Maine Letter Carriers Allege USPS Leadership 'Willfully Delaying' Mail to Sabotage Postal Service...
Maine Letter Carriers Allege USPS Leadership 'Willfully Delaying' Mail to Sabotage Postal Service From Withinhttps://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/07/22/maine-letter-carriers-allege-usps-leadership-willfully-delaying-mail-sabotage-postal
A formal complaint filed last week with the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General by a Portland, Maine letter carrier alleges that city Postmaster James Thornton is unlawfully mandating the delay of first-class mail in order to prioritize the delivery of Amazon packages.
The complaint, first reported Tuesday by the Portland Press Herald, comes weeks after Louis DeJoy took over as U.S. Postmaster General and wasted little time implementing "major operational changes" and cost-cutting measures at the agency that critics warned would slow mail delivery and leave USPS unable to compete with private-sector competitors.
Before he was unanimously appointed by the USPS Board of Governors in May, DeJoy was a major donor to President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. The Board of Governors is controlled by Trump appointees.
Mark Seitz, the 16-year Postal Service veteran who lodged the Inspector General complaint on July 13, told the Press Herald that he suspects Thornton's orders to prioritize the delivery of Amazon packages over first-class mail came in response to pressure from national USPS leadership.
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On a tangentially-related topic, I recently watched "Manhunt: Unabomber" on Netflix, in part because I used to drive through Lincoln, MT quite regularly in the 1970s, less so in the 80s and 90s as I no longer lived in MT, but was there on occasion to visit. We always used to make a pit stop at a little diner there. Although it is unlikely that I ever would have seen the Unabomber while he was living in the area, as he was a loner who shunned society for the most part, the thought still gives me chills.
That was one of the terrible eras for the USPS. There are always those who will use it for evil purposes. And one of those Unabomber packages could have so easily have injured USPS workers as well as the innocent victims they were destined for.
Postal workers know it, of course. Not normally dangerous work, except when for some unfortunates it occasionally turns out to be extremely dangerous.
That's a big part of the value the USPS has been to us, though. It's so intricately involved with the life of the nation. Door-to-door delivery is a gift to society in so many ways. LA, where I worked as a real estate appraiser, is thousands of communities of many cultures, most without names or attention, but carriers could tell you there were marked differences between the cultures of two adjacent condo buildings at the beach or that the notably well kept but very ordinary little houses on the left side of a street began a treasured Greek neighborhood where everyone had relatives waiting for a rare chance to buy in.
I had to look it up to be sure, but we've gone through Lincoln a couple of times when visiting friends up that way. You stopped at a diner, we stopped for my husband to fish a river the highway followed. 
- imagine a private service with the power to refuse service taking over.
