“If requested, they’re to be known as ‘Supply Companions’ or ‘Distributors,’ ” stated a second service. “It’s ridiculous.”
The directive, handed down Monday morning from U.S. Postal Service administration, comes three weeks after mail carriers within the northern Minnesota city staged a symbolic strike exterior the submit workplace, protesting the heavy workloads and lengthy hours attributable to the sudden arrival of hundreds of Amazon packages.
On Tuesday, staffers from the workplaces of Democratic Minnesota senators Tina Smith and Amy Klobuchar hosted a “listening session” with Bemidji residents to “focus on ongoing postal points associated to package deal and mail supply,” in accordance with an invite distributed by Bemidji Mayor Jorge Prince.
“We’d like a really clear dedication that we’re not going to be prioritizing Amazon packages over common mail,” Sen. Klobuchar instructed The Publish after Tuesday’s assembly. She additionally stated her workplace is trying into enhancing postal staffing and pay for rural carriers, and has repeatedly requested a gathering with the Postmaster Basic.
Along with being banned from saying “Amazon,” postal employees have additionally been instructed their jobs could possibly be in danger in the event that they communicate publicly about submit workplace points. Staffers had been instructed they might attend Tuesday’s assembly solely on their 30-minute lunch break in the event that they modified out of uniform, mail carriers stated. One mail service stated he’d been warned there could possibly be “penalties” for many who confirmed up.
Postal prospects in Bemidji have been complaining about late and lacking mail for the reason that starting of November, when the contract for delivering Amazon packages on the town switched from UPS to the submit workplace. Mail carriers instructed The Washington Publish final month that they had been instructed to ship packages earlier than the mail, leaving residents ready for tax rebates, bank card statements, medical paperwork and checks.
Lots of these residents complained to elected officers, together with Smith, who wrote a letter to the postmaster normal inquiring about reviews that “Amazon is interfering with well timed deliveries and stretching the company’s already-overburdened employees too skinny.”
“We routinely work with the US Postal Service to ship for patrons and we apologize for any delays skilled in and round Bemidji,” Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson stated in a press release. “We work intently with USPS to refine quantity forecasts to allow them to function easily, and we’ll proceed to take action as we work by way of the vacation season.”
(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Publish. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)
As the vacation procuring season will get underway, the packages in Bemidji proceed to pile up — at one level they had been stacked so excessive somebody known as the hearth marshal. Mail carriers say they’ve been mandated to work on Sundays, delivering mail seven days per week on lonely rural routes that may now take as much as 12 hours to finish.
“Individuals want to grasp how simply how dangerous it’s gotten,” stated Eric Cerroni, whose spouse is a mail service in Bemidji.
Mail carriers requested Cerroni to current written testimony on behalf of postal employees on the Tuesday assembly as a result of they’re “too busy with work and possibly frightened of repercussions.”
Kyle Sorbe, a spokesperson for Sen. Smith’s workplace, stated in an e mail that “if these reviews are true, they’re extraordinarily regarding and Senator Smith shall be looking for a clarification from the Postal Service.”
Publish workplace spokesperson David Partenheimer stated the assembly was “not a USPS-sponsored occasion and we don’t plan to attend,” as workers members “are centered on our peak-season operations now.”
“Concerning questions on Amazon or different corporations we work with,” he continued, “the Postal Service doesn’t focus on specifics of our working relationships.”
Tuesday’s assembly in Bemidji lasted over an hour. Fifty folks attended in particular person, and greater than 180 watched a dwell stream on the web site of native newspaper the Bemidji Pioneer.
A number of postal employees who just lately give up or retired because of the ongoing points attended, together with one recognized herself solely as Shelly, and acquired a spontaneous spherical of applause when she started to talk.
“I labored on the submit workplace for 30 years,” she stated. “By no means in my life have I been handled so poorly. I am going dwelling at night time crying.”
“I didn’t need to retire but,” she stated. “However I used to be pressured to retire.”
Residents expressed their issues with delayed mail, together with lacking medicines and late payments leading to charges. Additionally they shared issues about working circumstances for postal employees, together with low pay, lengthy hours and security dangers for mail carriers working late at night time.
On the assembly, congressional staffers stated a number of letters from their respective workplaces had lastly acquired a response on Monday. In that response, shared with The Publish, DeJoy acknowledged that the quantity of Amazon packages on the Bemidji Publish Workplace has elevated. “As a result of packages on the whole take up significantly extra bodily house than letter mail or flats, a interval of excessive package deal quantity (akin to peak season) can result in Publish Workplace loading docks turning into overwhelmed,” the letter says. “Thus, a excessive package deal quantity all the time has the potential to intervene with the stream of letter mail, no matter the place these packages originated.” The submit workplace is working to combine the mail and packages, the letter stated.
DeJoy contested the assertion that rural carriers are underpaid, however conceded that as a result of “package deal quantity grew in Bemidji … some rural carriers at the moment are working longer hours than they had been beforehand.”
He additionally stated that district-level information present that a lot of the mail in Bemidji is being delivered on time. However Smith’s workplace disputed that declare, saying the submit workplace has restricted means to trace paper mail.
On Monday, the Minnesota senators launched a invoice known as the Postal Supply Accountability Act, which might require the submit workplace to enhance monitoring and reporting of delayed and undelivered mail nationally.
“As a vital public service, USPS owes its prospects transparency,” a short on the proposed laws says. “It is a step towards that purpose.”
The submit workplace has held a contract to ship Amazon packages on Sundays since 2013. The company, which has misplaced $6.5 billion up to now yr, has stated that it’s essential to extend package deal quantity by chopping offers with Amazon and different retailers.
correction
A earlier model of this text misidentified Kyle Sorbe, a spokesperson for Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), as Kyle Smith. The article has been corrected.
