[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. The whole election and post office thing is a moving target. On Tuesday, in case you missed it, the Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said he would postpone his previously announced plans to slash overtime pay for USPS workers and remove mail-sorting machines and blue mail collection boxes until after the November election.

This, of course, came after a growing concern from the public and members of Congress that the president was going to limit vote by mail and, thereby, disenfranchise voters during the pandemic. Nevertheless, Speaker Pelosi has called an extraordinary, between the conventions, session of the House. For this weekend, there will be a vote apparently on Saturday that would put a stop, if the bill passes the entire Congress, to the USPS service reductions.

Postmaster General DeJoy will testify before Congress on Monday at a House hearing chaired by my next guest, New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who is the chair of the House Oversight Committee. Her New York 12th congressional district includes the East Side of Manhattan, Greenpoint in Brooklyn, and parts of Western Queens as well as Roosevelt Island. Councilor Maloney, welcome back to WNYC.

US Representative Carolyn Maloney: I'm very glad to be with you, Brian. Thank you for your attention to this critical issue that is so important to so many Americans.

Brian: With this announcement that those changes are going to be delayed until after the election, is this now a moot issue as it pertains to the election?

US Representative Maloney: Oh, absolutely not. It's certainly a step in the right direction. They should never have instituted these changes in the middle of a pandemic when people are so dependent on mail and right before a very important election. He said he would not continue with the actions that were delaying the mail, but he did not say that he would restore the mailboxes that they have removed or the sorting machinery that they dismantled or removed.

By all accounts, not just in New York but clear across the nation, these are slowing down the delivery of mail. We would like them reinstated. Very importantly, part of my bill is the 25 billion that the post office needs even before the pan, even before the need for the election in the mail in ballots because of the pandemic disruption it's caused to the post office operations. I'm told that over 70 essential workers at the post office have died because of COVID.

Over 40,000 have been quarantined at some point because of COVID sicknesses that have disrupted the mail. There's been a disruption. The board of governors that were appointed by President Trump have a call for this 25 billion just to make the post office and the post services whole. We need that money for the operations of the post office. We definitely don't want any action that slows down the mail and would make it harder for our ballots to be counted by election day. That's important, the presidential election.

Brian: One thing that made this story explode nationally was when the Postal Service said that they couldn't guarantee that all the ballots that were mailed even if they were mailed by each state's postmarking deadline would arrive in time to be counted. Now, they've reversed that. The latest statement from DeJoy that I've seen says, "The Postal Service is ready today to handle whatever volume of election mail it receives this fall." Are you confident that that's the case or that his original statement that they wouldn't be able to handle it is the case?

US Representative Maloney: Well, I am urging my friends and constituents who call me on the matter to vote early. Right now in New York, we have early voting. I would vote either during early voting or mail in my ballot at least two weeks before the election. If you know who you're going to vote for, then request your absentee ballot, fill it out, and mail it in well in advance. We know that we're going to have a surge of mail. I want to ask DeJoy at the hearing that we're having on Monday, what is his plan to address the surge of mail that we know we're going to get?

What in the world was he thinking about when he was banning overtime pay and removing critical equipment that speeds up the processing of the mail? It's not enough to say you're going to do something. Now, he's saying he's going to do the right thing, but what's the proof? Trust but verify. What is his plan to make sure that every single ballot counts and processes it? So far, he's just taking actions to slow down the mail, which we're reversing on our vote on Saturday.

Brian: You're going to ask for a proof of the how at your hearing on Monday. As I'm sure you know, Congresswoman, vote by mail in the way it turned out in your recent primary election, which you won in a close vote, is being used by President Trump to criticize voting by mail on a mass basis at all. It was a close election and some of the ballots couldn't be counted because of these postmarking date and delivery problems.

He says, "Look what happened with the Carolyn Maloney race." He keeps using your name in these daily news conferences that he's doing and how upset your challenger is that the way things turned out. How do you respond to that criticism to your race being used as a model of why voting by mail is problematic and leaves the results of elections ambiguous?

US Representative Maloney: He has come out literally Thursday night on national television that he would not fund the post office and that he would not support mail-in balloting. Meanwhile, it has been reported in the press in Florida that he and his wife have requested an absentee ballot. He's voting by mail. In the case of my election, my win was larger percentage-wise than his win when he ran for president and he didn't even win the popular vote. I won the popular vote and had a larger margin of victory than he had percentage-wise in his own election.

Brian: Sure, but in theory--

US Representative Maloney: In that particular case--

Brian: Go ahead.

US Representative Maloney: In that particular case, there was a surge of voting. We had roughly 35,000 people vote on election day, June 23rd, but then roughly 57,000 voted by mail-in ballot. It was the second-largest congressional district in our state in terms of people voting by total votes and by mail. The question was that some of the ballots were not postmarked by the post office. There was a court case requiring that all of them be postmarked if it had been in reasonably to believe by the date of June 23rd, the date of the election.

My opponent was claiming to hundreds of thousands of votes, but he's talking about the entire state. In terms of my election, there were hardly any less than five in Manhattan that were not postmarked. I believe it was 10 in Queens that were not postmarked and there were 600 in Brooklyn that were not postmarked. The court case said whether they were postmarked or not, they should be counted. They were counted and they did not have an impact on the results of my race because the margin of victory was sufficient to cover it.

Brian: I know you've got to go in a minute. What do you think the most important thing that Congress could do this week is in order to ensure that the elections can occur and all the mail-in ballots that are cast are registered and counted?

US Representative Maloney: The most important thing we could do is pass my bill. It's an extraordinary event that's taking place. The speaker, Speaker Pelosi, has called us in for an emergency vote, which would fund the post office at $25 billion, which is requested by the board of governors, and stop this action that the postmaster general-- He should never have been appointed in the first place. He's a crony, a political crony. I'm putting in legislation that the postmaster general should be a nonpartisan position, above politics, not involved in politics. In any event, he has said he's going to stop his disruptive actions. We need to make the post office whole, reverse the problems that he's already incurred in the post office.

Brian: Do you have any confidence that that bill will pass the Senate? The $25 billion is already in the HEROES Act that the House passed, but Mitch McConnell is saying no.

US Representative Maloney: Three months ago.

Brian: Right. What's going to get you to yes with the Senate?

US Representative Maloney: The American people demanding that their post office be funded. The motto of the post office is that through rain and snow and dead of night, through any obstacle, the post office will deliver the mail. They should have added Mr. Trump should be the obstacle also mentioned in the motto of the post office. He's been an obstacle to getting mail out to the people. The people ultimately were a democracy.

Our votes count and our demands count to our elected officials. We should vote for anyone who supports the post office and vote against anyone who is opposed to funding it and supporting it like it should be. It's a pillar of our democracy. It's enshrined in our Constitution. Actually, the Pony Express was even in America before our Constitution and it's a service to the American people. It should not be tampered with. It should be supported.

Brian: New York City Congress-- Go ahead.

US Representative Maloney: You'll be surprised that some people have already reversed their position on the funding because of the public outcry, particularly in a pandemic. Veterans, seniors, people who depend on medications, they depend on the post office to get their medicines. Businesses depend on it to process their mail for their businesses. Americans who are really suffering under the pandemic deserve to get their cards from their children and their grandmothers and everybody else. The mail is a part of the American experience. It's been there.

It's one of the few services that government provides that is literally mentioned in our Constitution as an absolute must. We are just trying to uphold the service for the American people and funding it at the level that the Republican board of governors have said is necessary for them to function. It should be an easy vote. It should be a bipartisan vote. It should pass not only in the House but in the Senate. We will be working very, very hard along with the American people to turn that promise into a reality of a law that ensures that it will be funded and that their mail will be delivered.

Brian: New York City Congresswoman, Democrat Carolyn Maloney. She is chair of the Oversight Committee, which will hold the hearing with Postmaster General DeJoy on Monday. As you hear, it looks like there will be a vote in an extraordinary session of the House on Saturday between the conventions this Saturday on her bill. Thank you so much, Congresswoman.

US Representative Maloney: Thank you.

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. I want to follow up on that by opening up the phones for postal workers. Now, I don't know if we happen to have any postal workers listening right now. If we do, we would love to hear from you to help us report this story. What's been going on on the ground in the post office in which you work or on your route or anything else that you're experiencing as a postal worker? Let's see if we have any current postal workers listening right now.

If we don't get any of them, then we'll open up the phones a little more broadly. Let's see. Any postal workers listening right now, 646-435-7280. Do you feel like the post office is being sabotaged by the postmaster general? 646-435-7280. What is happening on your route or at your post office branch? 646-435-7280. Gothamist has been doing some reporting on this. There's an excellent Gothamist story this week by Gwynne Hogan and it cites a couple of anecdotes from postal workers.

It says Angie, a USPS worker for the last eight years, said her overtime had been cut. So many days that she was not able to complete her full route, meaning mail delivery to customers was delayed. It says she asked that her last name be withheld because she was not authorized to speak to the press. Angie, the postal worker, said, "Right now, I'm about to call my supervisor. I'm not going to make it. What am I to do? Do I bring people's mail back? It's just a nightmare," she said while finishing up her route earlier this week.

The quote goes on, "Mind you, I've been out here since the pandemic. I never took off, so we've been out here since day one. Never stopping. It was almost like Christmas every day, then all of a sudden, it's like, 'You got to stop.'" That's one postal worker. Here's another one. Louis Tropea, a truck driver in Brooklyn who has worked for the USPS for more than two decades, said he was always told not to get nervous about cuts.

"They've been telling me for 25 years about cuts. It'll last for about a month and then when they see all the mail is backed up, someone's going to deliver it." He says, "It's against the law not to deliver it. Whether it's today, tomorrow or the next day, somebody's got to deliver it." That's another one. Let's see. I think I have another one here from the Gothamist story by our Gwynne Hogan. This says, let's see, "An unprecedented surge in mail-in ballots expected this November."

It says, "USPS mail processing centers in the northeast service area were scheduled to see a 20% reduction in the particular kind of electronic sorting device that processes mail-in ballots from 448 of them to 359 machines. Similar reductions were proposed across the country." There are some stories that I've seen of these sorting machines actually now being removed and taken away in some of the places in New York. Any postal workers, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Help us report this story right after this.

[music]

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. All right. Postal workers, help us report this story. What's happening? Shirley in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Shirley. Thanks for calling in.

Shirley: Hi, I'm a postal worker. I have a responsibility to the people that I serve, the Blacks and the homes. I know a lot of them receive medication, except COVID. Everybody started to receive more things by mail. A lot of stuff comes from UPS to USPS. We're getting flooded with a whole lot of parcels. My supervisor is looking at me like, "Well, I can't pay you overtime," and I still have a responsibility to get the mail to my customers. I just think it's a big thing about privatizing the whole shebang because this is not new just because it's Trump. It's been going on for a long time, almost 40 years with the cut, Charles cut. I did my research. This is not something that, all of a sudden, we can work with.

Brian: It has been an agenda for a long time. Have you been able to finish your route every day and deliver everything, Shirley, every day?

Shirley: There are greedy people who want to privatize the whole system.

Brian: Shirley, thank you very much for calling in. Let's go to Irving in Williamsburg. You're on WNYC. Hi, Irving.

Irving: Hello.

Brian: Hi, Irving. You're a postal worker, right?

Irving: Yes, correct.

Brian: What's happening? Give us a report.

Irving: What? All right. I was a letter carrier for about 15 years and I switched over to partial delivery side. I drive a truck delivering parcels now and the volume on parcels has gone up. In terms of what's going on presently with this new postmaster. In general, everyone, all the employees are voicing out their outrage of what his intentions are in terms of defunding the post office.

We see him as someone that's just being manipulated and a puppet for Donald Trump to get his agenda met. Mr. Trump has never been a friend of the post office. He's had his gripes with the post office for many years, including with Amazon and the prices and Jeff Bezos and us not charging enough for packages and now with the voter election things and the polls.

The absentee ballot is something that the post office is very capable of doing, except that the way they have structured it is by cutting on overtime, which is something that it's been for years. It's always been implemented. It's a given and it's already structured that during Christmas and holidays, overtime was something that was understood that would be affected.

Brian: If they took away overtime at the same time that there would be this crush of mail-in ballots, that would be a way to cripple the election system. That's what you're saying, right?

Irving: Yes, exactly. Exactly. In terms of even us with the partial deliveries, we have parcels that have to be delivered. They're priority packages. Now, they have us-- What are we supposed to do? Curtail packages for people that need them, priority packages that are guaranteed to be there. Again, it's the whole thing as many people have said or the agenda of-- He can't get more--

Brian: They want to say this is--

Irving: - American and more than the United States Postal Service has been around forever.

Brian: They wouldn't say that this is a failure on the public dime and move it to privatization, which is, of course, a longer-term conversation. Right now, there's an emergency with the pandemic and with the election. Irving, thank you so much. Good luck out there. Patrick in Madison, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Patrick.

Patrick: How are you doing, Brian?

Brian: Good. You're a mail carrier?

Patrick: Yes, I'm a letter carrier. I've been a letter carrier for 17 years in Madison, New Jersey.

Brian: What's happening out there?

Patrick: I have my own route and the mail is coming through. We've got mail coming through. Some days, it's light. Some days, it's heavy. My customers depend on me. I've been doing my job for 17 years and I have elderly people on my route. They look for their medicine. They look for their mail. That's what I do, packages and everything. The packages have been picking up now because it's a pandemic now, so we have a lot of packages now. We deliver a lot of packages.

My customers depend on us and I'm quite sure around the nation, other people depend on their letter carriers as well. With the balloting and everything like that they're talking about, I've been doing ballots for 17 years, so I've been seeing them. You know what I'm saying? We see it in the mail every year, every election, so we're secure with the ballots. That's all I wanted to say. I like your show, Brian. I like to listen to you every morning and I appreciate you spreading your word.

Brian: Thank you very much. I appreciate you spreading your word, Patrick. Thank you. Good luck out there and call us again. Contigo in Trenton, you're on WNYC. Hello, Contigo.

Contigo: Yes, my brother. I've been with the post office as a mail processor for 20 years. We heard about change where change is good. When we have a good change, I am for change. What I'm seeing going on today at the post office, it's not change at all. Because we are the biggest, we run all the mail for all Jersey, distribute all the mail because we are the P&DC, the biggest after Jersey City.

Brian: Contigo, let me ask you this. Since the other callers who work for the post office were letter carriers and you're a processor, mail processor, I see you may be more in the middle of this. In the Gothamist article that I mentioned, it says, "Brooklyn's processing center, which takes in mail from Brooklyn and Staten Island, have been slated to lose eight out of its 42 delivery barcode sorters while Manhattan's processing facility, which also fields mail from the Bronx, was expected to lose seven machines," and it goes on from there. What are you seeing? Are sorting machines being taken out? Are blue mail drop boxes being taken out?

Contigo: Right now, the machines that I've been working for 10 years was a good machine. What pissed me off, excuse my language, that all those good machines-- because I've been there. When I have a problem with the machine, I know what to fix and what not to fix. That's most of the good machines, and then there's garbage, the one who cannot run. That's what you see here. If you take the bad ones and you bring some good ones, that's fine. If you take the good one and you left those bad ones, then those ballots are going to come. How are we going to protect it?

Brian: They purposely took out good machines and left bad ones. Is that what you're saying?

Contigo: Good machine is out. Yes, all of them was good.

Brian: Are they putting them back in now that they reversed themselves?

Contigo: No, no, no. Nothing came back yet. Nothing came back yet. God forbid, this change makes us get them back.

Brian: Contigo, I have to leave it there because we're out of time for the show. Thank you so much. Very informative. It ties back into one of the questions that Congresswoman Maloney said she was going to ask the postmaster general at the hearing on Monday, "Are you going to put back the machines that you already took out?" Thank you, postal workers, for calling in. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

[music]

Copyright © 2020 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.