“Instead of looking at [Postmaster General Louis] DeJoy’s plan as the way forward, Congress and the White House should see it as an indication of what’s to come if they don’t take serious steps to get the Postal Service out of the hands of people who want it to fail. We’ve seen what’s at stake. Now we need to see a real plan.”

Now we need to see a real plan – that was the editorial board’s position on the state of the United States Postal Service 18 months ago, in March 2021.

Postal workers picket outside Portland’s Forest Avenue post office Sunday. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and Postal Service leadership have promoted the conversion of the Postal Service into a carrier of an ocean of third-party packages without even beginning to finance it or equip it for that new and punishing mission. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

As you may have noticed, we still need to see a real plan.

The year prior, we made a similar set of observations about the Postal Service, noting that rampant delays in mail delivery during the summer of 2020 could be connected to the Postmaster General DeJoy-initiated prohibition on overtime, the need for which could be connected to the chronic shortage of workers (as true then as now – indeed, more true now), all of which could be connected to “a decades-long push to gut the service by people who want to see it gutted then privatized.”

And here we are in December 2022. The USPS postmaster general is, confoundingly, still DeJoy, a fact that – despite numerous calls for his resignation from various quarters and at least one federal court finding against his decision-making in the months leading up to the 2020 election – doesn’t appear to be changing any time soon.

Other circumstances haven’t changed, either. Mail delays characterized as “extreme” by Mark Seitz, the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 92, which represents about 700 workers in southern Maine, have been plaguing Greater Portland.

The reason for the latest pronounced delays is that the seasonal deluge of packages and parcels is reportedly being prioritized, at USPS managers’ behest, over regular mail. Asked which towns were most affected, Seitz narrowed it down to a list of … nine towns.

Last weekend, USPS workers covering these Maine communities and others protested their working conditions on Forest Avenue in Portland. “They want us to prioritize Amazon packages over the mail. They regularly tell carriers to leave the mail behind and take the packages,” said South Portland carrier Katie Montgomery.

USPS, through a spokesman, insisted that wasn’t the case. The response, however, in pointing to deliveries for “thousands of companies just across New England” and claiming no company was given priority over others, seemed out of touch. About half of all American households now have an Amazon Prime account; the ecommerce playing field is not a particularly even or egalitarian one.

Many of the postal carriers who took part in Sunday’s demonstration told the Press Herald about having to wield doctor’s notes to keep their working weeks from running way, way over. They said there was a baseline expectation, particularly of newer carriers, that as many as six 10- or 11-hour days per week be worked. Others reported longer days again.

Through no fault at all of its embattled workers, the service is in tatters.

DeJoy and Postal Service leadership have promoted the conversion of the Postal Service into a carrier of an ocean of third-party packages without even beginning to finance it or equip it for that new and punishing mission. They have sidelined all of the customers still reliant on letters in the process. The plan, insofar as it ever existed, seems to be to let day-to-day operations atrophy.

The current board of governors supports DeJoy, meaning he’s likely to be at the helm for at least another year. A lot can happen in a year. Or … nothing can happen at all.