Graeme Jennings/Pool via AP
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy looks on during a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the Postal Service, February 24, 2021, on Capitol Hill.
The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), the union of the men and women who deliver the mail, warned members of Congress last month not to advocate for the removal of members of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, which the congressmembers had proposed as a precursor to removing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. In a March 25 letter obtained by the Prospect, NALC president Fredric Rolando says that members should not engage in “a bitter partisan fight over the Postal Service” at a critical juncture for the agency.
The letter, which has not been previously reported, reveals a tactical split over how to deal with DeJoy, a former donor whom President Trump chose to run the Postal Service last year. Many Democrats within the party base, as well as members of Congress, would like to see DeJoy fired, which can only be done by the Board of Governors. But the resistance from a key postal union to remove any sitting board members makes it hard for the Biden administration to maneuver even if they wanted to, functionally cementing DeJoy in place.
The letter does not explicitly endorse DeJoy, though it contains arguments similar to those that postal leadership advanced about increased service delays. In response to questions from the Prospect, Rolando maintained that “the letter is not an endorsement of any kind.” However, as members of Congress have noted, the board’s Democratic members have openly supported DeJoy. That could mean that even if Congress restores Democratic control on the board by confirming three of Biden’s nominees for open seats, there still wouldn’t be enough votes to oust DeJoy.
Sources inside the union expressed disappointment about their leadership’s actions. “I see the NALC as out of step with the public and progressive allies in Congress,” said one rank-and-file member, who preferred to remain anonymous because of their continued work within the union. “I would say most carriers want DeJoy gone, but there’s no platform for them to express that or organize it.”
The office of Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), one of the lead advocates for firing the board, declined to comment on “private communications with the Letter Carriers.” But the congressman, a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, did respond privately in a letter to the NALC, defending his position and citing court proceedings condemning DeJoy’s actions, among other things. The Prospect has not seen this letter, but a source described its contents.
Connolly concluded his letter by suggesting that House Democrats and the NALC have different roles to play, despite being allies in the fight to restore the Postal Service. But those different roles might lead to an outcome—Louis DeJoy’s continued service as postmaster general—that Connolly and his colleagues do not favor.
THE CONTROVERSY BEGAN MARCH 18, when Reps. Connolly, Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) led 50 House Democrats in a 12-page written request to President Biden to fire all six current members of the Board of Governors. The Democrats cited the deteriorating service standards that have accompanied DeJoy’s operational changes to the agency, conflicts of interest among postal management, and “the gross negligence of the current Board of Governors in fulfilling its statutory responsibilities to run an effective Postal Service.”
Technically speaking, the president can only fire members of the Board of Governors for cause. But the House Democrats were saying there was a cause: the continued degradation of the Postal Service, on whose watch first-class mail on-time delivery dropped precipitously, particularly in the summer and during the holiday season. Congressman Pascrell was the first to ask Biden to fire the entire board, just a week after his inauguration. But to get 50 members—over one-fifth of the entire Democratic caucus—on board with this demand, including centrists like Reps. Jim Cooper (D-TN), Jason Crow (D-CO), and Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ), suggested a party consensus on the matter.
A week later, the NALC privately issued its response to Connolly, Pascrell, and Blumenauer. The four-page letter states firmly that the NALC disagrees with firing any current board members, particularly the two Democrats: Ron Bloom, currently serving as the board chair, and Donald Lee Moak. NALC president Rolando staunchly defends Bloom and Moak as having “deep ties and experience with the American labor movement” and having had “a very positive impact on the board … their contributions should not be dismissed or attacked.”
Bloom was a special assistant to the United Steelworkers for 12 years, and worked closely with unions on manufacturing policy in the Obama White House. Moak was once president of the Air Line Pilots Association union, and served on the executive council of the AFL-CIO. Both Bloom and Moak were recommended to the board by Democrats.
However, as members of Congress indicated in their letter, Bloom testified explicitly to the House Oversight Committee in February that “the board of governors believes the postmaster general in very difficult circumstances is doing a good job.” Two Republicans on the board stated their unequivocal support for DeJoy in February to The Washington Post, with governor Williams Zollars stating, “He has support on both sides of the aisle.” Moak, according to Slate, backed DeJoy last September, when he was under fire from congressional Democrats.
The NALC, by contrast, states that Bloom and Moak “have been extremely active and vocal on the board,” and that they “do their talking behind closed doors, not in public statements.” Asked what that talking is, Rolando told the Prospect that “you would have to ask the people behind the closed doors.” As they only talk behind closed doors, this is a catch-22.
But Bloom’s public statement supported DeJoy, and the board has not taken action to prevent any of DeJoy’s operational changes, which by his own admission created “unintended consequences” that diminished service levels.
Connolly reiterated Bloom’s support for DeJoy in his response to the NALC. The NALC did not refer to Bloom’s endorsement in their letter.
This disconnect between elected officials, who want DeJoy removed, and postal unions, which appear to feel they have to work with the leadership, is clear from the exchange of letters.
The NALC letter seeks to correct the record about the Postal Service being used to slow down election balloting, calling this “speculation and overheated conspiracy theories in the media.” It’s true that 135 million ballots were delivered to or from voters through the mail during the campaign, and 99.7 percent of completed ballots reached county election offices within five days, according to the USPS, with an average of 1.6 days. But election concerns took up only one sentence of the congressional letter that the NALC responded to, and even then it cites Trump’s politicization, not postal officials. Most of the performance concerns articulated in the congressional letter had to do with ongoing operations and reduced on-time delivery of everything but ballots.
To those points, the NALC offers a series of justifications for reduced delivery in the holiday season, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (four times as many postal employees were quarantined in December as there were the previous spring, the NALC contends), the ongoing operational challenges of managing holiday deliveries, increased shipping of gifts rather than in-person exchange, and the subsequent spikes in volume with short staff. This mirrors how postal leadership has been explaining the delays in public communications.
Later in the letter, NALC president Rolando highlights how Postmaster General DeJoy has endorsed “maintaining 6-day service for letters and 7-day service for packages … unlike his three immediate predecessors.” That’s an important priority, as more days of service translate into more hours for NALC members and timely delivery of the mail. But so is underperformance, which occurred not just in the holiday season but in the immediate aftermath of operational changes DeJoy made in July and August (such as the timing of when shipping trucks leave facilities).
“The NALC sees the ‘last mile’ [the letter-carrying part of delivery service] as the future of the Postal Service and everything is self-serving,” said the NALC source. “I’m assuming DeJoy offered the National office something because they are objectively pro-DeJoy in their correspondence to regional and local officers.” Asked for a response, Rolando said, “These unnamed ‘critics’ clearly didn’t understand the letter.”
DeJoy announced another set of operational changes as part of a ten-year reorganization plan in March of this year. The NALC’s statement on the plan cites “many positive elements,” including maintaining six- and seven-day delivery, while adding “obvious concerns with certain operational elements” and a desire to enter into negotiations on the final outcome. This is similar to the statement of the American Postal Workers Union (the other large union of Postal Service employees) on the plan. Congressional Democrats were much more critical, highlighting provisions that would reduce hours at some post offices, close others, extend delivery times for certain types of first-class mail, and increase postage rates.
NALC has not endorsed the DeJoy plan and did not do so in the letter. While APWU has been more vocal about wider-ranging reforms like reinstituting a postal banking system, NALC president Rolando told the Prospect that the union “is open to the concept of eventual expansion of financial services.”
This disconnect between elected officials, who want DeJoy removed, and postal unions, which appear to feel they have to work with the leadership, is clear from the exchange of letters. “Former President Trump irresponsibly created a partisan divide in Washington surrounding Mr. DeJoy and the Postal Service with his relentless attacks on voting by mail,” the NALC’s Rolando writes. “We should avoid unnecessary actions that would only widen that divide.”
This appeal to bipartisanship accompanies a postal reform bill that unions desperately hope will pass this year. House Oversight Committee chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has issued a “discussion draft” that would integrate postal employees into Medicare and end the prefunding requirement for retiree health care, saving the agency billions of dollars. Postal unions have endorsed these changes; Rolando calls it “our top priority right now,” and asserts that a partisan fight would detract from it.
But Maloney, while she didn’t sign the congressional letter, has also said: “Louis DeJoy should not be the Postmaster General.” The NALC stance would appear to cut against that.
Letter from the NALC to members of Congress
