Congressional staffers to visit post office where Amazon packages caused mail delays

“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 outdoors the publish workplace, protesting the heavy workloads and lengthy hours attributable to the sudden arrival of hundreds of Amazon packages.

On Tuesday, staffers from the places of work 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 response to an invite distributed by Bemidji Mayor Jorge Prince.

“We want a really clear dedication that we’re not going to be prioritizing Amazon packages over common mail,” Klobuchar advised The Washington Submit after Tuesday’s assembly. She additionally stated her workplace is trying into bettering postal staffing and pay for rural carriers, and has repeatedly requested a gathering with Postmaster Common Louis DeJoy.

Along with being banned from saying “Amazon,” postal staff have additionally been advised their jobs could possibly be in danger in the event that they communicate publicly about publish workplace points. Staffers had been advised 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 clients 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 publish workplace. Mail carriers advised The Submit 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.

A lot of these residents complained to elected officers, together with Smith, who wrote a letter to the postmaster basic inquiring about reviews that “Amazon is interfering with well timed deliveries and stretching the company’s already-overburdened staff 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 means of the vacation season.”

(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Submit, and the newspaper’s interim CEO, Patty Stonesifer, sits on Amazon’s board.)

As the vacation buying 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 fireplace marshal. Mail carriers say they’ve been mandated to work on Sundays, delivering mail seven days every week on lonely rural routes that may now take as much as 12 hours to finish.

“Individuals want to know 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 staff on the Tuesday assembly as a result of they’re “too busy with work and doubtless terrified of repercussions.”

Kyle Sorbe, a spokesperson for Smith’s workplace, stated in an e-mail that “if these reviews are true, they’re extraordinarily regarding and Senator Smith will probably be looking for a clarification from the Postal Service.”

Submit workplace spokesperson David Partenheimer stated the assembly was “not a USPS-sponsored occasion and we don’t plan to attend,” as employees members “are centered on our peak-season operations now.”

“Relating to 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 individuals attended in individual, and greater than 180 watched a stay stream on the web site of native newspaper the Bemidji Pioneer.

A number of postal staff who not too long ago stop or retired as a result of ongoing points attended, together with one who recognized herself solely as Shelly, and obtained a spontaneous spherical of applause when she started to talk.

“I labored on the publish workplace for 30 years,” she stated. “By no means in my life have I been handled so poorly. I’m going dwelling at evening crying.”

“I didn’t need to retire but,” she stated. “However I used to be compelled to retire.”

Residents expressed their issues with delayed mail, together with lacking medicines and late payments leading to charges. In addition they shared considerations about working circumstances for postal staff, together with low pay, lengthy hours and security dangers for mail carriers working late at evening.

On the assembly, congressional staffers stated a number of letters from their respective places of work had lastly obtained a response on Monday. In that response, shared with The Submit, DeJoy acknowledged that the amount of Amazon packages on the Bemidji Submit Workplace has elevated. “As a result of packages basically take up significantly extra bodily area than letter mail or flats, a interval of excessive package deal quantity (resembling peak season) can result in Submit Workplace loading docks changing into overwhelmed,” the letter says. “Thus, a excessive package deal quantity all the time has the potential to intervene with the circulate of letter mail, no matter the place these packages originated.” The publish 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 are actually 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 publish workplace has restricted capacity to trace paper mail.

On Monday, the Minnesota senators launched a invoice known as the Postal Supply Accountability Act, which might require the publish workplace to enhance monitoring and reporting of delayed and undelivered mail nationally.

“As a necessary public service, USPS owes its clients transparency,” a short on the proposed laws says. “It is a step towards that purpose.”

The publish workplace has held a contract to ship Amazon packages on Sundays since 2013. The company, which has misplaced $6.5 billion up to now 12 months, has stated that it’s essential to extend package deal quantity by chopping offers with Amazon and different retailers.