The Post Office Reckons With Recent Changes

Many local residents are not receiving their mail regularly. Photo: Rachel Pastan

At 3 p.m. on Tuesday, August 18, the Swarthmore post office was empty. The plexiglass barriers installed as a pandemic precaution stood guarding no one. The kiosks with padded envelopes and greeting cards for sale sat in their usual corners, while music floated out faintly from the back. After a few minutes, clerk Nicole Scott emerged. 

Scott’s shift had been over for an hour, but she stayed on — without pay and against her postmaster’s advice — so the office wouldn’t have to close early. The Swarthmore facility had no one to cover the remaining hours, a problem the branch has been facing with increased frequency since overtime was eliminated over the summer. Lately, customers often find only one clerk behind the counter — if there’s anyone at all. 

What is happening in Swarthmore is happening in post offices across the country.

Cutting Costs, But at What Cost?

On June 16, Louis DeJoy became the 75th Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service. The first postmaster general in decades with no prior experience at the agency, DeJoy has taken a number of drastic measures he says are aimed at cutting costs and boosting profit. In addition to eliminating overtime, DeJoy has banned carriers from additional trips to deliver mail that wasn’t sorted when they first set out on their rounds. More than 600 mail sorting machines have been or are scheduled to be dismantled or removed from postal facilities. This includes the sorting machine in the processing and distribution center on Lindbergh Boulevard in Philadelphia.  

Nicole Scott disagrees with DeJoy’s premise. “We were never meant to turn a profit,” she says. “We were meant to break even. This is a civil service. Now they’re trying to make us like any other business.”

Swarthmore and surrounding areas have seen numerous complaints of skipped deliveries and significant mail delays. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-5) says she has received hundreds of phone calls, letters, and emails from people in her district just in the last few weeks. She and fellow members of Congress have been convening to consider ways to roll back changes that have led to serious decline in service.

“We need to provide [the USPS] with additional support because it’s providing an essential service during a health and economic crisis,” Scanlon said. 

Many worry about how these changes will affect the November election. Jamie Mogil, Voter Services Chair for the League of Women Voters of Lower Merion and Narberth, says the league “is concerned anytime there may be barriers to accessible and fair voting, and that includes the efforts to defund the post office.” 

Conflicting messages coming out of the postal service offer little reassurance. The USPS initially insisted it would be able to manage mail-in ballots in a timely manner. But, in mid-August, 46 states and the District of Columbia were informed that the postal service cannot guarantee that all mail-in ballots will arrive in time to be counted. Pennsylvania was one of those 46 states. 

Mogil encourages people who want to vote by mail to apply for their ballot as soon as possible and return it promptly. “Postage is already paid,” she notes.

Struggles and Frustrations

Local residents’ recent experiences with the postal service have varied. Several report not getting any mail on some days. Saturday mail, in particular, has been unreliable.

Julia Welbon of Wallingford says, “We’ve had days with no mail at all. Our carrier said there was a lot of illness compounded by vacations. Howard has had to cover additional routes — pretty exhausting in the heat. Normally, he is here, reliably as clockwork, by 11 a.m. But several times in the last six weeks, we’ve gotten no mail at all.”

A notice from an office in Texas asking for crucial information for an identity-theft affidavit took one-and-a-half weeks to reach Kathleen Raffaele of Swarthmore. “I received it the day before the deadline when they would have canceled my claim, and I would have owed $1,000,” she said. “Fortunately (I guess), they’ve experienced many mail delays and extended the deadline for me when I called.”

Local businesses are also feeling the impact. Derek Ryder of Media works for a logistics company that delivers to 1,600-plus USPS locations from Massachusetts to Virginia, six days a week. “It is a recurring problem and getting worse by the day,” he said. “If they raise rates, postal consolidators will go out of business.”

Showing Support

Scanlon said people can support the postal service by reaching out to Congress and encouraging members to pass postal reform. They can also ask their senators to support legislation addressing the roots of the postal crisis, like protecting service standards to keep post offices open and providing stimulus funding for the USPS. 

Scanlon noted that postal workers are navigating current changes alongside the communities they serve. “Be kind to the postal workers that you see,” she said. “They’re under a lot of stress.” 

Community Members Report on Recent Experiences With the Mail

A friend in Aston took a package to her post office and sent it to me, paying for next-day mail. The package arrived in Swarthmore in one day, then sat in the post office for a second day before being delivered. I mailed a regular letter directly from the Swarthmore post office to State College, and it took a week to arrive there.
-Nancy Scheuer Hill, Swarthmore 

We get our mail between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m., and every other week our Swarthmorean doesn’t arrive.
-Julie Honish-Carman, Wallingford

My Swarthmorean rarely arrives on Friday.
-Mina Hale Varney, Rose Valley

No mail at all yesterday in Rose Valley. As of 5:25 p.m. (now), no mail today either.
-Scott Laughlin, Rose Valley

I get mail every day.
-Mary Walk, Swarthmore

Steady, friendly mail delivery for us, thanks to Billy, our intrepid carrier (and the sorters behind the scenes).
-Beth Soch, Swarthmore

We get mail every day, but our daughter in Point Breeze does not.
-Frances Sheehan, Swarthmore

My ballot for the primary arrived on the Friday before the election — a full 10 days after my wife’s arrived. It took three days longer than usual for CPAP supplies to arrive.
-John Federico, Wallingford

I live in Schwalbach, Germany, a village just outside of Frankfurt, and the delivery time from here to the U.S. has gotten really sketchy.
-Denise Ann Tetzlaff (Boller) Germany (formerly of Swarthmore)