Brockton Enterprise
August 18, 2020
BROCKTON — As many voters are relying on them this year to make sure their ballots are counted, workers at U.S. Postal Service facilities in Brockton said the city’s mail facilities are down two high-speeding sorting machines as a result of a structural overhaul under the Trump administration.
And it’s causing a backup in mail delivery, said South Shore Area Local 3844 President Steven Curreri, who works at the mail processing plant on Liberty Street.
“If we can’t make it on the truck, we have to push it aside and handle it tomorrow,” said Currieri, who added that a “cancellation machine” used in mail processing was also taken out of service in Brockton. “It doesn’t make sense.”
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-South Boston, came to the Rocky Marciano Post Office in Brockton on Tuesday afternoon to stand with postal workers amid the loss of mail sorting machines throughout the country ahead of the 2020 election, with the September primaries coming in less than two weeks. Union members and their allies held signs and wore T-shirts with a picture of a stamp that said, “U.S. Mail is not for sale” and “I stand with postal workers.”
The Enterprise reached out to a Massachusetts spokesperson and a national spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service, seeking a response to the statements about the sorting machines and a cancellation machine taken offline at Brockton postal facilities. They did not reply as of late Tuesday evening.
In addition to absentee ballots that have long been available upon request, a new vote-by-mail system was introduced in Massachusetts this year as a result of a voting law passed by the state Legislature, as a way to reduce the risk of spreading the coroanvirus at in-person voting stations this coming election day.
Lynch said the demand for voting by mail is “massive” amid the COVID-19 pandemic, after the state government sent out applications for mail-in ballots to registered voters throughout the Massachusetts earlier this summer. Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said Tuesday that 1 million voters throughout the state have for applied mail-in ballots, and more than 149,000 have returned them for the Sept. 1 primary election. In Brockton, and many other communities around the state, a mail-in ballot collection box was set up at City Hall to give voters another option to send in their completed ballot.
But efforts by President Donald Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, under the guise of structural changes to enhance the long-term sustainability of the U.S. Postal Service, have stymied the vote by mail system, according to the congressman. Lynch said it’s an intentional attempt by the Republican president to sabotage the postal service, as a way to deter people from voting for Trump’s opponent during the November presidential election, former Vice President Joseph Biden.
“Judging by his actions his actions and his words, he is out to stop the voting process in this country because he knows that if the American people have the right to vote, they will vote his backside out of office,” Lynch said.
Lynch said six machines were removed from Boston postal facilities and several others were taken offline in central Massachusetts. The high-speed sorting machines can sort 32,000 pieces of mail per hour, Lynch said.
“Now that they have taken out those machines it means the mail is going to pile up on the loading docks,” he said.
The protest in Brockton took place amid news on Tuesday that Dejoy announced a pause on structural changes at the post office until after the election. DeJoy said those changes taking place at the post office are aimed at improving service and increasing its ability to compete with private companies like FedEx and UPS. Until the election concludes, however, DeJoy said post office will maintain its normal hours of operation, overtime will continue to be approved as needed, and mail processing equipment and blue collection boxes “will remain where they are.” Regardless, DeJoy said, the U.S. Post Office is ready to handle “whatever volume of election mail” it receives this fall.
“I came to the Postal Service to make changes to secure the success of this organization and its long-term sustainability,” DeJoy said. “I believe significant reforms are essential to that objective, and work toward those reforms will commence after the election. … To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded.”
Lynch reacted to that news, stating that he doesn’t trust DeJoy, calling him a “major investor” in private competitors of the postal service, while pointing out that DeJoy’s statement didn’t offer to put mail sorting machines back that were already taken out of service.
“That doesn’t work for us,” Lynch said. “Remember this postmaster general said he was not taking machines out in the first place. Then we caught him and it was across the country. He said it was one or two places we are doing that. He was doing it nationwide. Now he says he’s not going to do that anymore. I don’t believe him.”
Lynch said Congress will be voting on a bill on Saturday to restore resources to the postal service and bring back sorting machines that were removed. Lynch said the U.S. House of Representatives has also summoned DeJoy and his board of governors to appear before a congressional subcommittee to answer questions.
In addition to mail workers, Lynch was joined on Tuesday by Brockton Mayor Robert Sullivan and other local politicians, including city councilors, two state representatives and a state senator.
“Brockton is a regional center for mail distribution, so what’s going on in Brockton not only affects parts of Massachusetts, it also impacts Rhode Island, “Lynch said. “Brockton is very, very important for the mail delivery system.”
John Bessette, president of the Mail Handlers Union Branch 78, said he and others are becoming overwhelmed by the mail piling and deliveries getting delayed.
“Sometimes for days on end — four or five days — the mail just sits there,” Bessette said. “We do what we can. They haven’t cut our overtime that bad for mail handlers. But they are starting to try to cut it again. There’s another machine slated to come out. As of now, we’re trying to get everything out of there. We can’t do it all.”
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