PostCom Bulletin:
The Postal Service is facing intensifying pressure as it prepares to significantly scale up its efforts to consolidate mail sorting into fewer facilities, with lawmakers in both parties and employees warning of the unintended consequences of the plan. A Republican lawmaker, Representative Bill Huizenga (R-MI), recently questioned the consolidation plan’s impact on his district, saying it lacked transparency and would have negative impacts on mailers. His letter followed one last month from Representative Pat Ryan (D-NY), who said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was “sadly mistaken” if he thought he could “mess with post offices” in his Hudson Valley district. The congressional pushback marks the latest resistance USPS has encountered and portends that more questions from lawmakers are likely as more constituencies are impacted. Employees in some areas have staged protests of the reforms, saying it would force relocations and have other unintended consequences. There remain serious questions about whether his reforms will produce the savings DeJoy has promised, as previous efforts to consolidate facilities led USPS to perform worse while realizing just a tiny fraction of the cost reductions it had anticipated. The Postal Service will be holding public meetings in the coming months to solicit feedback from affected communities of upcoming changes resulting from the new mega-centers.
