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During one Emergency negotiation On Tuesday, Boston City Council members heard testimony accusing U.S. Postal Service leaders of mismanagement that led to significant delays in deliveries. Adding to the frustration, the USPS declined to send a representative to testify before city councilors.
Councilors Sharon Durkan, Henry Santana and Ben Weber submitted a motion Hearing Order last month to analyze a “lack of adequate postal service” in Boston’s Mission Hill neighborhood. Both businesses and residents have been affected, and complaints have been received from across town, Durkan said Tuesday.
“Let me be clear about what we are experiencing in our communities. Residents are missing important communications, including legal documents and financial reports. Neighbors at risk are experiencing delays in receiving vital medications. Small businesses are struggling with unreliable postal services,” Durkan said. “Most critically, with election season approaching, an unreliable postal service threatens to undermine our democratic process.”
USPS spokespeople didn’t reply to a request for comment Wednesday morning.
According to Durkan, internal emails were by accident forwarded to council members before the hearing by which a USPS official accused the council of pursuing a political agenda and never caring about customers. Several city councilors expressed outrage on the accusation.
“It is outrageous that someone from the postal service accused us of having a political agenda. Our goal is to ensure Boston residents receive their mail. That they get their checks, that they get their medications, that they get their ballots,” Weber said. “This isn’t political, it’s just about making sure Boston residents have a basic public service.”
At the hearing, executives from three different unions representing USPS employees within the Boston area testified. According to Scott Hoffman, a national business representative who represents USPS employees within the New England region of the American Postal Workers Union, “bizarre” hours at post offices are one in all the core problems. Early and constant closures are attributable to USPS leadership's unwillingness to supply them with sufficient staff, although employees are sometimes available for work.
“The additional time lost due to improper closures only results in fewer staff being available, which in turn impacts service. It’s a built-in system designed for a downward spiral,” Hoffman said.
The flow of mail through the USPS system could be blocked in a wide range of ways, he said. Due to staffing shortages, employees are being assigned to customer support windows on the expense of behind-the-scenes work facilitating mail distribution. USPS leaders will force trucks not to go away their offices for mail delivery until they’re at full capability. Hoffman compares this to a bus company that postpones a night bus until the following morning because not all seats are occupied.
This is consistent with a consistent theme of complaints about management: that decisions are made for business reasons with little or no consideration of the service disruptions they cause. Additionally, poor worker retention ends in the remaining employees being swamped with enormous workloads.
Several residents reported on their experiences. They described instances of important health care not being delivered within the mail, delays in necessary paychecks and problems with insurance coverage as a consequence of USPS service problems. Mitch Hilton, who worked as a letter carrier for greater than 35 years before retiring in 2006, said he has seen a big change in service since then. Hilton has recorded 44 instances of its mail not being delivered on time to this point this yr, with September being the worst month for on-time delivery.
Postal service within the Boston region is “up to date and meeting performance standards,” a spokesman for the USPS Northeast Region said in September. Nearly all first-class mail in Massachusetts arrived “within one day of the service standard” in the ultimate quarter of the fiscal yr. On average, mail is delivered within the state in 2.5 days.”
Last month, the USPS recorded an 89% on-time rate for first-class mail in a county consisting of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, in keeping with the agency's online service dashboard. Just over 96% of first-class mail was delivered with an additional day, in keeping with the dashboard, and mail took a mean of two.6 days to be delivered.
Durkan expressed skepticism concerning the accuracy of metrics published by the USPS.
“If I had believed that their weekly performance standards were accurate based on what I was hearing from constituents, I would not have requested this hearing,” she said. “We’re being gaslighted in Boston. We’re being gaslighted.”
image credit : www.boston.com