Name: Mail sorting machines removed
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Mail sorting machines removed

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Ahead of an expected surge in mail-in voting, recent cuts to the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service have led to months-long delays and the removal of letter sorting machines in San Antonio, according to the leaders of two postal workers unions.“A lot of mail has been left on the floor, not only at the plant on Perrin Beitel but the stations as well,” said Chris Rincon, president of San Antonio Alamo Area Local 195. “There have been many delays in the mail. There have been many machines that have been taken out of service here.”At least four letter sorting machines were removed in recent weeks, leaving 28, Rincon said. Each machine can sort about 35,000 pieces of mail an hour.“They’ve been thrown in the trash,” Rincon said. “They’re not coming back.”More for youHe added, “The removal of the machines will have an impact. The delay of the mail will have an impact. The public is complaining — where is their mail, where is their medicine?”David Walton, a national spokesman for the Postal Service, declined to comment Monday, but he released a lengthy statement defending the cuts.“The Postal Service is flexing its available resources to match the workload created by the impacts of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic,” the in part. “We appreciate the patience of our customers and apologize for any inconvenience that may have been experienced.”Fears are mounting that the delays could effectively disenfranchise voters this fall.On ExpressNews.com:Wary of COVID-19, an unprecedented number of Americans are expected to vote by mail in the November election, even as the Postal Service enacts a slew of cost-cutting measures that are slowing deliveries, including the elimination of employee overtime and the removal of the mail sorting machines.The cuts have coincided with the appointment in June of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Republican megadonor and supporter of President Donald Trump.Despite a lack of evidence of widespread fraud linked to mailed ballots, Trump has said universal mail-in voting — in which states automatically send mail ballots to all registered voters — would result in a fraudulent election.Trump has said he hopes to starve the postal system of funds so that “you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.”Universal mail-in voting doesn’t apply in Texas, one of just seven states that limit absentee voting to those who are out of the county during elections, disabled, jailed or 65 years or older. The courts have ruled that fear of COVID-19 does not count as a disability.Carlos Barrios, clerk craft director at the USPS San Antonio Processing and Distribution Center, said the new Postal Service cuts have caused substantial delays.“You could go by the plant today, and you’ll see mail that’s been sitting there for months,” Barrios said.On ExpressNews.com:The delays in processing have slashed the amount of mail that letter carriers can deliver each day, said Tony Boyd, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 421.“The carriers are getting a lot less mail to take out first thing in the morning,” Boyd said. “All of the mail that they’re supposed to receive in the morning isn’t getting to the station on time. And instead of the carriers waiting as they used to, they’re instructed to leave at a certain time regardless of whether the mail is there or not. That results in a lot of customers not receiving mail.”Delays can stretch from days to weeks, he said.“The more mail that gets left behind, the longer it takes to get there,” Boyd said.DeJoy enacted the cost-cutting rules that are causing the delays.“It’s directed from the new postmaster general,” Boyd said. “He believes that we need to streamline operations and cut the costs of overtime and late deliveries and this will get things in order, apparently. That’s his vision.”The Postal Service on Monday blamed the delays on “substantial declines in mail volume and a broken business model.”“We are currently unable to balance our costs with available funding sources to fulfill both our universal service mission and other legal obligations,” the statement read. “Because of this, the Postal Service has experienced over a decade of financial losses, with no end in sight, and we face an impending liquidity crisis.”U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said DeJoy’s actions were meant to appease the president.“He’s a huge Trump supporter,” Castro said. “What Donald Trump has been able to do in a lot of the federal departments is find a lot of people who are his yes men, who will do things that are even illegal, and this guy appears to be one of them.”Castro called Trump’s actions “a naked attempt to interfere with people’s right to vote.”“President Trump a few days ago admitted exactly what he was doing,” Castro said. “I think it’s a way for him to control who comes out to vote, a way for him to make it harder for people to vote and also a way to set up a contested election. He has said repeatedly without proof and against the facts that mail ballot voting is not reliable.”Castro and Boyd trace the Postal Service’s ongoing financial woes to a 2006 law that required it to pre-fund retiree medical benefits. The Postal Service defaulted on those payments and owes more than $50 billion.“The financial situation is caused strictly by Postal (Accountability and Enhancement) Act,” Boyd said. “No other company in the world is required to do that.”Rincon of Local 195 blamed long lines at the city’s 30 stations in part on the Postal Service’s failure to backfill positions emptied by COVID-19. The disease has sickened 360 employees in the Postal Service’s Rio Grande District since the pandemic began, and only 99 have returned, he said.The district, according to the Postal Service website, stretches from San Antonio to El Paso and Midland in West Texas, follows the Rio Grande counties down to McAllen, snakes up Interstate 35 to Austin, Waco and Temple, and goes south to Corpus Christi.“Many members have been out because of COVID-19, and instead of hiring more employees, they’re trying to do with what we have,” Rincon said.“They’re playing our hand so we can’t do our job,” he added. “We’re being told to leave (the mail) where it’s at. Do not process it until we tell you to process it.”Barrios, the clerk craft director, echoed that complaint.“We’re told every day we are not to process mail,” he said. “Because we follow instructions, we do what we’re told. But we’re not very happy.”Neither is Isaac Silva.The 59-year-old disabled retiree lives in an unincorporated community in eastern Bexar County. On a fixed income, he relies on the Postal Service to pay his bills.More than two weeks ago, Silva mailed his gas payment to a utility in Floresville and his water payment to another company in La Vernia. On Monday, neither had made it to its destination, he said.Now, the utility in La Vernia is threatening to shut off his water, he said.“It’s not around the corner for me to go drop off this bill,” Silva said. “It’s like 18 miles from my house. I rely on our mail service to get me a bunch of my medications. I’m a double lung transplant patient.”Silva is now wary of mailing in a ballot as a disabled voter, unsure if his vote would even be counted.Boyd, of the letter carriers union, urged citizens such as Silva to voice their concerns.“If people don’t like what’s going on, they need to contact their congressmen and senators,” he said. “The letter carriers want to do the job. We want to get all the mail to our customers. We pride ourselves on that. These new regulations are limiting our ability to do so.”Loading…

Ahead of an expected surge in mail-in voting, recent cuts to the beleaguered U.S. Postal Service have led to months-long delays and the removal of letter sorting machines in San Antonio, according to the leaders of two postal workers unions.“A lot of mail has been left on the floor, not only at the plant on Perrin Beitel but the stations as well,” said Chris Rincon, president of San Antonio Alamo Area Local 195. “There have been many delays in the mail. There have been many machines that have been taken out of service here.”At least four letter sorting machines were removed in recent weeks,...

Mail sorting machines removed

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