US Post Office failing to do its job
Why no one is addressing the growing crisis at the US Post Office. The mail is not getting delivered and no one cares. But it is costing taxpayers hundreds of millions in bank fees, late payments and the delays are hurting seniors the most.
By Ray Hanania
The US Postal Service has an informal creed that goes, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”
Unfortunately, it’s not longer a creed but rather, it is just plain greed. The postal “creed” doesn’t say anything about COVID-itis, which I define as the use of coronavirus as an excuse to personally profit or use it as an excuse to collect full wages while staying at home.
So many people are using it to get money without having to work, or extra benefits or avoiding work.
I reached out to the US Post Office but there is no one to be found. FOIA’s I took months to answer. What Little I did receive turns out to be postal advertising urging me to purchase one of their “forwarding” services.
As a taxpayer, I already pay enough to fund an incompetent and dysfunctional Postal system. Stamps jumped 10 percent to 55 cents, but postal services probably dropped 50 percent or more.
I spoke with several postal employees who are at their jobs complaining about those who are staying home. These are dedicated workers who are also concerned about postal problems.
Mail is being delayed days, weeks and months. I mailed two checks June 6 and a month later called the bank to block them. It cost me $36 for each stop payment.
The postal employees I spoke with said many USPS employees are “working from home” because of coronavirus restrictions. Many live in Chicago and are supposed to work jobs throughout the suburbs. How does a Postal employee work from home? They’re not answering calls, or responding to complaints. Taxpayers like me and you pay their salaries and fund their enormous, bloated budget and we’re not getting answers.
There are 600,000 postal employees nationwide which means they make up more than 2 or 3 million votes. That’s one reason why President Joe Biden, and members of the Senate and Congress are not addressing this problem.
I’ve heard from readers who say they are suffering because mail is not being delivered. Social security and pension checks are late. Medicine they order is late. Utility payments they make are late, and they are being fined by the banks. “Lost checks” – probably sitting in envelopes in some lazy workers backyard — have to be blocked. Stop check banking fees are $36 or more.
Someone needs to speak out about this problem and this patronage voting army of lazy-ass postal workers. Someone needs to take leadership because the public is suffering.
Seniors suffer the most. They don’t trust online options to pay their bills. I am computer proficient, and I won’t pay my bills online. I like the “paper trail.” When a problem surfaces in the payment, I want the evidence in my hands. Why should I trust the laying corporate robber barons who run the utilities or the bankers who make hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to fleece us of our last hard-earned cent?
Maybe I sound mean. Well, when it comes to my hard-earned wages, I am going to fight to protect them from the scammers, liars, grifters and con artists in three-piece suits. I’m going to demand that public employees who are staying home and collecting checks need to go back to work. Why go out and get a job when you can survive on the public dole? Let someone else’s hard work cover your needs.
What needs to happen but won’t is that the USPS leadership should be fired. Replace them with the employees who are carrying everyone else’s burden. In today’s COVID world, laziness is rewarded and hard work is exploited.
Fire everyone one of the USPS corporate executives and put new people in place who cane: 1 – Explain why the mail isn’t being delivered (They are not talking now at all); 2 – fire employees who refuse to show up for work (and don’t pay them); and, 3 – reward those few employees who are working and carrying the load for the rest of the system.
Penalize the Post Office for lost mail and late bill payments or unreceived monthly social security checks. Help those people who are suffering because the mail is at a near standstill not just in some communities but system wide across the nation.
And do something about those greedy robber barons at the banks. They used to make fun of lawyers, but the truth is the sleaziest profession in this country is at the top levels of the banking industry.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter and political columnist. This column was originally published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group in the Des Plaines Valley News, Southwest News-Herald, The Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers. For more information on Ray Hanania visit www.Hanania.com or email him at rghanania@gmail.com.)
Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
Email Ray Hanania at rghanania@gmail.com.
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