“We are not to mention the word ‘Amazon’ to anyone,” said a mail carrier who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their job.
“If asked, they’re to be referred to as ‘Delivery Partners’ or ‘Distributors,’” said a second carrier. “It’s ridiculous.”
The directive, passed down Monday morning from U.S. Postal Service management, comes three weeks after mail carriers in the northern Minnesota town staged a symbolic strike outside the post office, protesting the heavy workloads and long hours caused by the sudden arrival of thousands of Amazon packages.
In addition to being banned from saying “Amazon,” postal workers have also been told their jobs could be at risk if they speak publicly about post office issues. Staffers were told they can attend the meeting only on their 30-minute lunch break if they change out of uniform, mail carriers said.
Postal customers in Bemidji have been complaining about late and missing mail since the beginning of November, when the contract for delivering Amazon packages in town switched from UPS to the post office. Mail carriers told The Washington Post last month that they were instructed to deliver packages before the mail, leaving residents waiting for tax rebates, credit card statements, medical documents and checks.
Many of those residents complained to elected officials, including Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who wrote a letter to the postmaster general inquiring about reports that “Amazon is interfering with timely deliveries and stretching the agency’s already-overburdened workers too thin.” On Tuesday, staffers from Smith’s office as well as the office of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) will host a “listening session” with Bemidji residents to “discuss ongoing postal issues related to package and mail delivery,” according to an invitation distributed by Bemidji Mayor Jorge Prince.
Meanwhile, Prince said, City Council members agreed at a Monday meeting to draft “a resolution in support of timely mail service for our community.”
As the holiday shopping season gets underway, the packages in Bemidji continue to pile up — at one point they were stacked so high someone called the fire marshal. Mail carriers say they’ve been mandated to work on Sundays, delivering mail seven days a week on lonely rural routes that can now take up to 12 hours to complete. Many postal workers therefore won’t have time to attend Tuesday’s 3 p.m. meeting in Bemidji — and one mail carrier said he’d been warned there could be “consequences” for those who showed up.
“People need to understand how just how bad it’s gotten,” said Eric Cerroni, whose wife is a mail carrier in Bemidji.
Mail carriers asked Cerroni to present written testimony on behalf of postal workers at the Tuesday meeting because they are “too busy with work and probably scared of repercussions.”
Kyle Sorbe, a spokesperson for Sen. Smith’s office, said in an email that “if these reports are true, they’re extremely concerning and Senator Smith will be seeking a clarification from the Postal Service.”
Post office spokesperson David Partenheimer said the meeting “is not a USPS-sponsored event and we don’t plan to attend,” as staff members “are focused on our peak-season operations now.”
“Regarding questions about Amazon or other companies we work with,” he continued, “the Postal Service does not discuss specifics of our working relationships.”
The post office has held a contract to deliver Amazon packages on Sundays since 2013. The agency, which has lost $6.5 billion in the past year, has said increasing package volume by cutting deals with Amazon and other retailers is a crucial part of the Delivering for America plan announced by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in 2021.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. Interim CEO Patty Stonesifer sits on Amazon’s board.)
correction
A previous version of this article misidentified Kyle Sorbe, a spokesperson for Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), as Kyle Smith. The article has been corrected.
