A deadly delivery highlights 'falsified' heat records at USPS

[justaprogressive]

Eugene Gates’ body temperature was as hot as the Texas heat wave, more than 104 degrees Fahrenheit, when he collapsed in a Dallas front yard while delivering mail.

Gates, 66, had carried his iconic U.S. Mail bag through the same wealthy neighborhood for much of his 35-year career, until he died of heat stroke on a stifling day in June. A homeowner who rushed to perform CPR could not revive him.

Gates’ death is part of a storm of allegations that the U.S. Postal Service ignored its own heat safety programs and manipulated official records to hide those actions ahead of an unrelenting summer of extreme heat that killed scores of people across the U.S.

Under its own policy, the agency is required to train letter carriers each spring to recognize the symptoms of heat illness and what to do if they feel sick.

But Gates didn’t receive training, and his managers “falsified” official records before his death to hide it, according to his widow, Carla, and leaders of the National Association of Letter Carriers union who are involved in the grievance. And he’s not the only one.

The mounting accusations by thousands of mail carriers come as the debt-plagued USPS is pushing workers to make faster deliveries amid growing competition and as temperatures catapult to heights never before recorded in human history. Its policies have already drawn scrutiny from some members of Congress for requiring carriers to work during hot periods of the day, raising questions about the Postal Service’s ability to protect its workers from climate change.

[link:https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/11/usps-major-heat-deaths-00128875|

[Lonestarblue]

1. Why is Louis DeJoy still head of USPS?

I will keep asking this question until he is gone. Do we demand that the US military deliver a profit? Or the Department of Commerce or any other government agency? Why do we demand it of the USPS?

[PatSeg]

5. The first name that pops in mind

whenever I hear anything negative about the USPS. I can't believe we can't get rid of him.

[progressoid]

7. Louis DeJoy: From Trump villain to Biden's clean energy buddy

During the summer of 2020, there were few bigger Democratic super villains than Louis DeJoy.

The postmaster general was accused of masterminding an attempt to steal the election for former President Donald Trump by subverting mail-in voting in the midst of the pandemic. He was hauled up to Capitol Hill to defend his policies. When Joe Biden won, it was generally assumed that his days were numbered.

Now, nearly three years later, DeJoy isn’t just still standing atop the U.S. Postal Service, he’s become a critical player in Biden’s environmental agenda, striking a partnership with the president’s green guru, John Podesta, as USPS considers an environmental renaissance of its fleet.

It’s a remarkable change of script for one of the more memorable side characters of the Trump years. And it produced one of the most unlikely pairings in Washington D.C., something that the camps will privately acknowledge even as they’re loath to discuss it personally. Asked repeatedly about their good-natured relationship, both DeJoy and Podesta declined to comment.

...https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/13/how-louis-dejoy-went-from-democratic-nightmare-fuel-to-biden-clean-energy-player-00110945

[odins folly]

8. The REAL deep state

This, this is what the real deep state looks like. A loyal soldier of the previous administration still in place to help usher the return….

[Captain Zero]

11. DeJoy STILL in place to fuck up mail-in voting next year

He will take orders from O'Bannon or a gqp PAC.
Why do we leave him there?

[brooklynite]

14. No evidence that mail-in ballots were disrupted in 2020.

[lostnfound]

19. Sometimes "perception is reality"

If people don’t think they can trust the mail because of DeJoy, then it’s a problem.

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/11/20/the-voting-experience-in-2020/

For 16% of these voters, issues with submitting absentee or mail ballots made voting difficult. While some pointed to confusion about rules and requirements surrounding vote by mail, others mentioned delays in receiving or tracking their mail ballots in time. A 26-year-old man said, “I requested a mail in ballot, didn’t receive it, contacted my county and they said to wait 10 more business days. I contacted them again, then they finally sent a new one to me the week before the election. I made the choice to drop it off rather than mail it in because it was so close to Election Day.”
…
About half of in-person voters, (53% among in-person early voters, 52% among in-person Election Day voters) say that a major reason for voting in person was their concerns about voting by mail.
…
About half of absentee or mail-in ballot voters (52%) say they tracked their ballot’s status through a website or app: Nearly six-in-ten Biden voters (58%) say they did this, compared with 40% of Trump voters

One of our family member’s ballots never made it, and a close friend had to request a mail-in ballot multiple times from her home in Florida.

[brooklynite]

20. 99% percent of voters had no idea who DeJoy was....

The political activists who imagined his machinations were the ones who would adjust their voting plans accordingly.

[summer_in_TX]

32. Sure there's evidence.

News reports showed the number of mail dropboxes were taken out of service. In the county seat in my county news stories showed some who had tried to use their regular mail dropbox only to find the drop slot damaged and unusable.

The USPS removed hundreds of mail sorting machines from post offices across the country during the election, cutting the hours of post office employees as the volume of mail swelled do to the highest volume of mail in ballots ever due to the pandemic. Some letter carriers discarded mail, other mail piled up around the post office.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/25/usps-dejoy-election-settlement/
{Sorry. Couldn't figure out to get an archived URL that wouldn't be behind a paywall.)

[LisaM]

33. My ballot (2023) did not get postmarked in time.

I mailed it from a post office the day before the election. It should have been postmarked that day. It wasn't, and it wasn't postmarked the next day, either. It didn't get counted.

This happens to be one of the rural post offices that is suddenly flooded with Amazon packages and they don't have the staff to deal with it. I don't exactly understand why it wasn't postmarked in time, but luckily it was an election where everything and everyone I voted for passed handily.

[dalton99a]

15. +1. What is he doing about the mail theft epidemic?

https://democraticunderground.com/100218513859

[2naSalit]

2. In rural America...

We rely, heavily, on the USPS and to see that asshole try to kill it really pisses me off. It would be like taking away phone service beyond the town limits to be without the USPS.

I am concerned that he's like a sleeper cell who will activate in concert with the next coup attempt.

[CrispyQ]

17. I live in a metro area & we're starting to see more & more FedEx/UPS deliveries in our mail box.

To date, they've been Amazon purchases. Amazon ships to the local Post Office & the PO delivers to our mailbox. The mailing label has two shipping addresses, the top one the PO address, & the bottom one is mine.

[hay rick]

29. FedEx and UPS can not deliver to a mailbox.

USPS delivers many small packages for Amazon. They are delivered in bulk to the local post office (hence, the post office address- they are scanned for tracking at the post office). They are then sorted to the carrier routes and scanned as delivered when they are placed in your mail box. If you see a Fed Ex or UPS driver putting a package in your mail box you can report that to your local post office.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Not much better at UPS

Warehouses around 110 degrees, no A/C and fans prohibited. No A/C in the brown trucks too.

[SunSeeker]

23. The new contract at UPS requires new vans have AC and existing vans have 2 fans.

The tentative agreement would require in-cab air conditioning in most UPS delivery vehicles purchased after Jan. 1, 2024, the Teamsters said in the announcement. Two fans would also be installed in package cars, which the union said make up most of the company’s 93,000-vehicle fleet.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/ups-drivers-track-get-air-conditioned-trucks-first-time-ever-rcna88460

[Ford_Prefect]

4. The grift that keeps on grifting: Louis Dejoy.

Don't you wonder just how it is he's not in jail yet?
Connected and Protected he is.

[Captain Zero]

12. Remember how he was removing NEW sorting machinery DURING 2020 campaigns?

So we are just leaving him there to do something like that again?

AND NOW he has let mandatory training fall away causing a heat stroke death?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Letter Carriers Union has given up calling the White House by this point...

[MichMan]

6. How could someone who was a letter carrier for 35 yrs never have received training on heat illnesses?

Under its own policy, the agency is required to train letter carriers each spring to recognize the symptoms of heat illness and what to do if they feel sick.

Did the policy just take effect this year, or have records been falsified for decades?

[EYESORE 9001]

9. I'm sure it was all his fault

[MichMan]

10. The OP did not specify how long the training had not been given to Mr. Gates.

Just this year, or going back much further ?

If annual training wasn't done for decades, the problem occurred long before DeJoy took office.

[Wonder Why]

18. That's a legitimate question.

[IronLionZion]

13. Or the managers threaten them with firing and losing their pensions

some workplaces be hostile like that. They don't care about their own policies or their workers.

[MichMan]

22. Why would the APWU permit that kind of treatment to their members?

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

24. Maybe because APWU doesn't represent them?

APWU is for the employees processing mail and manning the windows at post offices.

Carriers have their own union, the National Association of Letter Carriers.

[MichMan]

25. Ok, same question then. Why would the NALC permit management abuse like that?

[jaxexpat]

16. My experience is the owners and mangers dislike safety employee training.

Firstly because the cost of training comes out of the profits and secondly because when workers get informed of how to react to unsafe conditions they sometimes demand better conditions. Heat stress safety usually means moving more slowly and resting in the shade more often. Not a prescription for improved production and efficiency.

[eggplant]

21. "the debt-plagued USPS"

https://apwu.org/usps-fairness-act

For over a decade, the United States Postal Service has been plagued with the onerous burden of prefunding its retiree health care benefits as mandated by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) of 2006. The mandate requires the Postal Service to prefund its retiree health care benefits 75 years in advance, paying for retirement health care for individuals who haven’t been born yet, let alone enter the workforce.

[SouthernDem4ever]

26. It's criminal against capitalism to take care of retirees

[bagimin]

27. Its almost as if some people are trying

to make the PO fail....hey wait a minute!

[MichMan]

28. If I was a postal worker, I think I would be thrilled to know my retirement was already 100 % funded.

Compared to those who retire and find out the money they were promised isn't there.....

In most cases like that, retirees only get a fraction of their pensions through the PBGC.

[eggplant]

30. I think you're missing the point.

If it weren't for this Republican effort to kill the USPS, it would be completely solvent. Even if it continued to fund pensions.

[MichMan]

31. The bill passed both the House and Senate unanimously

[Joinfortmill]

34. What the holy fuck? Heads need to roll. Now.