U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has officially postponed his plans for drastically overhauling U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail sorting operations until 2025, after fierce backlash from postal workers, elected officials and the public.
Government Executive reported this week that DeJoy's recent announcement to suspend his massive consolidation plan means that USPS facilities can now return to normal operations until at least the next calendar year. In a letter to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs chair Gary Peters (D-Michigan), DeJoy said his plans to consolidate mail sorting facilities into several dozen "mega-centers" across the country are now on pause.
"In response to the concerns you and your colleagues have expressed, I will commit to pause any implementation of these moves at least until after Jan. 1, 2025,” DeJoy wrote. “Even then, we will not advance these efforts without advising you of our plans to do so, and then only at a moderated pace of implementation.”
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In his letter announcing the pause on his consolidation plans, DeJoy still stood by his initiative, saying it was not "at all consequential to service," and that the proposed consolidations were "important elements of achieving a network that can provide greater service reliability in a cost-effective manner."
"The career workforce will not see layoffs, new equipment will be installed, the facilities will not close, deferred maintenance will be performed and working conditions will be substantially improved," DeJoy wrote.
Notably, DeJoy's letter comes just after a deadline Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) gave DeJoy during an April committee meeting in which he demanded answers from the USPS chief on how he would handle USPS delays in the Atlanta area. Ossoff grilled DeJoy on his agency's slowness in responding to concerns raised by his constituents about mail delivery, which he said impacted everything from rent payments being made on time to businesses' ability to send and receive orders. At that hearing, he gave DeJoy a two-week ultimatum. He then followed up earlier this month, giving DeJoy one more week to respond.
"It has been nearly a month since we spoke at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on April 16 concerning service failures at the Atlanta Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Palmetto," Ossoff wrote. "As we have discussed throughout the past few weeks, it is urgent that the performance of USPS delivery in Georgia improve immediately."
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Aside from Ossoff, others have raised concerns with DeJoy's plans to overhaul USPS facilities, especially in an election year. Voters in pivotal battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have expressed fears that their ballots may not arrive in time to be properly counted, even if they mail them before the deadline.
"We’re approaching a major November election,” Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), who represents parts of Houston, said in March. “We need to make sure that we iron out any difficulties, any obstacles, any barriers, any issues now, so that we don’t end up in a situation much like we were in with the November ballots.”
DeJoy, a longtime Republican donor, was made Postmaster General in 2020 by the USPS Board of Governors (DeJoy serves at the pleasure of the board, not the president). At the time of DeJoy's ascension to the post, Republican-appointed board members had a majority. However, President Joe Biden's appointees now have a one-seat majority, which could grow if USPS board nominee Marty Walsh (the former U.S. Secretary of Labor) is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Biden nominated Walsh in March.
Click here to read Government Executive's full report.
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