However it wasn’t the buck hunt delaying the mail in Bemidji, a tiny city 100 miles south of the Canadian border the place welcome indicators are written in each English and Ojibwe and statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox tower in downtown. Since early November, Bemidji has been bombarded by a sudden onslaught of Amazon packages — and native postal staff say they’ve been ordered to ship these packages first.
The consequence has been chaos on the Bemidji put up workplace. Mail is getting backed up, typically for days, leaving native residents ready for checks, bank card statements, medical insurance paperwork and tax rebates. Routes meant to take eight or 9 hours are stretching to 10 or 12. At the very least 5 carriers have give up, and the put up workplace has banned scheduled sick days for the remainder of the yr, carriers say.
“If we maintain getting this quantity, plus Christmas coming, we received’t survive,” one Bemidji put up workplace worker stated, talking on the situation of anonymity to guard her job. “We aren’t geared up for this.”
Mail carriers have “expressed a variety of concern concerning the quantity of labor,” Mayor Jorge Prince stated after ending his personal breakfast at Raphael’s, a bustling diner lined with classic cookie jars. However the Bemidji Metropolis Council has no jurisdiction over the U.S. Postal Service, and the identical goes for the native fireplace marshal, who was known as in final Monday as a result of the Amazon packages had been stacked precariously excessive.
Dennis Nelson, a veteran mail service, stated he acquired so pissed off watching a number of co-workers “breaking down and crying” that he staged a symbolic strike earlier this month exterior the put up workplace the place he has labored for greater than 20 years.
“I’ve to do one thing,” Nelson stated. “It appears like we needs to be sporting shirts that say ‘USPS: Delivered to you by Amazon.com.’”
Bemidji isn’t the one place the place postal staff say they’ve been overwhelmed by packages from Amazon, the ever present e-commerce big. Carriers and native officers say mail service has been disrupted in rural communities from Portland, Maine, to Washington state’s San Juan Islands.
The scenario stems from a disaster on the Postal Service, which has misplaced $6.5 billion previously yr. The put up workplace has had a contract with Amazon since 2013, when it began delivering packages on Sundays. However lately, that enterprise has exploded as Amazon has more and more come to depend on postal carriers to make “last-mile” deliveries in harder-to-reach rural places.
The Postal Service considers the contract proprietary and has declined to reveal its phrases. However U.S. Postmaster Normal Louis DeJoy has stated publicly that “growing package deal quantity” — not simply from Amazon, however from FedEx and UPS as nicely — is vital to the mail service’s monetary future. In a Nov. 14 speech to the Postal Service Board of Governors, DeJoy stated he needs the put up workplace to develop into the “most well-liked supply supplier within the nation.” And lately, the company has reconfigured its nationwide community of mail-sorting vegetation, bought an armada of eco-friendly supply vans and pressed a advertising marketing campaign in service of that objective.
In larger cities, Amazon has its personal distribution community, which takes among the strain off the put up workplace. However in rural areas, the place carriers drive miles of lonely routes of their private autos, the association has triggered issues.
Within the mountains of Colorado, biologists in Crested Butte are fighting the delay of time-sensitive samples, the Denver Put up reported in September, whereas mail carriers in Carbondale say they’re overwhelmed by Amazon packages. Different Minnesota cities together with Brainerd and La Porte have been hit exhausting by Amazon previously, carriers stated. And in Maine, carriers organized a symbolic strike in protest of the Amazon onslaught a yr in the past — although a postal audit discovered that the delays had been attributable to staffing points, not prioritizing packages.
In Bemidji, the mayor has complained to native members of Congress, who say their capacity to regulate the put up workplace is proscribed. Final week, Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) despatched a letter to DeJoy to ask about studies that “Amazon is interfering with well timed deliveries and stretching the company’s already-overburdened staff too skinny.”
“As Postmaster Normal, you might be chargeable for guaranteeing that the Postal Service meets its service requirements, and it’s clear proper now that issues aren’t working as they need to,” stated the letter, a replica of which was shared with The Washington Put up. “Coming into into contracts that your system can not help is a breach of your duties.”
Angela Bye, the Postal Service district supervisor for North Dakota and Minnesota, declined to remark. Postal Service spokesperson David Partenheimer stated the company is unaware of any vital supply points in Bemidji. “Like every prudent enterprise, we don’t publicly talk about specifics of our enterprise relationships,” he stated.
Partenheimer defended the put up workplace’s file in an electronic mail, whereas conceding “a lot work stays to be performed.” He added that the put up workplace’s goal is “to ship mail and packages collectively in an built-in community.”
“The Postal Service is in its third yr of the Delivering for America plan,” he stated. “The group continues its give attention to bettering service reliability … by modernizing the outmoded and growing old postal community throughout the nation, operational stabilization, and new aggressive product choices for our clients.”
Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson stated the corporate shares weekly forecasting information with the Postal Service, which “approves our forecasts.”
“We work instantly with the USPS to stability our supply wants with their accessible capability,” Stephenson stated. “We acknowledge that, like us, different main retailers, small companies, and the communities they serve depend on the native USPS to ship, which is why we’ll proceed to collaborate on package deal quantity every week and alter as wanted.”
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Put up. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.
‘No method of maintaining’
In Bemidji, postal staff stated they’d been informed that Amazon was coming to city for years. It lastly occurred one morning in early November, when the put up workplace was flooded with hundreds of Amazon bins and carriers stated they had been informed all of them needed to be delivered by the tip of the day.
Carriers who beforehand had delivered dozens of small parcels a day plus paper mail instantly needed to ship between 300 and 500 bins that they stated had beforehand been dealt with by UPS. One mail service stated his mail truck was so filled with packages he may barely see out the left window. Some bins had been so large they couldn’t match into mail autos. These had been saved on-site for buyer pickup in an space that quickly was overflowing.
For all the additional work, mail carriers weren’t making rather more cash. Rural mail carriers are paid just for the period of time the put up workplace estimates it would take them to complete their jobs. And in Bemidji, the routes had been reevaluated in October, simply earlier than Amazon modified every thing.
Consequently, “we’re making a gift of tons of free labor,” stated Nelson, the service who staged the symbolic strike on Nov. 13. Although mail carriers aren’t legally allowed to strike — their union signed away that proper greater than 100 years in the past — others joined him within the pre-dawn chill, carrying indicators with slogans resembling “USPS belongs to the folks, not Amazon.”
Mail carriers take their jobs significantly — they take an oath of workplace upon assuming their roles — and really feel badly when the mail doesn’t get to folks, stated three Bemidji postal staff who spoke on the situation of anonymity to guard their jobs.
“It’s exhausting to like a job if you watch everybody depend on you and you may’t assist them,” one stated.
‘Non-public enterprise takes precedence’
Mel Milender, treasurer of the Eckles Township Rural Fireplace Affiliation, stated the chaos on the put up workplace has been “extraordinarily impactful.” After native governments assured him $400,000 in checks had been within the mail to assist cowl the latest buy of $1.3 million in fireplace tools, Milender stated, the checks had been nowhere to be discovered.
“We didn’t get mail for 3 days,” Milender stated. “And we needed to pay payments.”
When Milender known as the put up workplace, he stated, “They informed me that they needed to take this contract with Amazon, and that individuals had been quitting, and so they didn’t have folks to ship the mail and they might get to me after they may.”
Others residents stated they’ve been ready on payments, playing cards from their grandchildren and insurance coverage funds. Although Chris Katko and his spouse dwell simply six blocks from the Bemidji put up workplace, they, too, skilled delays, together with on time-sensitive hospital payments, Katko stated.
When the proprietors of Patterson’s, an area haberdashery, noticed their mail service, Jay, laden with Amazon packages, they stated they apprehensive about him — but additionally concerning the checks they had been mailing to distributors. A neighborhood bookkeeper began driving 20 miles into city to go to the put up workplace, her husband stated, as a result of “the mail can’t be trusted.”
Mark Fuller, an area engineer, stated he worries about getting funds from purchasers on time. “If we’re ready on, , [$50,000 or $80,000] or $100,000 and we’re paying 9.75 % curiosity on the road of credit score, that may be fairly impactful over time,” stated Fuller, who prefers checks to digital funds to keep away from excessive charges.
Milender is aware of the native carriers are working exhausting, he stated, however he thinks the put up workplace may have performed issues in another way.
“I can’t consider a non-public enterprise takes precedence over the general public,” he stated. “What bothers me most is that we had no forewarning. The U.S. Postal Service knew that they accepted that contract and will have made certain that they made everyone conscious of it.”
At Raphael’s, it’s clear folks need the issue mounted. A gaggle of retired schoolteachers who meet there twice per week had been discussing the way it’s now quicker to order their e-book membership picks from Amazon than from the native bookstore. The mail, they stated, is now so sluggish they name it “the Pony Specific.”
“There are occasions once we don’t even get the mail,” stated Judy Phillips, a retired English trainer, as a result of “they must ship the Amazon.”
Listening to their dialog, an older gentleman who declined to provide his identify stopped by their desk to share his personal sense of concern.
Amazon “packages take precedence over first-class mail,” the person stated, including: “That’s not proper.”
