Postal workers say OT, machine cuts have them stressed
GREEN BAY – Two mail sorting machines remain disconnected in Green Bay, one was disconnected and taken apart in central Wisconsin and three were removed in Milwaukee this summer as part of nationwide changes that postal workers say have slowed delivery and threaten to affect mail-in voting this fall.
The U.S. Postal Service changes prompted postal employee unions, Democratic activists and other Wisconsin residents to rally in cities such as Green Bay and Manitowoc to halt and reverse those decisions. But it may be too late at some of the processing centers that every day sort hundreds of thousands of pieces of mail going to and from Wisconsin homes.
Some equipment was removed as recently as last week in Green Bay, according to one union official.
“Changes are still being made that have already been implemented, such as the removal of two manual letter cases,” said Kelly Heaney, president of Local 2247, the American Postal Workers Union branch in northeast Wisconsin.
Mail runs through letter cases before going to other sorting machines for processing.
“That just happened Wednesday,” Heaney said. “And yes, I feel come election time, no matter what party you vote for, and Christmas time, it could be an issue. I’m not saying it will, but it could.”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy implemented operational changes — including disconnecting sorting machines, removing collection boxes and cutting overtime — ahead of a November election that is expected to draw unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots.
DeJoy, who took his position in June, told a congressional committee on Aug. 23 that changes were necessary to keep the Postal Service financially solvent. He said additional modifications have
been halted until after the election, but he would not commit to reversing changes that have been made.
The committee summoned DeJoy amid concerns among Democrats that the changes were tied to a politically motivated attempt to disrupt mail delivery in advance of the election. Republican members of the committee argued the changes are necessary, and DeJoy assured the committee that the Postal Service would be able to handle the increased mail volume from the election.
Robert Sheehan, the Postal Service media contact for metro Milwaukee, Green Bay, Appleton, Oshkosh, Wausau and Rhinelander, declined to answer questions about the removal of collection boxes that has also raised concerns. He referred USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin to a postal service fact sheet that said removing the blue boxes is a decades-old practice.
The largest number of boxes removed since 2013 was in 2017, when 6,287 were taken away, according to the Postal Service.
The Postal Service fact sheet says sorting machines for letters and flats — large envelopes, magazines and newsletters — are used only a third of the time. DeJoy did not initiate the evaluation or removal of the machines, the document says.
Expecting that voters will rely heavily on mail-in ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Democratcontrolled U.S. House voted for $25 billion in federal funding for the Postal Service. The bill has not yet been introduced in the Republican-led Senate.
Combined with cuts to overtime, operational changes have put pressure on postal workers and could lead to continuing mail delays, said Paul McKenna, the American Postal Workers Union state president, who is based in Milwaukee.
In Wisconsin, 4,000 workers are unionized under APWU. The union doesn’t represent letter carriers, who are members of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
Disconnected sorting machines
Green Bay disconnected three machines at its Packerland Drive location in mid-July and reconnected only one, Heaney said. Eight machines are now doing the sorting work that used to be handled by 10, he said.
The Postal Service disconnected and disassembled one of six machines at the mail processing center in Rothschild, according to Mike Tomczyk, president of Wausau Area Local 4532, which represents postal workers at 117 offices in central and northern Wisconsin.
If one or more of the remaining machines malfunctions, that risks slowing the mail, Tomczyk said.
“I just personally think it was just putting more stress on the other machines, because those machines have to be fixed constantly,” he said. “They have belts and stuff that wear out every day. It’s a very, very intricate machine. It’s got tons of parts.”
In Milwaukee, the Postal Service removed three machines, and there was talk of removing another four, McKenna said. The Milwaukee facility has 35 machines still in operation.
Changes in Wisconsin
The Postal Service has historically relied on overtime to process spikes in mail during busy periods, including the holidays or election season, and busy times of the week.
DeJoy’s administration has put stricter limits on overtime, including banning extra hours on certain days, as part of the cost-cutting measures.
“Without these extra machines and without extra help and with less overtime, we have concerns that we’re not going to be able to get the mail out,” McKenna said.
Many of the sorting machines require two employees to operate efficiently: One person feeds it, the other empties the machine after the mail has been sorted.
McKenna said he’s recently seen only one person working on a machine, “which really slows down the mail as well.”
“You got kind of a double whammy, maybe even a triple whammy, between short staff, reduction of overtime and taking out machines,” he said.
Machines can sort about 35,000 pieces of mail an hour with two people working them, but with one person “it’s going to do at best half of that,” he said.
Tomczyk said processing and delivery has slowed down at offices in central and northern Wisconsin.
“(Management) basically told almost all of them that they don’t want to use overtime. Some of them are short-handed because of COVID,” Tomczyk said. “So what’s happening is carriers are going out, and when they get close to eight hours they’re supposed to go back to the office, then carry the mail over to the next day. Well, we’ve never done that. We’ve always delivered the mail every day.”
Postal workers are personally affected by such limits on their job and staff shortages, he said.
“What’s happening is the people are getting stressed out because they’re working a lot of hours and the (postal) district’s telling them no overtime,” Tomczyk said. “Well, they can’t do it without overtime, because they’re not given the proper amount of help.”