Lewis did joy spoke with the Economic Club of washington dc about postal club operations. In the handling of mailin ballots. He also talked about the impact of the coronavirus on the workforce. Let me first now go to our special guest the postmaster general lewis did joy. Thank you very much for giving us your time today. Thank you david for having me and i want to thank the Economic Club of washington for paying attention to me. Thank you for attending. You are the 75th postmaster general the first one is behind you i can see. He was the inventor of the Postal Service. You are a native of new york and you went to college in florida in stetson and then you went back to your familys business and you belted up in greensboro North Carolina and built into the Largest Logistics Companies in the United States. You had been very involved in philanthropic alma mater. Thank you for giving us your time today. O let me just ask at the outset when you agreed to be postmaster general did you realize you would get this much attentional because its not normally the most famous position in washington dc and i doubt if many people can name your immediate predecessors. Did you expect you would get this much attention . Back in may when i accepted the role you have to realize what its in at the time. Its at the height of the beginning of a a pandemic. And we were having significant financial consequences at the time. It wast urgently latched launched to join. With the issues of running out of cash in september of 2020 and having no help insight. Thats what i thought the attention would be spent. In instead we have a lot of media and political attention on things that were very much removed from that. That was the unexpected. Is there any second thoughts about having taken the job . You have a very comfortable life in greensboro, North Carolina. You were active are active in philanthropy and your wife is an abbasid or, is there anyng second thoughts about taking this job . None at all. This is a fantastic organization with very committed people and i think we have a very promising future if we get a few things aligned and moved forward with them. I think i was certain with those types of expertise in the availability also in using this to engage in this kind of activity. I am im happy, i am excited. Ive have a warm welcome from the team at the Postal Service and were working hard to move forward to get through the election and to get on with our visions to be an exciting player in the marketplace. As i may have told you i have a special interest in the Postal Service because my father worked in the Postal Service his entire career. And i have a summer job once at the Postal Service. My job in college in between the freshman and sophomore year. I was a male kill your which was one of the best jobs i everve had and i have a special service enjoyment in the social service. And enough you can figure out if i did notou do good job. I thought i did a good job but they probably didnt think so. It is a tough job. Its notit easy. They gave me a can of mace for when dogs are coming after you. On the first day on the job the dog was coming after me so i sprayed the mace can. Unfortunately three houses later the owner came up and said did you spray my dog speemac he is a blind and he have no teeth. That was the last time i used the mace. I think we head about 453 thousand dog bites a year. 4 its a big problem for our carriers. Maybe i just picked the wrong dog i dont know. D i will ask you a number ofsk questions which you had been asked at nausea im sure but for our audience i would like to go through them again. Is anyone at the anybody at the white house. No a million times for the Postal Service is an independent organization. With the board of governors. And that is where my plan for what we do at the Postal Service goes beyond my authority. Today we had had no real input from the white house h on anything nor will they have the authority to direct me to do anything. Re they may have some great ideas. I dont know. I havent heard any ideas concerning us. They would be vetted to our normal leadership process in the board of governors. Thats how we run this organization. Nobody said slow the mail done. Didnt call you about that yet. No rewards yet. So some of the actions that youve taken. Let me go through some of them. And ask you why you did some of them. It is said that you eliminated overtime for postal workers i guess to save moneyel was that right . David, that was a little bit of miss information. We ran 13 overtime and were running 13 now. Part of the reason we are running overnight overtime is because of the pandemic. Thats how we supplement our labor. In the long run that is a problem after we get through the election and the pandemic i will be focused on that. For 5 billion of overtime per year. Its one of the things im really looking at doing. It is good for everybody. Another thing you did is you have some mail sorting machines and you took them away from the Postal Service somehow why did you get rid of those male sorting machines . No no no. I didnt do that either. I dont know if i mentioneded this in the show talking private. We were looking to eat lose 20 billion. And we have no answer to that. The cares act low was on silence. We cannot get to and negotiate a deal. these are processes that have been around for a long time\ they ran at about 35 to 40 utilizatio\ and there were experts in the field that understand our capacity to process mail and so forth. These machines are costly. To keep up. With that type of utilization. And those were made at the field level and have been ongoing. I heard about those machines when i read about in the newspaper. What about the collection boxes. They seem to be a lot of peoples neighborhood. It said you got rid of a lot of those. Is that true and why did you do that . Its not true. We head about 140,000 collection boxes throughout the nation and that has been our address base has grown significantly. Larger geographic areas to cover. Some of these collection boxes have very few pieces of mail. Its been an ongoing process ier the last ten years. We were moved about 3,000 collection boxes per year. There is a process within the organization spread throughout the area as to which one get moved. And that was another one i read in the paper. There is plenty of places when we make theses changes. You can access another blue box that would be close by. You can go to one of our 302000 post offices that would be spread in every city. This is part of the input that we make when we take these boxes away. One of the other charges that was made that you told workers if the mail is not being delivered. Go without all of the mail. You tell people dont wait for all the mail to be given to them just get out and the route will start delivering whatever you have. No, no. The big change lets talk about the two big changes that i made one was to run our trucks on time. We run about 40 to 50,000 trucks a day and they were running late and they were based on judgment. This is the essence of the key attribute in running on network. If our trucks dont run on time the downstream processes which are mail carriers dont run on time and our plants dont produce to a schedule and it creates chaos and additional costs. I work with the team to get those trucks to run on time with the mail in him. That was a good plan. We could have a better execution. We are recovering from that right now. The other change was reorganizing the Postal Service. 55,000 administrative personnel throughout seven regions in the nation. When i leave here to me we will see this manifest itself one of the most impactful changes that i will make because it is creating better lines of control and authority. Those were the two changes that i made. The rest are pieced together stories. There was a federal judge in Washington State that has issued an injunction seen all of these things that are being done dont do them for a while in the question is are you point to going to appeal that decision . We are in negotiations right now i did not look at my email from late last night until this morning because i didnt want to upset or anything. Many of the things that the judges had decided that we announced we were doing t a month and a half ago when i put the stop to some of the things that were normal processes for us. We are in negotiations with them and hopefully we will come to a conclusion without having to appeal them. In the public needs to know we are prepared in committed to deliver election mail and that the rulings are really not necessary but at the end of the day we abide by the law and the decisions will be made between us and the Justice Department and whether we appeal them or not. The decision to appeal or not is at a Postal Service decision or the white house decision whos in charge of making the decision. Is not the white house. The Justice Department will be the entity that leads us through this. In cannot in conjunction with our Legal Department which is working very closely with them. One of those decisions was made by a new york judge last week as well. He said you have to make certain that all election mail is considered first class mail. Tat are you going to appeal that decision. That is a typical process making a decision on something we arty do. First class is the definition of a class of mail and the treatment to that class of mail. We will talk about the physical handling of ballots. We will treat ballots with a higher priority than firstclass mail and we will be advancing that. The process is always in the past. We want to get it through the system and delivered quickly. You recently have a call with 50 secretaries of state in the country from each of the states relating to a postcard you have sent out to people about mail and you said in that call as recorded in the press that you shouldve consulted them what was all of that about . H i think what i said. To make heres what its about. The Postal Service is probably most stable part of our mailin vote process mail and vote process over the last several years. The delivery times and so forth had been the same. The message has been the same boat early. Er if you want to get it before mothers day. I dont know if my mother is watching but take a little more care than a mothers day card. Theres 50 states all with different requirements and they are revolving requirements. We sent out at the beginning of the year to recognize it was good to be more mail involved this year to educate the public and work with the state electoral board. We have election committees here from our board to my Management Team to our Union Leadership right now to our districts a people throughout the whole nation. And the purpose of that is to educate the public on the physical Distribution Process and the timing of voting. We have website, commercials we put out. Videos,e weve made like 10,000 contacts throughout our country with different personnel. The postcard we send out was a general, general statement to the public to basically request the ballot early if youre going to vote by mail and vote early. It was a high level message and in some cases it wasnt high enough and it conflicted with a couple of the states and thats where we got some of the complaints i want to say though. We did a great a deal of appreciation for many states in our effort to educate the public. I dont know if my mother is watching. I wanted her to know that mothers day card is important but not as appointment as your ballot. Did she ever say why do you take that job. Is she says why is everyone picking on you y. Let me go to the first class mail situation if someone wants to mail the ballot in the best thing to do is to mail it as soon as possible is that right . I would say yes as much time as you can give us the better it is. Make your decision. Get it in early. Y. Some people will say the Postal Service loses lots of money s and maybe it could be more efficient. M one of your missions is to make it more efficient. Should it make money or should a break even. He it violates the law if we dont cover our costs. We are legislated to be self sustaining. It amazes me how that has never been in the discussion. We lost 10 billion a year without change that will happen for the next ten years. With regards to efficiency there is two ways i look at that. One is where t required our universal Service Obligation el deliver to every house in america. That is an inefficient thing. A privatesector business would not be able to do that. We deliver mail on mules and small planes. That is a mission. Im a defender of that i believe in that. Long longterm thats our strength. That kind of inefficiencies. Im working on with the team. I believe we can get at them. With the sustainability. Y. People say. When we just privatize the Postal Service and take it away from the government. P and see how that will make it work. I think the public would want to see and we would have the mule run down the grand canyon in the private business. That wouldnt happen. The last thing is, we would require legislation for that we know how that goes. Not anything that is on my agenda nor do i think it would work. Some people have said the Postal Service is losing money p for two reasons. One is that because of email people arent sending as much firstclass mail as a used two you and firstclass mail is allegedly speaking more profitable is at a fair statement . I think that is somewhat an accurate statement. We have an industry that has evolved. On the digital marketing. And so forth. Whether firstclass mail is less profitable or not. This is a way i look at it. We have a network and it cost us 80 billion per year to deliver our service and we charge 70 billion for it. S thus a difference the 10 billion there. And how we get at that involves both legislation and freedom from the tenure model. We are waiting for the decisions on that. And as driving up the operational efficiencies. New Revenue Growth we had plans for that. P it is a bunch of Different Things that drive togetherin. Where we make or lose money is still under the discussion here. Some people say and i think the president of the United States has said a lot of Companies Like amazon they are using the service and maybe theyre not fully paying the costs. Viul is it fair to say that youre not charging them enough is that a big a big problem . I think, if you look at the Postal Service trying to cover its costs on a break even goal and reinvesting into our infrastructure we are short and price is one of the tools in our toolbox to get there with regard to amazon and their pricing i think everything is in the realm of respectable pricing within a realm of being a good deal for everybody right now. We are 10 billion short. Its not four times the price or anything like that. Do you think you will get the money from congress to make sure that you have enough money to deliver the election mail and to make sure that you break even for the year . Are you likely to get it anyway . That is a mouthful in that question. First of all, Everyone Needs to understand that we have enough money to get through the election plenty of money for the election and resources. We will handle the election the whole organization is committed to that. In regards to congress we dont really get any money from congress. S. There is a lot of different bills floating around that promise to give us money theyre not even close to gettingg a pass. But we take pride in the whole self sustaining objective here in the organization were not looking for handouts were on a selfimprovement mission here right now i have asked the congress into the treasury to fund us for our covid19 losses. Even with volume being down. We still cover those costs. Were kind of on our own unless there is some major legislation that comes about that i dont see. And if they just gave us money we would be back in two years. Unless we have some fundamental change to our Business Model. With a broken Business Model and we need to change that. Does congress lend you money from time to time how do you meet your deficit every year unless you borrow the money from someone. We dont pay our bills in some cases. Oras we have the ferment of retirement payments. We do borrow from a treasury oriented Banking System and we head about 15 billion. We did get to a deal when i came with the treasury for 10 billion under the cares act it was kind of dead i called treasury and we worked to be with the treasury secretary back on the table and we came to reasonable accommodations for us to borrow one. Lets talk about covid19. S many had been working remotely during covid19. You have to deliver the mail. How do you manage the Postal Service remotely like many other companies or how do you does not do anything remotely. Within our Administrative Offices we have many that are working remotely from the administrative side. We have basically two stories here on the pandemic one is that the story we have the tragedy that the whole nation has experienced we head about 10,000 of our coworkers contract the disease. Weve about 2000 out right now with it. And weve lostno 91 of our coworkers. Its really been a tragedy like it is for the rest of the nation. The other side of the story is extremely impressive. Exy this is one of the great things about the Postal Service about how it can gear up and focus on National Emergencies and our efforts in terms of getting ppe out to the workers in the procedures. There is great work with our Union Leadership to give us work release so we can move forward. They are very involved with us in the safety of the plan in our carriers. This all came together very quickly. We delivered 261 million homes. 99. 8 before the pandemic and getting there. It dropped like 99. 5. Another crisis you had been dealing with is the fires in the west coast how had you been able to deliver the mail if you have an able to how are the postal workers or health affected by the air and so forth. Very similar type of impressive thing is our ability to respond to the National Emergencies with those in the community. Its like the first symbol of restraint that kind of behavior. Its really Something Special to see. I went down to lake charles last week. Owow the hurricane hit lake charles. You can see how torn up at the city was. I went to one of our delivery units. Most of these workersseke did nt had lights may or not had water and their homes in their homes but they were coming and working hard to deliverwa mail to their communities and from a safety and administrative standpoint we have airquality test and masks and different type of equipment. We make things safe with our employees. We make sure that everybody agrees that its it safe to proceed and we do the heroic work that we do in these cases. When i was growing up i believe i have it right the mail was delivered twice a day. I think thats true. And saturdays as well. Do you think it needs to beys delivered there. Do you have a view on that. I think six a week delivery the strength of the organization. Something im tape taking a a gamble on that we can use to connect to the American Public in a better way to entice them to use us more. We had 302000 post offices in every community. We get about a billion visits per year to these destination locations and a combination of the continued contact with the American Public from our carriers its one of the major reasons why we are the most trusted organization in the nation and then potentially expanding some of our connection in the communities with our post office. That is a Big Initiative of mine. Part of our reorganization was to separateio and have a whole delivery and have a retail delivery part of the organization. With the new chief delivery officer here. A longtime employee. Its a digital background. Were very excited about the things that we are gonna do in that area. A. How many total employees does the Postal Service actually had . 640,000. 140,000 bets. Is the composition what are men and womenpo is that percentage are white or africanamerican do you . We head about 500,000 unionized employees as i said hundred thousand bets were about 40 minority in the organization. I will get that they will reflect male and female to to six of the population. Unbelievable reflection of the American Public and it is a big impact to the american economy. If i wanted to send a letter overnight to somewhere in the United States and i had three big choices, ups, fedex in the Postal Service. Why should i pick the Postal Service. Just when you get i get a letter overnight delivered to semi. It is good for america. Let me talk for a moment about your own background. You ultimately went to college in new york. How did you take a small trucking business which i think have less than a dozen employeesllll and build into one of the larger Logistics Companies in the United States. The skill set was in public accounting. Many Different Companies and gave me a background to look at how to integrate different operations. When youre in a Logistics Business we added everything from mickey mouse to mail bags. That type of experience help me. Much of the big pushes was i didnt like trucking. I needed to move on into something else. At that pointnt it was when i really got my running likes. Information processing community. I looked to turnkey type products. And it was a good salesman. I commenced people at thateo particular point to move forward with my organization, one step at a time. And once we started to have a model out there. It gained very wide acceptance. We became very accepted. About 20 plus years ago. How come you dont have a North Carolina accent. I chose to use my new york accent for you today. What was it. For people that dont know. What does that a Logistics Company do . I always looked at that. And different Logistics Companies. We manage transportation. And we set up big centers and have ourte leading service and strength was in technology. We were often ready for one of the top providers of complex logistic solutions. These were Companies Like boeing, verizon, disney, we ran centers and planning. We took orders. Process them with very much a specific schedule. And shipped them to consumers. It would be between us are ship and our clients. We probably moved about 60 billion of goods one piece at a time each year. You ultimately merge your company with another one. You then left it. In recent years you had been involved in philanthropic and other matters. Tell me back to the Postal Service what is the single biggest challenge that you face. I assume not related to the election issue that we discussed but what is the single t this challenge . I think, we need to change how we approach the marketplace c and we are very mission given here. Have a Great Mission oriented culture. When we have a Winning Culture we need to operate with more precision. We need to a introduce new products into the system. And we need to advance ourselves in all aspects of what a normal business would be. I look at it more as the opportunities that we would have as opposed to the challenges. Everybody knows those challenges. How do we stop that. How do we supplement that . With ideas going on around here now. Ly we need them to make a decision. They have already agreed the model is broken and we need to make the decision any legislation. In the private sector there are ate lot of new technologies, Artificial Intelligence technologies and all the new Data Collection and dissemination matters that havet been used in the private sector to m make things more efficient. Are there one, two, three technologies you think over the next five years or so that the Postal Service could adapt or adopt that would ultimately make the Postal Service more efficient . We have a lot of Information Technology and we have automation in our plans that when we look at we have to align the technology and that Human Interaction those addresses and ive Retail Centers throughout every community and how do we how do we ran handset connection with customers and how do we enhance about them and her interactions with them so we stay connected. That is where our focus will be on technology as we move forwa forward. We moved to the issue of mailin ballots and President Trump has said he is worried about may be fraud and so forth related to those mailin ballots. I think youve said that you disagreed with the president on that, at least your view is you think the mailin ballots will be delivered and there is not fraud and is that correct and am i correct in summarizing my position . The Postal Service will do its job to deliver the ballot. When the president goes into that Postal Service is not equipped to do it which is incorrect with that. We will deliver ballots. The rest of the discussion i dont comment on. What has been the Biggest Surprise to you about washington dc . You lived your career in new york and North Carolina and now are in washington. Has been a more difficult environment that you thought . What is the Biggest Surprise . Biggest surprise on the upside or downside . Ive been in and out of washington. I wasnt not around the various things that went on in washington but very little time, yeah. When i comment on it i have to go to why i am here and the surprise really is in a good way how well ive been embraced by the scene here and how well ive engaged in the ideas we collectively come up with together and move, very. Within 45 daysh some of the impacts weve had while been publicized as negative, organizationally we have prepared to move forward and gain or achieved executives weve had. That has been a pleasant spice we think about coming into the bureaucracy, so to speak, of washington dc. I can be on the downside, there is a lot of this information that gets promoted for a lot of Different Reasons and i dont care too get into it but it is filled with misinformation. Okay. You have beenn appointed by the Postal Service board of governors in which you also are a member. Or youre a member of the board rof governors. I am. Your term goes to a number of years so i understand it, if President Trump gets reelected, i presume you would want to stay but if President Biden or vice President Biden is elected president you have the right under the contract you have tuesday, wouldve you be interesd in staying as well or you dont wereally want to do that then . I have developed a really, really good bond with the team here and they are engaging the objectives i want to see them through. We have a plan to have a successful Postal Service. We need to Bring Congress along and and a few other things. We have a plan and i would like to see that through, no i matter who is president. Okay. So, today what would you like people to most know about the Postal Service and lets suppose someone is watching and they just can only remember a paragraph or two paragraphs about the Postal Service what is the message you would like for them to take away from this discussion about the Postal Service . I think the biggest number one thing to understand, which i think most of the public does, is p that 630,000 women and men there were clear unbelievably committed to fulfilling the mission to the american people. It is really heartwarming and very proud to be thrown into the seat and be the leader of this organization with the commitment is, you know, second to none. I also, that is that. On the other side i think the markham people should know that weha do not get funded by the government. We do not get taxpayer dollars. We are providing a service and the mandate comes from congress is that we provide that service in a way and we charge in a manner that covers our cost. There is often misleading things about service and funding and so forth. Those are two things. Give a very committed organization that is going to grow and prosper. We are committed to expanding our connection with the American Public and we would always save taxpayer dollars and we are proud of that. We need to operate in a little better manner. You been under a lot of pressure for sure and youve gotten a lot of attention. Give time for any rest and relaxation . Could go out and just play golf or do anything . Or you dont have time for that anymore . No, you know, its been pressure, weve had pressure on our careers and this is a different type of pressure so dont feel like a pressure but im invigorated by the work and i work very hard before to build my company. The fiveyear retirement was fue but, you know, im out of fun now. I thrive on moving organizations and trying to, when you think about the role here very similar to what i did as a Third Party Provider in the private sector was integrate, launch organizations to advance their wrvice mission but the lowestcost we can do. I am feeling good and on the going to continue to charge forward. Final question, do get any aspiration from Benjamin Franklin whose portrait is behind you to see or does he whisper any services to you to make the Postal Service more officiated . I think he delegated to his wife while he was running it. Any and inspiration from Benjamin Franklin . N . Not yet. I just think its very proud and humbled to be in the seat that he occupies. I read his book and i know you did an interview with isaacson ooon his book and i watched it d now, its a Public Service and im a patriot and i enjoy that aspect of it and when you look back, you know, who is one of the Founding Fathers was been to ben franklin and im all about the fact that i am sitting here. Thank you very much, mr. Postmaster general. Thank you for study the issues i tried to raise with you and i appreciate all your time and efforts and good luck to you. Thank you. Thank you, david, for having me. It was very fun. Thank you. So as i mentioned to everybody this will be on our website in a few moments and i hope you all enjoyed and learned a fair bit about the postmaster general and the Postal Service. And the election ballot situation. Thank you all very much. Democratic Vice President candidate, while harris is in North Carolina today but she is excited to talk about the situation with the spring court vacancy. We will be live from raleigh at 2 15 p. M. Eastern on our companion network, cspan. During cspan2 for hearing on the u. S. Agency for global media under the trump administration. The agencys chief decided congressional subpoenas to appear before the House Foreign Affairs committee before executive testifies about changes made since mr. Paek took office in june. Both the chair and making member of the committee have expressed concerns about his leadership. U. S. Adm is the Parent Agency of voice of america and radio for europe liberty. Watch the hearing tonight at 8 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Tonight on the communicators. Federal trade commission are rebecca slaughter is interviewed by political ecology and antitrust reporter. What advice do you have for parents who may have be concerned about their kids privacy online in this new world of Online Learning . We talk a lot into talk a lot about Digital Divide issues in terms of who is Broadband Access and kids have to sit in parking lots of libraries and stores in order to get online for schools but im also worried about the ways in which the Digital Divide exacerbates privacy gaps. Better off children from wealthier backgrounds can pay for privacy protected services or more access to things and lower income kids have to pay with their privacy. Federal trade commission are rebecca slaughter tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the communicators, on cspan2. Senate Judiciary Committee chair Lindsay Graham will begin monday october 12 and with opening statements. On tuesday the 13th the nominee begins taking questions from committee members. Chairman graham says he expects the hearing will take three or four days. You can watch live coverage every day of Amy Coney BarrettSupreme Court confirmation hearing on cspan, online at cspan. Org or listen live on a free radio app. Candidates for pennsylvania 17 Congressional District and comment democrat connor lam and republican sean parnell participate in the televised debate. Wp ex itb sponsor the tree fiveminute event. The district served the northwestern suburbs of pittsburgh. Good evening and welcome to the district 17 congressional debate here in the wp excise duty overtime the morning news anchor catherine. We all know by now da 17 is one of the biggest races in the u. S. House this november and we are very excited to be with you tonight for the next 30 minutes but lets get right to it and meet our candidates. Standing in alphabetical order the incumbent democrat connor lam who is been in congress since01