Postal Workers Were Already Worried About Getting Sick -- Now Their Jobs Could Be on the Line, Too
Each morning, Melissa Rakestraw waits in the parking lot of the post office in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, until exactly 7:30AM, when she has to go inside to start sorting the day’s mail. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Rakestraw, who has worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 25 years, didn’t mind arriving early. She would go inside and spend the time joking with her colleagues about Chicago sports before her shift. Now she doesn’t want to spend one more minute inside the cramped office than she has to. After sorting her mail in a room where there can be up to 70 people working at a time, she goes to her delivery truck and scrubs everything down with Clorox wipes that she bought herself. On her route, she urges customers to stand six feet away when she gives them their mail
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Rakestraw is just one of millions of workers keeping the country afloat as most Americans stay indoors and wait for coronavirus to stop its deadly spread. But she and the other roughly 600,000 other U.S. Postal Service employees find themselves in the unique position of facing a two-pronged crisis: trying to stay healthy on the frontlines of an unprecedented health crisis while their organization inches toward a fiscal cliff that could potentially send many of them to the unemployment office.
Many postal service employees have seen their workload double since Americans started ordering more medicine and food online from inside their homes. But the volume of letter mail – the agency’s biggest revenue stream – has fallen. Earlier this month, Megan Brennan, the U.S. Postmaster General, told the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that revenue losses this fiscal year could reach $13 billion. Last month, the federal government set up a $10 billion loan for USPS as part of its $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package, which USPS executives deem wholly insufficient. The agency’s board of governors, appointed by President Donald Trump, appealed to Congress for $75 billion to keep the operation running.
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The Postal Service was already in financial trouble before the pandemic hit. Mail volume has been declining for years as more people communicate and do business online. The agency was also severely hamstrung by a 2006 law requiring it to pre-fund health benefits for retired workers, a highly unusual mandate which has cost it at least $70 billion. In 2019 alone, it recorded a net loss of $8.8 billion, according to that year’s annual report to Congress.
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After coronavirus hit the U.S., and the government started to draft its relief package for impacted businesses, Democrats in both the House and Senate pushed for upward of $20 billion in direct assistance to the Postal Service, but it ultimately received just a $10 billion credit loan in the package that Trump signed into law last month. Democratic aides said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was leading the negotiations for the White House, refused to include any relief for the agency beyond the loan. The U.S. airline industry, by comparison, received $58 billion, half in the form of grants. A Treasury spokesperson said the administration is supportive of the loan and working with USPS to put it into effect.
Proponents of more bailout money for USPS say the decision was political, pointing out that Mnuchin led the task force on the agency that pushed for cost-cutting reforms. Trump has frequently railed against the Postal Service. “It’s ideologically driven,” says Connolly of the Administration’s opposition to funding the agency. “It’s big. It’s unionized. And they want to privatize it. And that’s their agenda even in the middle of a pandemic. To me, that is repugnant.”
More..
https://time.com/5821945/united-states-postal-workers-coronavirus/
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I have tried to spare the idea posted here, that each should buy at least one 20 stamps book for $11.00 and some responded but I don't know how much it can help now.
= new reply since forum marked as read
