Amid surge in delivery complaints, Wasserman Schultz is turned away from two postal facilities
Broward Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was turned away from two Miami-area postal facilities early Friday as she sought to investigate ongoing issues with timely delivery at the U.S. Postal Service.
In a release, Wasserman Schultz said she was denied entry to the Royal Palm processing facility in Opa-locka and the Miami Processing Facility. She was informed she would have to follow regular visitation protocols in order to tour the sites.
“If [U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy] thinks he can just throw a bed sheet over what’s going on behind these doors, he is sadly mistaken,” Wasserman Schultz said in the release. “Without access to these public facilities, the public is blindfolded to the problems or fixes taking place there. DeJoy cannot delay the mail and delay oversight of these facilities.”
In a statement, the USPS said it was told late Thursday afternoon that Wasserman Schultz wanted to arrange for a tour at 4 a.m. Friday, and that after speaking with staff it would be unable to set up the tour on short notice.
“We would be happy to accommodate her at another time,” it said. “We look forward to working with the Congresswoman and her staff to arrange a visit in the near future.”
A Wasserman Schultz spokesman said USPS learned about the visits by 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
According to federal data obtained by the Miami Herald, South Florida’s U.S. Postal Service district received more complaints related to issues tracking mail or parcels in the first three months of Postmaster General DeJoy’s tenure than it received during the first five months of the entire year.
From June through August, the district received 85,642 tracking-related complaints, compared with 84,250 complaints received from January through May. DeJoy took office June 15.
In a statement, a USPS representative said that service performance improved across all major mail categories in the weeks prior to Postmaster General DeJoy’s testimony before Congress on Aug. 24, and that the trend had continued.
“We continue to identify and address some ongoing service issues in certain areas,” the representative said.
Prior to her attempted visits, Wasserman Schultz told the Miami Herald that while it appeared additional staff had been hired at some South Florida locations to help smooth the flow of mail delivery, there were still issues. She said USPS leadership is still instructing mail trucks to leave facilities even if they are not completely full, which she said affects the service’s mission of “every piece, every day.”
Wasserman Schultz also said she has heard reports that some mail as old as Aug. 22 has still not been delivered.
Jeff Riddell, president of the Broward County Area union representing clerical, motor vehicle and maintenance postal workers, said that according to stewards some of the issues that had been affecting service had been resolved thanks to the arrival of temporary staff.
“Now the mail seems to have been caught up,” Riddell said.
But he said the workers he represents continue to be caught flatfooted by changes DeJoy has instituted, especially ones affecting their ability to communicate across different divisions so that mail is being delivered on time.
“He’s changed the whole [internal] structure of the post office,” he said. “The plant can no longer tell customer service to wait for the rest of the mail.”
Despite the changes, Riddell said he was not concerned about the ability of mail-in ballots to be processed, saying postal workers continue to segregate them to avoid any processing issues.
“I don’t worry about ballots getting to where they’re supposed to go,” he said.
This week, attorneys general in New York and North Carolina separately filed injunctions against the Trump administration to halt any further changes to postal processing.
“We know President Trump’s ultimate goal here is to depress turnout and disenfranchise millions of voters,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in a release. “The president’s actions are the same as those used in dictatorships and authoritarian governments, but we won’t sit idly by as he tries to suppress democracy and every American’s fundamental right to vote. We are filing this motion to stop the president dead in his tracks and to ensure every eligible voter has the opportunity to cast a ballot come November.”
The injunctions are part of a multi-state suit against the White House. Florida is not one of the states participating. Wasserman Schultz signaled it should consider doing so.
“I’d like any measure that can ensure that the culture and policy of every piece, every day is maintained,” she said.
This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 12:50 PM.
