

“There are more post offices than Starbucks and McDonalds combined. Postal leadership needs to begin with the premise that being in every community is an asset, not a liability, and there are tremendous opportunities that come with these economies of scale.”