Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter for 40 years. He welcomes comment at [email protected].

It’s by now a familiar scene.

If you live in a neighborhood that gets rural delivery, you’re used to U.S. Postal Service trucks whizzing by two, three or even more times a day, seven days a week, delivering packages; this government agency remains an effective competitor to UPS and FedEx.

If it’s your mail you’re after, things are a lot less certain. The standard has long been six days of delivery per week, Monday through Saturday. For the last two months, I haven’t had a single week with six deliveries; sometimes there have been five, sometimes four.

It’s especially frustrating that despite numerous stamp price increases – six in just the last five years, from 55 cents to 78 cents – the most basic service, consistent home delivery, has fallen.

It’s enough to make one wonder whether we shouldn’t rename the post office the Federal Parcel service, or FedEx, Jr.

By most accounts, the U.S. Postal Service remains among the most popular of federal agencies/ Despite the numerous challenges of operating in the internet age, universal, timely mail delivery remains high on the public agenda.

It simply isn’t true that mail service is outmoded; not everything can be accomplished online, and the continuing popularity of everything from birthday cards to mail-in ballots demonstrates that continued deterioration of service is, or at least should be, unacceptable.

To the degree that the USPS has a plan for its primary mission, mail delivery, it seems to rely on cutting service standards along with increasing rates, a sure formula for failure. Rather than seeking to build its business through consistent performance, it seems content to manage decline.

The persistent inability to deliver the mail stems in large part from a 2013 contract for letter carriers, who represent the largest number of postal workers.

The contract created “career” and “non-career” tracks, and most of the hiring since then has involved non-career positions. Since new employees are being paid far less for the same work, it has a demoralizing effect on postal unions and has contributed to the epidemic of erratic delivery.

It used to be that a missed day was extremely rare. Now, there just aren’t enough carriers to cover the routes, a problem that peaked during the pandemic and has continued ever since. The bump-up in wage rates for other entry-level jobs has just made the shortage of carriers more acute.

On the face of it, there are few reasons for optimism. The departed postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, was a logistic experts in the package business with no credible plan for improving mail delivery. His successor, who started in July — just in time for the latest five-cent stamp increase — is David Steiner, a board member of FedEx.

Some recent examples that could help the postal service remedy its labor discontent — if it’s willing to listen.

UPS in 2023 provided a negotiated package that substantially improved working conditions, and has led to a hiring boom with increased job satisfaction. Even more pertinent, the United Auto Workers negotiated contracts the same year that will phase out the hated two-tier wage system also installed at the time of the Great Recession.

Postal unions operating within the confines of a government agency have not always been as successful, but in this case maintaining the package business could suggest changes that might improve how the mail is handled – beginning with, most obviously, coordinated delivery to the same addresses.

Eventually, the public will have to make its views known more clearly; the Trump administration is making a serious mistake by cutting many of the agencies voters rate most highly, including the National Weather Service, the National Park Service and the Centers for Disease Control.

The postal service, given its quasi-independent status, is a special case, but its neglect is equally unjustifiable, especially given the president’s preoccupation with increasing defense spending and calling it “war,” homeland security crackdowns and use of the military for municipal takeovers in major cities.

It would be a novelty to organize a campaign around government services that people actually want and trust, but it has to be worth trying.