US Senator Gary Peters publishes report on postal service changes, postal delays

Senator Gary Peters released a report this week on changes to the United States Postal Service (USPS), which also addressed postal delays.

It is the sixth report since Peters started an investigation in August. It looks through the holidays and the new year.

Peters, who is the leading member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is urging USPS and postal worker Louis DeJoy to answer whether the changes made over the summer will be brought back in the new year. Those changes caused timely deliveries to plummet. In Detroit, less than two-thirds of shipments reached their destination as promised.

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The report also outlines the new changes for 2021, saying the USPS leadership is “considering a broad overhaul of the postal service’s operations and potentially significant cuts in the services it provides.” That includes permanently lowering service standards, increasing package rates, and ‘aggressive working hour cuts’.

The report comes because the mail nearly fallen behind in vacation packages during the pandemic. According to data from ShipMatrix, more than 6 million packages were left in shipping warehouses with days before Christmas.

A USPS spokesman declined an interview but said in an interview, “We are using our available resources to match the workload created by the fallout from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. We value the patience of our customers and the efforts of our employees as conditions change daily. “

The changes outlined in Peters’s report are not yet final. USPS leaders said they plan to work out their 2021 plans in the coming weeks.