||| FROM THE WASHINGTON POST |||
But it wasn’t the buck hunt delaying the mail in Bemidji, a tiny town 100 miles south of the Canadian border where welcome signs are written in both 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 local postal workers say they have been ordered to deliver those packages first.
The result has been chaos at the Bemidji post office. Mail is getting backed up, sometimes for days, leaving local residents waiting for checks, credit card statements, health insurance documents and tax rebates. Routes meant to take eight or nine hours are stretching to 10 or 12. At least five carriers have quit, and the post office has banned scheduled sick days for the rest of the year, carriers say.
||| FROM THE WASHINGTON POST |||
Residents of the San Juan Islands accuse Amazon of overwhelming post offices
SAN JUAN COUNTY, Wash. – San Juan County appears caught in the middle of a blame game featuring two shipping giants: UPS and Amazon. Customers from Friday Harbor to Lopez Village are complaining that mail has been severely delayed as local post offices are overwhelmed.
Orcas Island resident, Diedre Conroy, noticed a difference in service over the past year.
“I moved here from the San Fransisco Bay area, a place where you order an Amazon package, and they’d ask you if you want it in 2 hours,” said Conroy. “Things are definitely slower here, but they’ve gotten worse.”
In downtown Seattle, Amazon trucks deliver parcels straight to doorsteps. However, in a remote location like the San Juans, this is not the case. The company relies on USPS and UPS to make the rounds.
Marc Franklin with Aeronautical Services says his company has been contracted by UPS to serve the San Juans since the 1970s. These days, the majority of their freight comes from Amazon. Franklin believes there has been a shakeup. He’s now reviewing 6-thousand fewer packages per week.
“On November 1st it was like somebody just drew a line in the sand and all of a sudden our packages didn’t show up anymore,” said Franklin.
Franklin is pointing the finger at Amazon. He believes the tech giant is cutting corners by routing more packages to the local post office instead of through UPS.
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Is that even legal – the demand from Amazon of any postal service to prioritize their packages? That’s a form of discrimination or maybe, a kind of bribery or who knows. Amazon is to blame for certain. They switched to USPS because it is cheaper than UPS. I don’t know what kind of Public pushback can change that, since it seems people are under the sway of getting 2-3 day drop shipping from all the big box store corporations, not just amazon. I’m as guilty as the rest when I need supplies for my sick cat and need them fast.
Those drop-shipping warehouses underpay and exploit their workers – and the packing is inferior because; how can workers care when they’re so ill treated and abused? Amazon is the worst at this, which is why there are strikes and protests by the workers themselves.
There is so much damage now with packages, when there never used to be. It’s affecting Fed Ex and UPS as well. Something – some concerted effort on a large scale – must happen if we want to save our US postal service. Buy from mom and pop sellers, for starters.