On the day Post Master General Louis DeJoy had a Senate hearing about his controversial policies in the USPS, Sen. Ron Wyden brought his statewide Post Office tour to downtown Eugene.<\/p>\n
Joined by Sen. Jeff Merkley, Rep. Peter DeFazio and statewide elected officials and community members, the event stressed the importance of restoring the U.S. Postal Service to protect Americans who rely on prescriptions for their health and vote-by-mail for their civic duty.<\/p>\n
After the event, Wyden says if Democrats take over Congress and the White House, they would work to curb ongoing attempts to privatize public services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no \u2018masking\u2019 the message from Oregon: We know Donald Trump wants to squash vote by mail because he\u2019s afraid of democracy,\u201d Wyden said at the event. \u201cAnd we won\u2019t let him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wyden criticized DeJoy and his statements to the Senate. DeJoy told the Senate<\/a> that he is not trying to affect how people vote in the election, according to a roundup of the hearing by The Washington Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe facts behind those words are simple: Donald Trump has proved he is not going to stop scheming to advance his personal private interest by plotting to weaken the Postal Service,” Wyden said.<\/p>\n Wearing a USPS facemask, DeFazio referred to DeJoy as the \u201cso-called\u201d Post Master General and that DeJoy is lying about the health of the agency and is making the office slow down.<\/p>\n Although a Bush administration era Republican-controlled Congress passed a bill that requires the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, the Post Office has made money or broke even in the last five years before COVID-19, DeFazio said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bunch of BS that they\u2019re inefficient and losing money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n DeFazio added that he had bipartisan support for a bill that would have revised the Bush administration mandate, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has ignored it.<\/p>\n He said that the Postal Service installed the sorting machine as a way to avoid labor costs, but DeJoy has removed those machines without replacing it by hiring more employees. As a result, the mail is piling up, he added.<\/p>\n Some Post Offices have had instances where animals \u2014 particularly baby chicks \u2014 shipped through the mail have died during sorting, according to a report by the New York Times<\/em><\/a>, but the health of some Americans are in jeopardy, too. DeFazio read letters sent to him about how late mail has impacted their prescriptions.<\/p>\n One letter writer provides home care to a veteran, whose prescriptions are sent from the Roseburg VA. The home care worker said they had to ration the veteran\u2019s most important medication from two pills to one pill a day.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are going to kill people,\u201d DeFazio said in reaction to reading the letter.<\/p>\n According to the National Association of Letter Carriers, the Postal Service handles 1.2 billion prescription drug shipments a year.<\/p>\n The press conference also included remarks from state Sen. James Manning, Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries Commissioner Val Hoyle, Eugene\/Springfield NAACP Executive Director Eric Richardson, community member Isis Barone, a local union rep of the American Postal Workers Union, a pediatrician and former postmaster.<\/p>\n