ALLEN PARK, Mich. – During a House subcommittee hearing, Rep. Rashida Tlaib held up a photo of Nick Acker, an Air Force Veteran who was found dead in a mail handling machine, asking Postmaster General David Steiner to visit the USPS Detroit Network Distribution Center in Allen Park.
“I want to show you a picture,” Tlaib said during the March 17 hearing. “This is Nicholas John Acker. On November 8, he was found dead… His body was found. It was trapped, actually, in a mail handling machine… He checked into work at 11 a.m. and his body wasn’t discovered until the following day.”
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Acker was a maintenance mechanic from Trenton and was discovered dead and trapped inside one of the facility’s mail-processing machines on Nov. 8, 2025. His body had reportedly been there for 6-8 hours before first responders arrived.
Tlaib called Acker’s death an “unspeakable tragedy” and said it was “heartbreaking and it was preventable,” adding that Acker had previously voiced concerns about the facility’s operations and safety practices to his fiancé.
“Management there was pressuring staff to look for letters while the handling machine was still operating. Are you aware of that?” she asked Steiner during the hearing.
“I’m aware of the incident. Yes,” Steiner said.
“Are you aware that they’re asking workers to look for letters while the machine is operating?” Tlaib said.
“We’re still waiting on the final report from OSHA to understand what happened,” Steiner said.
Tlaib said conditions had worsened since Acker’s death. She also said she and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI 6th District) had twice written Steiner demanding answers but had not received any.
“You understand, he served our country. He didn’t die at war… He literally died in his community, working for the Postal Service,” Tlaib said.
Tlaib then pressed Steiner to visit the plant and asked him to speak with Acker’s coworkers. Steiner called the incident “horrific,” and added that “one incident is one incident too many.”
“Anytime you lose someone, you’ve got to take it personal, and you’ve got to take it as a teachable moment, right?” Steiner said. “I will be at that facility… We need to show that it starts at the top right?”
Tlaib said she was frustrated by the pace of the investigation and said OSHA has not responded to any requests.
“Please work with me in trying to get answers for his parents,” she said. “It shouldn’t have taken this long to get answers to this investigation of what happened to Nicholas Acker, especially serving almost a decade in the military service and for him to die again in a postal service machine, a sorting machine, of all things,” she said.
Steiner said he is waiting on a final report from OSHA. He did not say when the visit to the Allen Park facility would happen.
Grievance filed on same machine less than 90 days before
Fewer than 90 days before Acker was found dead, a formal grievance had been filed warning that the very same machine was unsafe, Local 4 also learned.
Postal maintenance mechanic Matthew Stiffler, a friend and coworker of Acker’s and American Postal Workers Union maintenance craft steward, said he helped remove Acker’s body from the machine.
“I just lost it,” Stiffler said when he found out. “I actually threw up immediately and finished getting ready and went right to work.”
Stiffler described a facility where safety protocols “are not followed,” where machines from the 1970s struggle with modern packaging, and a place where new management “pressures workers” to push production at the expense of safety.
“The general culture at work is the mail must move at all costs,” he said. “It feels like our mail has increased. We’ve lost staffing pretty significantly… They don’t want to shut down the machines for anything.”
Rep. Debbie Dingell told Local 4 she immediately suspected something was wrong when she learned of Acker’s death.
“My initial gut -- when I first heard this story -- was something’s not right,” Dingell said. “And the union informed me that they had filed a grievance on this exact machine and safety procedures less than 90 days ago.”
“Why was the machine not stopped? Why was someone not looking for him? He did not sign out. Why was his card signed out?” Dingell said. “There are very serious issues that people need to be held accountable for. We need to get the facts,” Dingell said.
“I’m saddened to learn about the tragic passing of Nicholas Acker,” said Sen. Gary Peters. “I will continue to stay in touch with local law enforcement and USPS officials as the investigation proceeds, and I’m going to push for more information on what happened. I will always fight to ensure that every worker has safe working conditions.”
Stiffler also described a “toxic” environment in which management allegedly discourages shutting down machines even for lockout procedures during repairs, and previously threatened workers with discipline for attending Acker’s funeral.
“People took time off to deal with this, and he’s, like, threatening discipline and saying that we were AWOL,” he said. “It’s a problem.”
“‘The mail’s still moving’? Gross.”
Acker’s fiancée criticized an initial statement from USPS, calling it ‘gross.’ The statement read in part: “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family. The NDC is fully operational at this time.”
“‘The mail’s still moving’? Gross,” Stephanie Jaszcz told Local 4. “‘Sorry about the loss, but the mail’s still moving.’ A man gone. A veteran. A husband. A human being. And all you can think of is mail keeps moving? Inhumane. It’s gross.”
USPS provided this statement to Local 4 on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025: “The Postal Service is deeply saddened by the loss of life suffered recently involving our postal employee. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues at this time. This incident remains under investigation by OSHA, and the Postal Service is fully cooperating. We do not have any further comment at this time.”
OSHA previously told Local 4 its investigation is ongoing. “OSHA has six months to complete this investigation. During that time, no additional information will be provided.”
“Nick was a good man,” Stiffler said. “He deserves something good to happen and his death not to be in vain.”