American Postal Workers Union sounds the alarm

The United States Postal Service has been undergoing various changes since its new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, took over the position. Mark Dimondstein, American Postal Workers Union President, joins The Final Round panel to break down the recent developments in the U.S. Postal Services and what issues the union is encountering.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Welcome back to The Final Round. A controversial changes to US Postal Service procedures is raising concerns about delivery time. The new head of the US Postal Service Louis DeJoy rolling out some plans that critics say could severely curtail and delay mailing service time and could ultimately affect the mail-in voting for the November election.

So for more on this, I want to bring in Mark Dimondstein. He's president of the American Postal Workers Union, and Mark, Louis DeJoy obviously has defended the changes that he is implementing, saying that it's going to improve the operational efficiency. But I'm curious to get your perspective just how you think the changes will affect the Postal Service's ability to do its job.

MARK DIMONDSTEIN: Well we think it would-- well, first, thanks so much for having me on. We think it'll be-- will have negative consequences for the service. Postal workers are an extremely dedicated and proud group of employees. You can see that in this pandemic as frontline, essential workers in these difficult and dangerous times out here proudly connecting the people of the country.

And what we're raised with in the Postal Service-- we talk about culture-- is you never leave any mail behind. We treat the mail as if it's our own. And that the public is guaranteed what the law says, which is prompt, reliable, and efficient services. And prompt needs quickly. And then you add to it that we're in a time that people want things sooner rather than later, quicker rather than slower.

So we think any policies that are put into effect, and he's put a number into effect in a short period of time. He's only been there for six weeks. Policies that will slow down the mail and delay mail will drive away revenue, drive away business, and it's just the opposite of what the Postal Service needs.

- Hey, Mark, let me ask you about President Trump. And President Trump is warning that mail-in voting is going to lead to all kinds of fraud, and it's going to be a real problem. So I'm wondering what you and your membership think about President Trump and those particular claims that he is making.

MARK DIMONDSTEIN: Well I can tell you how they feel. Our membership represents the entire political spectrum, so we have people from the right to the left and in between. So we have many different views about the President himself.

On the question of the Postal Service and the question of these charges of fraudulent vote-by-mail, all the history and all the facts say just the opposite. Postal Service postal employees have been doing vote-by-mail, absentee ballot and vote-by-mail are the same thing. We've been doing for generations. All the overseas personnel folks and their families have been voting by mail for decades and decades. Five states vote by law. Many states will vote voluntarily.

In 2018, 31 million people voted by mail. That's somewhere between 25% and 30% of the number of votes. And virtually there has been no fraud. So the charges and the scapegoating postal workers and the public postal service, when it's secure, it's private, it's trusted. 91% of the people in a country trust the Postal Service and have a favorable view, and that's across the political spectrum.

So it just-- I say that those charges of massive fraud are actually fraudulent themselves. The best example is Oregon. The whole state has voted by mail for 19 years, 100 million ballots cast over that time. 15 cases of voter fraud, less than one per year. So it doesn't jive with the facts, and we're very disappointed that this is becoming a politicized issue. Here we are in a pandemic where millions of people are going to rely on the post office for access to the ballot box, for access to their cherished right to vote. We're not in the business of who people are voting for. We're in the business of our civic responsibility to the people in this country, and to challenge something that has worked so well, increases voter participation-- and in the pandemic may be the only way. The people have access to our cherished right to vote. We think is most unfortunate and wrong.

SEANA SMITH: Well, Mark, I wanted to follow up on that just about more so about the public's trust. You mentioned the fact that 90% of the American public trusts the US Postal Service, but how dangerous do you think President Trump's rhetoric is when it comes to the Postal Service's ability to handle those mail-in ballots and the potential that you could lose some of the public's trust as a result of that?

MARK DIMONDSTEIN: Well I'm concerned, because there's obviously any president of the United States has an influence. But again, the facts are that it's trustworthy, it's confidential, it's private, it increases voter participation. I'm sorry about that. It increases voter participation.

So the President of the United States unfortunately has declared war on the Postal Service. He's called it a joke. That's an insult to every postal worker. It's an insult to every postal customer who relies on the Postal Service. He's called for raising package rates four times, which would hurt every consumer in this country, would hurt many retail businesses, e-tailers.

So it's-- we hate to see it. So the message we're trying to get out is look, the confidence in the Post Office that we've had for generations is still there. We don't want to see mail slow down, but even with mail being slowed down, we want the Post Office to fix it quickly. It's still a system in terms of vote-by-mail that people can have great confidence. And the states run the election, not the Postal Service, and the states may have to adapt and make sure ballots get out more ahead of time. And people may have to make sure that they vote a little quicker.

But the fact of the matter is those votes will be delivered. I tell the story-- my mother's last act of voting was from her hospital bed voting by mail. And the President and his family votes by mail. And the postal workers are proud to have moved all of those ballots to their final destination, and did well, and those votes were counted.

SEANA SMITH: Mark, I want to ask you about the financial problems that the Post Office does face, because it was plagued by financial problems long before the COVID-19 pandemic, and we've seen the pandemic exacerbate some of those issues. But how long do you think-- what is the best way for the US Postal Service to deal with these fiscal shortfalls that they are facing year after year after year?

MARK DIMONDSTEIN: Well, that's a very good question. And I think it's important to separate out the COVID impact from some of the historical problems. The historical problems largely go back to a 2006 law that where Congress made the Post Office do something that nobody else has to do, either in the public or private sector, and that's pretty fun retiree health benefits 75 years into the future and do it within 10 years. The Post Office was readily paying that benefit as they went, like other companies do, and it drained huge amounts of money out of the Post Office. And the Post Office couldn't meet that burden. Nobody else could have met that burden.

So most of what people read about this huge bleeding of money is money on paper and a manufactured crisis. If you look at operation, the non-taxpayer entity, postal revenue and postal products pay for the service, the universal service mandate. We go to every address, every day, 160 million addresses. It's amazing. And we do it without taxpayer money in normal times.

So one thing is to fix that prefunding mandate to take some of the pressure. There's changing habits. There are other things we think the Post Office can do to bring in the revenue, use this wonderful national infrastructure to serve the people in new ways. But they need to get rid of that prefunding.

But fast forward to the COVID impact, and your show has been talking about how it's impacting everybody, every business, and everywhere. And the Post Office is no exception. So the pandemic-- the impact of the pandemic, the economic impact, is having a huge impact on the Postal Service. Mail is off about 30%. Again, it has to have enough revenue. Now packages are temporarily up, as people are sheltered in place.

But the Postal Service themselves and the Postal Board of Governors, which is a Republican majority board right now, had unanimous asked Congress for true emergency COVID relief to make up not just for the increased expenses-- and there's plenty of those-- but the projected loss of revenue. The Postal Service believes that over the next 10 years there will be $50 billion in lost revenue just due to COVID, and that's why Congress has now taken up the House, has passed $25 billion dollars appropriated COVID relief. It's now before the Senate. And we think that that's vital to help get the Postal Service through this emergency.

And the CARES Act at the end of March, the private sector was largely taken care of, at least $500 billion. It's about time for Congress to take care of the public sector, and something that belongs to all of us and all the people in this country.

SEANA SMITH: All right, Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. Thanks so much for joining the show. We really appreciate it.

MARK DIMONDSTEIN: Thank you so much for having me.