More than a dozen people gathered at a U.S. Post Office in Jersey City on Saturday, rallying in support of the U.S. Postal Service and calling for the ouster of President Donald Trump and the postmaster general he appointed.
Outside the Central Avenue post office Saturday morning, about 15 people voiced their support for the postal service, as it faces threats of defunding by Trump’s administration. The U.S. Postal Service has become a focal point of a national debate as the possibility of a largely vote-by-mail presidential election looms.
The ralliers, including Jersey City resident Arlene Stein, claim the difficulties faced by the postal service are a clear sign of deliberate tampering by Trump by way of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who Trump appointed to the post in May.
“We’re very distraught by the fact that Trump appears to want to defund the post office,” Stein said. “We’re very suspicious of his obvious political motives in doing so. He wants to sow distrust in the post office. He wants to be sure it can’t fulfill its functions. And he wants to prevent people from voting in the upcoming presidential election.”
The rally was one of more than two dozen rallies scheduled for Friday and Saturday across the Garden State and the country at large. Rallies in towns like Morristown and Fair Lawn were scheduled, hoping to draw support from residents.
At the Saturday rally in Jersey City, the group was relatively small but loud and vocal. In unison, the group chanted “DeJoy resign, hands off, my vote is mine” and “Roll back DeJoy, restore the machines.” They carried signs that read “Save the USPS, fire DeJoy” and “Don’t mess with my mail.” When two postal service mail carriers passed by, the crowd cheered them, with one of the mail carriers flashing the “hang ten” sign in appreciation.
A rally to save post offices was held outside the Jersey City Heights post office on Saturday, Aug. 22.Michael Mancuso | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
One rallier, Hector Oseguera, of Union City, spoke strongly of how the U.S. Postal Service is a part of the Constitution, a basic right that the country’s forefathers solidified.
“I don’t think many of us thought that in the long life of this democracy that we would be fighting for something as basic as the post office,” said Oseguera, who is a candidate for the state’s 8th Congressional district. “When the post office was created, it was created so we would unify the entire nation.”
“Thats what the post office has been for over 200 years,” added Oseguera. “It’s one of the only agencies that’s enshrined in our constitution. That is how basic it is to our democracy.”
Mail delivery delays
In recent weeks, New Jersey residents have complained of significant delivery delays, saying they’ve missed deadlines for checks and job applications and have not seen postal workers walk their usual routes. The delays have even prompted politicians to seek answers from newly appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
Union officials representing postal workers in New Jersey themselves acknowledged they are seeing mail delivery delays and changes to operations that they believe are intended to hamstring the agency.
Union officials across New Jersey confirmed the delays and said equipment has been taken out of at least one region’s processing and distribution center, supposedly because of a reduction in demand. The postal service has also had to deal with reductions in overtime, short-staffing at post offices and changes to past practice for how mail is distributed.
Recent reports show that DeJoy implemented operational changes, including keeping mail at distribution centers if it would stop postal workers from going on their routes. DeJoy has since halted some changes until after the election.
Stein believes that DeJoy’s history as a political fundraiser for the Republican Party and past financial investments show clearly that he was making changes to hamper the upcoming election. DeJoy had a multimillion-dollar stake in a U.S. Postal Service general contractor, CNN reported.
“Since DeJoy has taken office he has implemented budget cuts,” Stein said. “He has taken out post office boxes. He has taken out six hundred sorting machines from across the country so they can’t adequately do their jobs.”
The changes implemented by DeJoy are what Stein and other critics see as a concerted effort by Trump to stop mail-in-ballots in the presidential election. In an interview earlier this month, Trump himself acknowledged that he’s withholding funding for the postal service to make it harder to process mail-in ballots, which he worries could cost him re-election.
The U.S. Postal Service has already told New Jersey it can’t guarantee all mail-in ballots will be delivered in time to be counted in November, according to a letter obtained by NJ Advance Media.
Last week, Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. asked Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal to investigate whether Trump and DeJoy were trying to subvert the general election. This week, Grewal announced New Jersey would be suing the U.S. Postal Service over concerns Trump’s administration was purposely trying to hobble the agency.
Shortly afterward, Trump’s re-election campaign sued New Jersey to overturn the state’s plan to send ballots to all its registered voters this fall. In Wednesday’s press briefing in Trenton, Gov. Phil Murphy responded defiantly, challenging Trump’s campaign.
To Stein and the other ralliers, it was crucial that New Jersey residents get out and vote and continue to support the U.S. Postal Service as it is barraged by what they see as a focused strike.
“We want to raise people’s consciousness,” she said. “We want to call for the ouster of DeJoy. We need a postmaster general who’s actually going to protect the post office, not destroy it. We want to encourage people to register to vote and to vote Trump out of office.”
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.
Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com.
"gather" - Google News
August 23, 2020 at 01:56AM
https://ift.tt/2EuYcx6
Ralliers gather to support U.S. Postal Service, call for Postmaster General’s ouster in Jersey City - NJ.com
"gather" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Sqdbwp
https://ift.tt/2Yjhqxs
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Ralliers gather to support U.S. Postal Service, call for Postmaster General’s ouster in Jersey City - NJ.com"
Post a Comment