Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush pressed United States Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about diversity on Wednesday. In a hearing before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Bush asked why — although the lower ranks of postal employees are largely people of color — the board is entirely white and male.
“Currently the board includes only white men. This grotesque lack of representation is a critical opportunity to diversify the board’s ranks,” said Bush.
“An agency with over 640,000 employees that come from every walk of life and serve the entire American public,” she continued, “should have representation at the top reflective of the broader American population. More than 35 percent of postal workers are people of color, while zero percent of governors are.”
Now, 23% of postal employees are Black, making the USPS one of the largest employers of African Americans in the country. A post office job was once seen as a pathway to the middle class. According to Politico, a unionized postal worker can make as much as $75,000 a year.
But Bush’s line of questioning was about the USPS board of governors, which is made up of six white men all appointed by former President Donald Trump. Some were Trump donors. The board currently has three vacancies.
Bush noted the board currently has governors who have ties to Wall Street and fossil fuel.
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“Do you see it as a problem that the board of governors of the United States Postal Service looks like a millionaire white boys club?” she asked DeJoy.
He said the three open slots on the board are President Joe Biden’s to fill.
“The quicker we get some new board members from the new administration,” DeJoy said, “the less we can talk about this and move on to the plan and the real, real problems we need to fix here.”
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One of those problems now include remarkably slow mail.
DeJoy can only be removed by the postmaster general’s slot by the USPS board.
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