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Nevertheless it wasn’t the buck hunt delaying the mail in Bemidji, a tiny city 100 miles south of the Canadian border the place welcome indicators are written in each English and Ojibwe and statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox tower in downtown. Since early November, Bemidji has been bombarded by a sudden onslaught of Amazon packages — and native postal employees say they’ve been ordered to ship these packages first.
The consequence has been chaos on the Bemidji publish workplace. Mail is getting backed up, generally for days, leaving native residents ready for checks, bank card statements, medical insurance paperwork and tax rebates. Routes meant to take eight or 9 hours are stretching to 10 or 12. A minimum of 5 carriers have give up, and the publish workplace has banned scheduled sick days for the remainder of the yr, carriers say.
“If we hold getting this quantity, plus Christmas coming, we received’t survive,” one Bemidji publish workplace worker mentioned, talking on the situation of anonymity to guard her job. “We aren’t outfitted for this.”
Mail carriers have “expressed quite a lot of concern concerning the quantity of labor,” Mayor Jorge Prince mentioned after ending his personal breakfast at Raphael’s, a bustling diner lined with classic cookie jars. However the Bemidji Metropolis Council has no jurisdiction over the U.S. Postal Service, and the identical goes for the native hearth marshal, who was referred to as in final Monday as a result of the Amazon packages have been stacked precariously excessive.
Dennis Nelson, a veteran mail provider, mentioned he acquired so pissed off watching a number of co-workers “breaking down and crying” that he staged a symbolic strike earlier this month outdoors the publish workplace the place he has labored for greater than 20 years.
“I’ve to do one thing,” Nelson mentioned. “It seems like we must be sporting shirts that say ‘USPS: Dropped at you by Amazon.com.’”
Bemidji is just not the one place the place postal employees say they’ve been overwhelmed by packages from Amazon, the ever present e-commerce large. Carriers and native officers say mail service has been disrupted in rural communities from Portland, Maine, to Washington state’s San Juan Islands.
The state of affairs stems from a disaster on the Postal Service, which has misplaced $6.5 billion previously yr. The publish workplace has had a contract with Amazon since 2013, when it began delivering packages on Sundays. However in recent times, that enterprise has exploded as Amazon has more and more come to depend on postal carriers to make “last-mile” deliveries in harder-to-reach rural locations.
The Postal Service considers the contract proprietary and has declined to reveal its phrases. However U.S. Postmaster Basic Louis DeJoy has mentioned publicly that “growing package deal quantity” — not simply from Amazon, however from FedEx and UPS as properly — is vital to the mail service’s monetary future. In a Nov. 14 speech to the Postal Service Board of Governors, DeJoy mentioned he needs the publish workplace to develop into the “most popular supply supplier within the nation.” And in recent times, the company has reconfigured its nationwide community of mail-sorting crops, bought an armada of eco-friendly supply vehicles and pressed a advertising marketing campaign in service of that purpose.
In larger cities, Amazon has its personal distribution community, which takes a number of the strain off the publish workplace. However in rural areas, the place carriers drive miles of lonely routes of their private autos, the association has brought on issues.
Within the mountains of Colorado, biologists in Crested Butte are combating the delay of time-sensitive samples, the Denver Publish reported in September, whereas mail carriers in Carbondale say they’re overwhelmed by Amazon packages. Different Minnesota cities together with Brainerd and La Porte have been hit laborious by Amazon previously, carriers mentioned. And in Maine, carriers organized a symbolic strike in protest of the Amazon onslaught a yr in the past — although a postal audit discovered that the delays have been brought on by staffing points, not prioritizing packages.
In Bemidji, the mayor has complained to native members of Congress, who say their capacity to regulate the publish workplace is restricted. Final week, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) despatched a letter to DeJoy to ask about experiences that “Amazon is interfering with well timed deliveries and stretching the company’s already-overburdened employees too skinny.”
“As Postmaster Basic, you’re chargeable for making certain that the Postal Service meets its service requirements, and it’s clear proper now that issues should not working as they need to,” mentioned the letter, a duplicate of which was shared with The Washington Publish. “Coming into into contracts that your system can not help is a breach of your obligations.”
Angela Bye, the Postal Service district supervisor for North Dakota and Minnesota, declined to remark. Postal Service spokesperson David Partenheimer mentioned the company is unaware of any vital supply points in Bemidji. “Like all prudent enterprise, we don’t publicly talk about specifics of our enterprise relationships,” he mentioned.
Partenheimer defended the publish workplace’s report in an e mail, whereas conceding “a lot work stays to be executed.” He added that the publish workplace’s goal is “to ship mail and packages collectively in an built-in community.”
“The Postal Service is in its third yr of the Delivering for America plan,” he mentioned. “The group continues its concentrate on enhancing service reliability … by modernizing the outmoded and ageing postal community throughout the nation, operational stabilization, and new aggressive product choices for our clients.”
Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson mentioned the corporate shares weekly forecasting knowledge with the Postal Service, which “approves our forecasts.”
“We work straight with the USPS to stability our supply wants with their out there capability,” Stephenson mentioned. “We acknowledge that, like us, different main retailers, small companies, and the communities they serve depend on the native USPS to ship, which is why we’ll proceed to collaborate on package deal quantity every week and regulate as wanted.”
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Publish. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.
‘No method of maintaining’
In Bemidji, postal employees mentioned that they had been advised that Amazon was coming to city for years. It lastly occurred one morning in early November, when the publish workplace was flooded with 1000’s of Amazon containers and carriers mentioned they have been advised all of them needed to be delivered by the top of the day.
Carriers who beforehand had delivered dozens of small parcels a day plus paper mail all of the sudden needed to ship between 300 and 500 containers that they mentioned had beforehand been dealt with by UPS. One mail provider mentioned his mail truck was so stuffed with packages he might barely see out the left window. Some containers have been so massive they couldn’t match into mail autos. These have been saved on-site for buyer pickup in an space that quickly was overflowing.
For all the additional work, mail carriers weren’t making far more cash. Rural mail carriers are paid just for the period of time the publish workplace estimates it is going to take them to complete their jobs. And in Bemidji, the routes had been reevaluated in October, simply earlier than Amazon modified every thing.
In consequence, “we’re making a gift of tons of free labor,” mentioned Nelson, the provider who staged the symbolic strike on Nov. 13. Although mail carriers aren’t legally allowed to strike — their union signed away that proper greater than 100 years in the past — others joined him within the pre-dawn chill, carrying indicators with slogans akin to “USPS belongs to the folks, not Amazon.”
Mail carriers take their jobs significantly — they take an oath of workplace upon assuming their roles — and really feel badly when the mail doesn’t get to folks, mentioned three Bemidji postal employees who spoke on the situation of anonymity to guard their jobs.
“It’s laborious to like a job whenever you watch everybody depend on you and you may’t assist them,” one mentioned.
‘Non-public enterprise takes precedence’
Mel Milender, treasurer of the Eckles Township Rural Hearth Affiliation, mentioned the chaos on the publish workplace has been “extraordinarily impactful.” After native governments assured him $400,000 in checks have been within the mail to assist cowl the current buy of $1.3 million in hearth gear, Milender mentioned, the checks have been nowhere to be discovered.
“We didn’t get mail for 3 days,” Milender mentioned. “And we needed to pay payments.”
When Milender referred to as the publish workplace, he mentioned, “They advised me that they needed to take this contract with Amazon, and that individuals have been quitting, and so they didn’t have folks to ship the mail and they’d get to me after they might.”
Others residents mentioned they’ve been ready on payments, playing cards from their grandchildren and insurance coverage funds. Although Chris Katko and his spouse reside simply six blocks from the Bemidji publish workplace, they, too, skilled delays, together with on time-sensitive hospital payments, Katko mentioned.
When the proprietors of Patterson’s, an area haberdashery, noticed their mail provider, Jay, laden with Amazon packages, they mentioned they nervous about him — but additionally concerning the checks they have been mailing to distributors. An area bookkeeper began driving 20 miles into city to go to the publish workplace, her husband mentioned, as a result of “the mail can’t be trusted.”
Mark Fuller, an area engineer, mentioned he worries about getting funds from shoppers on time. “If we’re ready on, you recognize, [$50,000 or $80,000] or $100,000 and we’re paying 9.75 p.c curiosity on the road of credit score, that may be fairly impactful over time,” mentioned Fuller, who prefers checks to digital funds to keep away from excessive charges.
Milender is aware of the native carriers are working laborious, he mentioned, however he thinks the publish workplace might have executed issues in another way.
“I can’t consider a personal enterprise takes precedence over the general public,” he mentioned. “What bothers me most is that we had no forewarning. The U.S. Postal Service knew that they accepted that contract and may have made positive that they made all people conscious of it.”
At Raphael’s, it’s clear folks need the issue fastened. A bunch of retired schoolteachers who meet there twice per week have been discussing the way it’s now sooner to order their guide membership picks from Amazon than from the native bookstore. The mail, they mentioned, is now so sluggish they name it “the Pony Specific.”
“There are occasions once we don’t even get the mail,” mentioned Judy Phillips, a retired English instructor, as a result of “they need to ship the Amazon.”
Listening to their dialog, an older gentleman who declined to provide his title stopped by their desk to share his personal sense of concern.
Amazon “packages take precedence over first-class mail,” the person mentioned, including: “That’s not proper.”
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