Tag: Louis DeJoy

‘It definitely stinks’: Lawmaker demands investigation of huge stock buy just before DeJoy announced USPS vehicle contract

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A Democratic congressman is demanding that the Securities and Exchange Commission investigate a shady $54 million purchase of Oshkosh Corporation stock just hours before scandal-ridden Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced the decision to award that company with a lucrative 10-year contract to produce a new, largely gasoline-powered fleet of U.S. Postal Service delivery trucks.

“This contract was awarded to Oshkosh Corporation and is worth up to $6 billion,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) wrote in a letter to Acting SEC Chair Allison Herren Lee on Monday. “I write to pass along reports of what might be unusual trading of Oshkosh stock that took place less than 24 hours before Postmaster General Louis DeJoy publicly announced the contract decision in front of a House panel on February 23rd.”

“It definitely stinks and needs to be looked into at the highest levels. If that is not suspicious, I don’t know what is. Somebody clearly knew something.”
—Rep. Tim Ryan

“Specifically, an over $54 million purchase of OSK, made 20 hours before Mr. DeJoy’s announcement, was brought to my attention on social media and in news reports,” Ryan continued. “Additionally, it is my understanding that the OSK stock rose significantly prior to the announcement. Given the gravity and serious implications of this contract, I am writing to request that the Securities and Exchange Commission look into this issue as soon as possible.” Continue reading.

As USPS delays persist, bills, paychecks and medications are getting stuck in the mail

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Consumers are inundating lawmakers with stories of late bills — and the late fees they’ve absorbed as a result

Mark Currie of Virginia had three checks snagged in postal delays in three months. In New Jersey, Lois Fitton says she was forced to pay interest on a credit card balance because the bill never arrived. Jim Rice says two insurance companies canceled policies for his property management business in Oklahoma after the payments got lost in the mail.

As the service crisis at the U.S. Postal Service drags into its eighth month, complaints are reaching a fever pitch. Consumers are inundating members of Congress with stories of late bills — and the late fees they’ve absorbed as a result. Small-business owners are waiting weeks, even months, for checks to arrive, creating cash-flow crunches and debates on whether to switch to costlier private shippers. Large-scale mailers, such as banks and utilities, are urging clients to switch to paperless communication, a shift that would further undercut the agency’s biggest revenue stream.

The growing outcry adds another dimension to the agency’s myriad crises: a clogged processing and transportation network, severe staffing shortages and $188.4 billion in liabilities. The prolonged performance declines have eroded the reputation of one of the few government agencies that boast generations of broad public support. Continue reading.

Biden is said to nominate three to USPS board of governors

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President Biden will nominate a former U.S. Postal Service executive, a leading voting rights advocate and a former postal union leader to the mail service’s governing board, according to three people briefed on the nominees, a move that will reshape the agency’s leadership and increase pressure on the embattled postmaster general.

Biden will nominate Ron Stroman, the Postal Service’s recently retired deputy postmaster general; Amber McReynolds, the chief executive of National Vote at Home Institute; and Anton Hajjar, the former general counsel of the American Postal Workers Union, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy.

If confirmed, the nominees would give Democrats a majority on the nine-member board of governors, with potentially enough votes to oust DeJoy, who testified Wednesday before a House panel that his new strategic plan for the mail service included slowing deliveries. Continue reading.

Postmaster general’s new plan for USPS is said to include slower mail and higher prices

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A key provision of the postmaster general’s strategy includes banning air travel for all first-class mail at a time when delivery rates are at historic lows.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is preparing to put all first-class mail onto a single delivery track, according to two people briefed on his strategic plan for the U.S. Postal Service, a move that would mean slower and more costly delivery for both consumers and commercial mailers.

DeJoy, with the backing of the agency’s bipartisan but Trump-appointed governing board, has discussed plans to eliminate a tier of first-class mail — letters, bills and other envelope-sized correspondence sent to a local address — designated for delivery in two days. Instead, all first-class mail would be lumped into the same three- to five-day window, the current benchmark for nonlocal mail.

That class of mail is already struggling; only 38 percent was delivered on time at the end of 2020, the Postal Service reported in federal court. Customers have reported bills being held up, and holiday cards and packages still in transit. Pharmacies and prescription benefits managers have told patients to request medication refills early to leave additional time for mail delays. The agency has not disclosed on-time scores yet in 2021. Continue reading.

Biden inherited a USPS crisis. Here’s how Democrats want to fix it.

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The nation’s mail service is slower and more erratic than it’s been in generations, via the confluence of an abrupt reorganization and pandemic-era anomalies that has fueled demands for reform and fundamentally different ideas on how to achieve it.

On one side is Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who, with the backing of the U.S. Postal Service’s governing board, is expected as soon as next week to outline a new vision for the agency, one that includes more service cuts, higher and region-specific pricing, and lower delivery expectations.

But congressional Democrats are pressing President Biden to install new board members, creating a majority bloc that could oust DeJoy, a Trump loyalist whose aggressive cost-cutting over the summer has been singled out for much of the performance decline. The fight over the agency’s future is expected to be fraught and protracted, leaving Americans with unreliable mail delivery for the foreseeable future. Continue reading.

USPS releases DeJoy calendar that is ‘almost entirely redacted’ — months after AOC demand and federal suit

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Nearly four months after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first demanded that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy turn over his daily calendar, the U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday released documents rendered almost completely useless by heavy redactions concealing who DeJoy met with as he worked to implement his destructive overhaul of mail operations.

The Postal Service released DeJoy’s calendar in response to a public records lawsuit filed in September by watchdog group American Oversight, which was not at all amused by what it finally received from the agency.

“Shrouding his calendar in secrecy likely violates the letter of the law, and certainly violates its spirit,” Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, told HuffPost. “DeJoy works for the public, but you wouldn’t know it from his calendar. Even in the Trump era, this is an extraordinary level of obfuscation.” Continue reading.

USPS ‘gridlocked’ as historic crush of holiday packages sparks delays

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Private carriers FedEx and UPS have cut off new delivery orders for some retailers, rerouting surging mail volumes through the overwhelmed Postal Service.

A historic crush of e-commerce packages is threatening to overwhelm U.S. Postal Service operations just weeks before Christmas and runoff elections in Georgia that will decide control of the U.S. Senate, according to agency employees and postal industry tracking firms.

As Americans increasingly shop online because of the coronavirus pandemic, private express carriers FedEx and UPS have cut off new deliveries for some retailers, sending massive volumes of packages ordered past deadlines to the Postal Service.

That has led to widespread delays and pushed the nation’s mail agency to the brink. Postal employees are reporting mail and package backlogs across the country, and working vast amounts of overtime hours that have depleted morale during another surge of coronavirus infections nationwide. Continue reading.

USPS data shows thousands of mailed ballots missed Election Day deadlines

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The Postal Service ignored a federal judge’s order to sweep processing plants on Tuesday after more than 300,000 scanned ballots could not be traced.

Nearly 7 percent of ballots in U.S. Postal Service sorting facilities on Tuesday were not processed on time for submission to election officials, according to data the agency filed Wednesday in federal court, potentially leaving tens of thousands of ballots caught in the mail system during an especially tight presidential race.

The Postal Service reported the timely processing — which includes most mail-handling steps outside of pickup and delivery — of 93.3 percent of ballots on Election Day, its best processing score in several days, but still well below the 97-percent target that postal and voting experts say the agency should hit.

The Postal Service processed 115,630 ballots on Tuesday, a volume much lower than in recent days after weeks of warnings about chronic mail delays. Of that number, close to 8,000 ballots were not processed on time, a small proportion but one that could factor heavily in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, which do not accept ballots after Election Day and could be decided by a few thousand votes. Continue reading.

USPS quietly awards $5 million contract to DeJoy’s former company: ‘Epic level of corruption’

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The U.S. Postal Service last month quietly awarded a $5 million contract to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s former company XPO Logistics, raising fresh allegations of unethical activity by the Trump megadonor as he continues to come under fire for causing nationwide mail delays that could impact next month’s election.

CBS News reported Friday that the Postal Service “will pay XPO $3.3 million annually to manage its route between the two cities, which are roughly 700 miles apart.”

“The USPS database shows the contract has one of the highest annual rates out of more than 1,600 contracts the Postal Service initiated with outside firms in its most recent quarter, which is the first full quarter DeJoy has served as head of the agency,” according to CBS. Continue reading.

Judge orders Postal Service to restore high-speed mail sorting machines

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A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ordered the U.S. Postal Service to restore high-speed mail sorting machines at facilities that cannot process First Class election mail efficiently amid the coronavirus pandemic.  

The Thursday order was intended to clarify an injunction issued late last month that prevented the Trump administration from enforcing operational changes implemented by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in June and July that included removing high-speed sorting machines. 

The Postal Service at the time had asked the judge to clarify the order, claiming that the dismantled machines couldn’t be put back together again, according to Bloomberg.  Continue reading.