Postal Service

‘The U.S. Mail Is Not For Sale’: Postal Workers Speak Out

October 20, 2018 Steve Wishnia, Laborpress.org Resist! Class Struggle, Postal Service, Postal Workers, Workers

NEW YORK, N.Y.—Jonathan Smith, head of the New York Metro Area Postal Union, entered the Hunts Point Station post office in the Bronx on the afternoon of Oct. 16, accompanied by a dozen-odd retired postal workers, a 4-year-old girl carrying a “The U.S. Mail Is Not for Sale” sign, and union communications director Chuck Zlatkin, who was carrying a small cardboard box of petitions with more than 5,300 signatures demanding that the U.S. Postal Service begin offering basic banking services. Their aim was to deliver the petitions to Bronx Postmaster Scott Farrar. But Farrar had declined an invitation to come, and after about 10 minutes, the staff on duty refused to accept the box. Smith and Zlatkin instead handed it over to Rep. Jose Serrano (D-Bronx), who said he’d deliver it to Postal Service officials.

Victory: U.S. Postal Service Halting Retail Sales At Staples Stores

January 7, 2017 Joe Davidson, www.washingtonpost.com Resist! Postal Service, Staples, Unions

By Joe Davidson for The Washington Post - But now, that program has been sentenced to death and it is postal labor leaders who are rejoicing. They cheer the demise of a program that had been the target of a vigorous campaign by postal unions that don’t want the post office privatized. USPS will discontinue retail services at Staples stores by the first week in March, according to the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), which led the fight. The union cast the decision as “a big win for the public as well as the 200,000 members of APWU and the union’s allies.”

The US Postal Service’s Secret Cover Program

December 1, 2015 John Kiriakou, www.readersupportednews.org Educate! Postal Service, Surveillance

By John Kiriakou for Reader Supported News - The U.S. Postal Service is spying on us. And they’re not doing a very good job at it. I’m not talking about peeking into letters or looking at how many mutual fund statements you receive. I’m talking about the systematic collection of information on every single piece of mail you send or receive, including the names and addresses of the sender and recipient, without a warrant or oversight and without any explanation to the person being targeted. Indeed, the USPS Inspector General has even issued a report saying that the Postal Service “failed to properly safeguard documents...

Warning: Another Attack On Our Postal Service

October 6, 2015 Dave Johnson, www.nationofchange.org Educate! Postal Service

By Dave Johnson for Nation of Change - Should we run our country for the benefit of We the People, or so that a few people can profit off of We the People? This is a question that is rising to the surface in a battle between those who want the United States Postal Service (USPS) maintained and expanded, and those who want it privatized. There are some conservative ideologues who just can’t stand that the USPS demonstrates government doing its job of helping make our lives better. As with Social Security, they attack it relentlessly and endlessly. The latest push to privatize the USPS came from the Elaine Kamarck at Brookings, in “Delaying the Inevitable: Political Stalemate and the U.S. Postal Service.”

Save The Post Office Before It’s Too Late

June 4, 2015 Andy Piascik, www.popularresistance.org Organize! Postal Banking, Postal Service, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Andy Piascik. United States - Throughout the country, postal workers and community allies have prevented the closing of many facilities. Among the actions taken were a post office occupation in Oregon and the erection of a tent city in front of a facility in California. Several years ago, similar popular pressure stopped the attempted elimination of Saturday delivery service. The large scale elimination of facilities has had the predictable result of increasing costs because of the greater distance mail must travel. Consider that an item mailed from a Bridgeport address to another Bridgeport address, for example, now goes to a distribution facility in Kearny, New Jersey before arriving at its final destination, then consider that the same rocket scientists who came up with that one hail themselves as fiscally responsible and attack the USPs as inefficient.

“Gyrocopter” Pilot Honored With Commemorative Stamp

May 23, 2015 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, www.oversight.house-gov.us Resist! Campaign Finance, Corruption, Postal Service

Today the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, US Postal Service & The Census, in partnership with the United States Postal Service, announced the release of a new commemorative stamp honoring Florida postal worker Doug Hughes, whose recent actions have brought unprecedented attention to the corrosive influence of money in our political system. Rep. Blake Farenthold (TX-27), Chair of the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service & the Census, issued the following statement. The commemorative stamp was unveiled this morning at the National Postal Museum in Washington, DC, by Deputy Postmaster Kirk Reiland. The stamp features a portrait of Hughes, as well as a rendering of his one-man gyrocopter, a small anachronistic helicopter favored by hobbyists, with the accompanying text: "Doug Hughes' Historic Flight Against Corruption." The stamp design was donated by retired Maryland postal worker and painter, Thomas P. Conrad, a fellow gyrocopter enthusiast.

How New Postal Union Leadership Could Save The Post Office

March 19, 2015 David Morris, www.alternet.org Strategize! Labor Unions, Postal Service, Public Service

Let’s begin with the bad news. The U.S. Post Office, the oldest, most respected and ubiquitous of all public institutions is fast disappearing. In recent years management has shuttered half the nation's mail processing plants and put 10 percent of all local post offices up for sale. A third of all post offices, most of them in rural areas, have had their hours slashed. Hundreds of full time, highly experienced postmasters knowledgeable about the people and the communities they serve have been dumped unceremoniously, often replaced by part timers. Ever larger portions of traditional post office operations--- trucking, mail processing and mail handling-- have been privatized. Close to 200,000 middle class jobs have disappeared.

A “Grand Alliance” To Save Our Public Postal Service

February 17, 2015 Dave Johnson, www.ourfuture.org Organize! Labor, Postal Service, Privatization

Republicans created the problems with the Postal Service. In 2006 Republicans in Congress required it to come up with $5.5 billion per year to pre-fund 75 years of retiree costs. This means the Postal Service has to set aside money now for employees who are not even born yet. No other government agency – and certainly no company – has to do this. They also require the Postal Service to make a profit – or at least break even. But democratic government is supposed to provide services to We the People. It is notsupposed to be about making a profit off of us. Yet Republicans say government should be “run like a business.” Then they hamstring it, preventing it from competing with businesses because they say it has too many advantages and any competition would be unfair.

Postal Service Reports 50,000 Requests For Monitoring On Mail

October 28, 2014 Ron Nixon, www.nytimes.com Educate! Law, Postal Service, Surveillance

WASHINGTON — In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law enforcement agencies and its own internal inspection unit to secretly monitor the mail of Americans for use in criminal and national security investigations. The number of requests, contained in a little-noticed 2014 audit of the surveillance program by the Postal Service’s inspector general, shows that the surveillance program is more extensive than previously disclosed and that oversight protecting Americans from potential abuses is lax. The audit, along with interviews and documents obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, offers one of the first detailed looks at the scope of the program, which has played an important role in the nation’s vast surveillance effort since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Push Back Against Privatization Of Postal System

August 4, 2014 David Morris, www.alternet.org Resist! boycott, Labor, Postal Service, Privatization

The United States Postal Service (USPS) management just ran into a possible game-changing obstacle to its shameful pursuit of a fully privatized post office: labor solidarity Here’s the background. For a decade the USPS has been aggressively shrinking, consolidating, and outsourcing the nation’s postal system. In July 2011 management upped the ante by announcing the rapid closure of 3600 local post offices, a step toward the eventual closing of as many as 15,000, half of all post offices in the nation. A groundswell of opposition erupted. Citizens in hundreds of towns mobilized to save a treasured institution that plays a key and sometimes defining role in their communities. In December 2011, after Congress appeared ready to impose a six-month moratorium on closures USPS management voluntarily adopted a freeze of the same length. In May 2012, the moratorium ended but management, possibly concerned about reviving a national backlash, embraced an ingenious stealth strategy. Rather than closures, management moved to slash hours at 13,000 post offices. That could be accomplished quickly. Reduction in hours, unlike outright closures, requires little justification. Appeals are limited. Moreover a reduction in hours doesn’t generate the same level of outrage as a closure. The building remains open even though its value to the community is dramatically diminished.

U.S. Council of Mayors Endorse Postal Banking

July 2, 2014 Matt Stannard, www.bankact.org Create! Banks, Finance, Mayors, Postal Banking, Postal Service

At its June 20-23, 2014 annual meeting, the US Conference of Mayors (USCM) adopted a pair of resolutions endorsing postal banking, co-signed by eight mayors from six states. Their goal is to bring $1 trillion of job-creating economic stimulus primarily to low-income neighborhoods, over the next decade, at zero cost to taxpayers. Post office-based financial services will generate sales tax revenues of as much as $3 billion a year, benefiting cities of the more than 200 mayors attending the USCM meeting, according to BankACT, a nonprofit advocacy group. In one resolution, the USCM calls upon the United States Postal Service (USPS) to offer basic financial services, such as small payday loans and reloadable money cards. Payday lenders and other financial predators target low-income working families and retirees at exorbitant cost, totaling nearly $100 billion a year, noted BankACT president Marc Armstrong. “By offering inexpensive financial services,” he said, “the USPS can help drive out financial predators, restoring billions of dollars to low-income neighborhoods at no cost to taxpayers.” The other USCM resolution urges the Postal Service to bring back once-popular postal savings accounts and use the deposits to help fund a national infrastructure bank. This specialized bank will reduce the high cost of financing public construction projects — a boon to local governments, Armstrong added, that can generate thousands of jobs.

Occupy Activists Join Fight To Save Postal Service

June 19, 2014 Jamie Partridge, www.socialistworker.org Resist! Labor, Occupy, Postal Service

N AN escalation of the Stop Staples campaign, a group calling itself Occupy San Francisco/First They Came For the Homeless camped 24/7 outside the entrance of the Staples office supply store at 1700 Van Ness--one of 82 that have established "postal counters" inside. From June 1 through 9, the occupiers displayed signs, huddled against the wind and discouraged shoppers from buying at the store. In a secretive, sweetheart deal to outsource postal operations to low-wage, high-turnover Staples stores, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is reducing customer service hours at 21 of 39 U.S. Post Office stations in San Francisco. Cutbacks in hours are also planned in surrounding Bay Area communities. "They're shutting the doors at 5 p.m. and posting signs sending people to private locations--including Staples--to conduct postal business," said Geoffray Dumaguit, president of the San Francisco local of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU). "This will inconvenience and irritate our customers, who often need to visit a Post Office after work."

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