The World Socialist Web Site spoke recently with a United States Postal Service (USPS) letter carrier about the effects of the consolidation of a former facility into a new Sorting and Delivery Center (S&DC). The consolidation of offices into larger S&DCs has accelerated under the Delivering for America (DFA) initiative, now in its fourth year, which is aimed at consolidating operations into large Amazon-style automated facilities, wiping out tens of thousands of jobs.
According to the Save the Post Office website, as of last year, more than 3,300 postal delivery routes from 200 spoke offices had been consolidated into 60 S&DCs, a process which appears to be accelerating.
WSWS: What kinds of changes were introduced with Deliver for America?
LC: Now a new machine has been added, the SDUS, which increases the speed but has lowered the efficiency. Packages not only are more likely to end up in the wrong gurney, but they also sort big [within weight and dimension limits of the machine] and small packages together.