SEN. GARY PETERS: So, you will not bring back any processors?
POSTMASTER GENERAL LOUIS DEJOY: They're not needed, sir.
AMY GOODMAN: While Postmaster DeJoy is refusing to reconnect the sorting machines, postal workers in Dallas, Texas, and Tacoma, Washington, have defied orders and reconnected the machines.
This all comes as more questions are being raised over the role of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the post office shake-up. The New York Times reports Mnuchin met with two Republican members of the Postal Service's Board of Governors in early February and pressed them to select a postmaster general to push Trump's agenda.
We're joined now by Philip Rubio, history professor at North Carolina A&T State University, author of Undelivered: From the Great Postal Strike of 1970 to the Manufactured Crisis of the U.S. Postal Service. Prior to becoming a history professor, Rubio carried mail for the Postal Service for 20 years.
It's great to have you with us, Professor Rubio.
PHILIP RUBIO: Thank you for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about the latest developments, the Senate hearing on Friday, the bill that was passed, and what's expected to happen today with the House hearing? This isn't just Democrats accusing the White House and the post office of making it difficult or delaying the mail so that mail ballots won't get in on time. That was clearly stated by the post office itself, saying that they did not think they would be able to handle all this mail, though DeJoy told a very different story when he testified before the Senate Friday.
PHILIP RUBIO: That's correct. And this postmaster general really does have a credibility problem. He came into office just two months ago with claims that he was going to run it like a business and correct past inefficiencies, and he was going to, first of all, clean house, replacing 23 senior management positions and cutting overtime, banning late leaving from mail processing plants and also from stations so, slowing the mail down, in effect and, added to that, pulling up thousands of blue mail collection boxes and decommissioning these mail sorting machines, and then denying that, and then admitting that but saying it's not had that much of an effect.
But the damage has been done. I think he's demoralized postal workers. I think he has discouraged a lot of voters who are hoping to vote by mail, to vote safely and securely because of the pandemic. And he has also made, I think, people, as postal consumers, discouraged by promising that he will resume decommissioning these machines and these other policies of his after the election.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you seen anything like this before? For example, the post office in Tacoma, Washington, in Dallas, Texas, reconnecting letter sorting machines that were disconnected under orders from the postmaster general?
PHILIP RUBIO: Well, I can't think of anything like that. But we have to remember, on the one hand, these are isolated incidents, but, on the other hand, they are revealing of what postal workers have always done in the past taken measures into their own hands and it's a promise of what might happen in the future. That is, postal workers because we have to remember, postal workers are really the heart of what I would call the service culture that's still alive in the post office OK? as opposed to the business culture of just trying to cut costs. And so, to actually take a risk at being fired for insubordination, you know, to plugging those machines back in, we might see that takes a great effort, and we might see something like postal workers defying bans on overtime to make sure that ballots get through.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to David C. Williams, the former Postal Service inspector general, former vice chair of the Postal Board of Governors. In his opening remarks to the House Progressive Caucus last week, Williams criticized Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
DAVID WILLIAMS: I recently resigned as the vice chairman of the Postal Board of Governors, when it became clear to me that the administration was politicizing the Postal Service, with the treasury secretary as the lead figure for the White House in that effort. By statute, the Treasury was made responsible for providing the Postal Service with a line of credit. The Treasury was using that responsibility to make demands that I believe would turn the Postal Service into a political tool, ending its long history as an apolitical public infrastructure.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you respond to that, Professor Philip Rubio?
PHILIP RUBIO: Well, David C. Williams was the watchdog, and he was one of two watchdogs, the other being Ronald Stroman, who also well, he resigned under pressure. So, they were looking out for the Postal Service, and they both resigned because they saw it being politicized.
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