I worked for awhile for the USPS(it was many years ago, however, while a student), and I know what is being described by this letter carrier is wrong. IF the mail he is talking about is first class. I have spoken to several letter carriers in my own town, and they are not seeing their overtime curtailed. Bottom line here is that regulations do not allow first class mail to be left behind...
Since taking office in June, DeJoy has executed sweeping changes at the struggling USPS, leading to delays in mail delivery – and fears mail-in ballots won’t arrive on time
www.theguardian.com
“About a month ago, a United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier named Mark arrived at his post office in central Pennsylvania and got some shocking news from his station manager. Mark and his coworkers were told they would have to depart the office for deliveries a few hours earlier each day, even if that meant leaving behind much of the day’s mail.
In the weeks that followed, higher-ups at the station instructed carriers to abandon hundreds of pieces of mail in order to depart a mere 10 or 20 minutes earlier. As the days went on, the excess mail started to pile up, and now Mark estimates there are thousands of undelivered letters and packages sitting in his station.
“The supervisors are cracking the whip, making sure we leave,” Mark told the Guardian. “Meanwhile carriers are walking by and saying, ‘Look at all this ****ing mail we’re walking past, it’s just sitting there.’”
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The operative words here are “detains” and “delays”. I’ll have to check, but it’s possible Postal management may say since the orders originated with upper management, the orders to leave mail on the floor are neither “unlawful”, nor “improper”:
www.law.cornell.edu