US Postal Service

Consolidation Threatens To Rip ‘Service’ Out Of Postal Service

October 31, 2024 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. Educate! Louis DeJoy, US Postal Service, USPS, Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers are battling an overhaul of the U.S. Postal Service that would cost thousands of jobs and slow the mail for half the country. In the name of efficiency, a letter mailed within Cheyenne, Wyoming, would travel to Denver and back. And if you miss a package, your local post office would no longer have it. It might be 45 minutes away. In March, Buffalo became the first place to fend off the closure of its mail processing plant, in a team effort by Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 3 and Postal Workers (APWU) Local 374. The unions turned out 300 people to picket in front of the plant, and 700 to pack a public hearing, said Branch 3 President David Grosskopf. They deluged USPS with feedback in its online survey.

Fellow Letter Carriers, Stand Together, Vote No On Sellout Contract!

October 25, 2024 Rob Darakjian, Labor Notes. Organize! NALC, Unions, US Postal Service, US Postal Workers, Worker Rights and Jobs

City letter carriers finally got to see the headlines of the tentative agreement Letter Carriers (NALC) President Brian Renfroe has negotiated—after more than 500 days of working without a contract and being kept completely in the dark about the state of bargaining. In that time, a groundswell of enthusiasm and organizing for “Open Bargaining”—the right to be informed about the real state of negotiations—has swept through the union and became the Build a Fighting NALC movement. More than 40 union branches and a few state associations passed resolutions calling for this democratic right.

US Postal Service’s Attack On Privacy

June 29, 2024 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. Educate! Constitution, Surveillance, US Postal Service, USPS

I've written in the past about the U.S. Postal Service’s so-called Mail Cover Program. It allows postal employees to photograph and send to federal law enforcement organizations (F.B.I., Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service, etc.) the front and back of every piece of mail the Post Office processes. It also retains the information digitally and provides it to any government agency that wants it — without a warrant. I’m not an attorney, of course. But I’m also not an idiot. And that policy strikes me as a violation of Americans’ civil liberties. The Mail Cover Program has been known publicly for quite some time.

Awful Conditions In New Postal Hubs Create Opening For Resistance

May 29, 2024 Jamie Partridge, Labor Notes. Strategize! Postal Workers, Unions, US Postal Service, USPS, Worker Rights and Jobs

For three years, rank-and-file postal workers and community allies have been fighting Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s Ten-Year Plan to Amazonify the postal service. DeJoy’s overall goal is eliminating jobs by installing huge new automated parcel sorting machines. For letter carriers, the biggest immediate impact of his multi-pronged plan is relocating many from neighborhood post offices to massive new Sorting and Delivery Centers. Over the next few years 600 of these hubs would be set up, impacting 6,000 post offices and 100,000 routes. Under pressure from Senators, DeJoy announced May 13 that he will pause another part of the plan, the consolidation of mail processing plants, at least until next January—a big win for our side.

DeJoy Agrees To Pause Consolidations At Dozens Of USPS Facilities

May 18, 2024 Eric Katz, Government Executive. Educate! Biden administration, Congress, Louis DeJoy, US Postal Service, USPS, Worker Rights

The U.S. Postal Service is pausing some of the most controversial reforms to its mailing network as its leadership has agreed to the demands of a growing, bipartisan chorus in Congress. The mailing agency has halted its plans to consolidate dozens of processing facilities until at least Jan. 1, 2025, ensuring the network overhaul is paused until after the upcoming presidential election in which millions of Americans will be voting by mail. A large swath of lawmakers across the ideological spectrum have called on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to delay or cease the changes, some of which would shift the bulk of mail processing across state lines.

Momentum For Open Bargaining Grows For The Letter Carriers

April 11, 2024 Tyler Vasseur, Labor Notes. Strategize! Letter Carriers, Minneapolis, Unions, UPS, US Postal Service, Worker Rights and Jobs

Hit by years of inflation, and inspired by last year’s contract struggles and big wins by Big 3 auto workers and UPS Teamsters, members of the Letter Carriers (NALC) at the U.S. Postal Service are getting organized to fight for open bargaining. So far 23 NALC branches and one NALC state association have passed an open bargaining resolution first put forward by NALC Branch 9 in Minneapolis. In many more branches, members are discussing the resolution and plan to bring it forward in the weeks to come. The resolution calls for NALC leaders to articulate clear demands up front, and to give regular updates about the progress of bargaining.

The US Postal Service Network Consolidation Plan

February 26, 2024 Sarah Anderson and Scott Klinger, Inequality.org. Educate! Louis DeJoy, Oregon, rural communities, US Postal Service, Veterans

A core feature of U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year plan, “Delivering for America,” is an initiative to restructure the nation’s postal network by consolidating processing and distribution operations in regional centers, mostly in urban areas. In 2023, two years into the 10-year plan, USPS reported that the agency had committed $7.6 billion out of a total $40 billion restructuring budget and plans were on track to open 60 new Regional Processing and Distribution Centers across the country in the coming years. Through this consolidation plan, many postal processing and distribution facilities in smaller communities will be converted to Local Processing Centers with reduced functions.

A Call For Openness In Letter Carriers Contract Negotiations

October 28, 2023 Ray Tillman, Labor Notes. Create! Letter Carriers, Unions, US Postal Service, Worker Rights

One striking feature of the current labor resurgence is a trend for greater openness during national contract negotiations. This year the Auto Workers (UAW) at the Big 3 and Teamsters at UPS have provided members with detailed information about their bargaining proposals. But the Letter Carriers (NALC) has yet to embrace this modern approach. The union is still clinging to the outdated practice of closed-door negotiations. This year the NALC is engaged in negotiations with the Postal Service (USPS) for a new national contract. The parties are currently in a 60-day mediation period with possible arbitration looming.

Attacks On Rural Letter Carriers; Devastating Restructuring Of USPS

July 8, 2023 A. Woodson, Hector Cordon and Philip Guelpa, World Socialist Web Site. Resist! Louis DeJoy, Privatization, rural communities, US Postal Service, Worker Rights and Jobs

More than 90,000 rural letter carriers for the United States Postal Service (USPS) are battling changes to their compensation which have led to massive pay cuts and longer workweeks. The replacement of the pre-existing method of calculating rural carriers’ hours and wages has resulted in wage cuts as high as $20,000 a year in some cases. Rural carriers’ attempts to challenge and prove any discrepancies between their actual work and what is calculated by the new system have been derailed by the USPS’s refusal to disclose the year-long electronic collection of data used by the system which they alone control.

Minneapolis Letter Carriers Showed We’re Ready To Fight

April 13, 2023 Tyler Vasseur, Labor Notes. Organize! Letter Carriers, Minneapolis, Strikes, US Postal Service, Worker Rights and Jobs

Letter carriers got a glimpse of what a fighting strategy to win a strong contract could look like when 150 workers and supporters rallied in downtown Minneapolis April 2 under the banner “Staffing, Safety, and Service—Letter Carriers Need a Raise!” Members highlighted the root causes of the staffing crisis: mandatory overtime, pay that hasn’t kept up with inflation or with industry competitors like UPS, a toxic working environment at many stations created by bullying tactics from management, and overall poor working conditions that have led to huge attrition rates of new hires.

How We Began To Bring The Mail Back

January 24, 2023 Jamie Partridge, Labor Notes. Resist! Postal Workers, US Postal Service, Worker Rights and Jobs

Across the country and here in Portland, Oregon, carriers are working 12-, 14-, and 16-hour days, into the dark as late as 9 p.m., 10 p.m., even midnight! At several stations we have begun to bring the mail back at 12 hours (or 10 hours) and stop work at 60 hours in a week. We are refusing orders to continue delivering. Filing form 1767 (hazardous conditions, “exhausted”) and form 1571 (undelivered mail). And we are getting away with it. We heard it through the grapevine. Several carriers in Seattle refused to carry past 12 hours and brought the mail back. Their discipline (for “insubordination”) was overturned because management had violated not only Article 8.5G (Hours of Work) but also Article 14 (Safety and Health). The leadership of Letter Carriers Branch 79 (Seattle) created a pamphlet, distributed to all carriers, titled “Stop Working More Than 12 Hours a Day!” with a section on “How to bring back the mail.”

Support Veterans By Defending, Not Defunding, Public Sector Jobs

November 7, 2022 Steve Early and Suzanne Gordon, Popular Resistance. Educate! Jobs, US Postal Service, Veterans, Veterans Day

Our nation’s year-round celebration of former military service by 19 million Americans reaches its apex every Nov. 11 (aka Veterans Day). On that occasion, there is no louder “thank you for your service” heard throughout the land than the expression of gratitude which emanate from businesses, large and small. Men and women who enlisted in the military—or were draftees before conscription was suspended after the Vietnam War—suddenly become eligible for all kinds of special consumer discounts. As retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich, a military historian, observes, “corporate virtue signaling” on Nov. 11 takes the form of “an abundance of good deals: free coffee, free doughnuts, free pizza, free car washes, and as much as 30 percent off on assorted retail purchases.”

Florida Letter Carriers Won Back Our Sunday Breaks With Direct Action

September 23, 2022 John Murphy, Labor Notes. Resist! Direct Action, Florida, Unions, US Postal Service, Worker Rights and Jobs

Naples, Florida - A simple grievance can take many months to get results. But at the post office where I work, we got fast results defending our breaks with a different approach: direct action. I’m a city carrier assistant (CCA)—part of the lower-paid second tier of letter carriers—in Naples, Florida. The retention rate for CCAs nationwide hovers around 20 percent. Letter carriers start each day by sorting the mail and loading it into our trucks. In my post office, Mondays through Saturdays we take our first 10-minute break together inside the office, with the air conditioning, before heading out to start deliveries. We used to take our breaks together on Sundays, too. We would chip in for donuts and coffee, a sign of our camaraderie. But in April, the Postal Service implemented a new way of doing the Sunday package runs.

Watchdog Finds DeJoy Invests In COVID Company, Potentially Breaking Law

April 6, 2022 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Educate! Accountabiity, COVID-19, Louis DeJoy, US Postal Service

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy may have broken federal conflict of interest laws by holding investments in a company with federal government contracts for COVID rapid test kits, according to a government watchdog’s analysis of the embattled Trump appointee’s financial disclosures. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) found in a report released last week that DeJoy owns roughly between $50,000 and $250,000 of stock in Abbott Laboratories, which produces the popular BinaxNow COVID testing kits. Earlier this year, federal officials awarded Abbott a $306 million contract for test kits as part of the government’s plan to send households free tests through the United States Postal Service (USPS). Abbott also recently won a contract modification for over $1 billion for test kits.

Lessons On Fighting Privatization From The Recent Postal Service Victory

April 4, 2022 Margaret Flowers, Popular Resistance. Podcast Congress, Louis DeJoy, Privatization, US Postal Service

Congress recently passed the Postal Service Reform Act - the result of 15 years of organizing to end the mandate to prefund 75 years worth of retirement benefits and other changes that were hurting the people's post office. The new act opens the door to building on the current postal infrastructure to provide more services to people, especially in poor and rural communities. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chuck Zlatkin, the legislative and political director of the largest local postal worker union, about what the new law will do and how it was won. Zlatkin also discusses the fight over making the new postal fleet electric and Biden's new nominees to the Board of Governors. Zlatkin warns us not to underestimate the Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who is playing a long game to privatize the postal service.

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