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US Postal Service

Postal Workers Throng To 500 Rallies To Save The Postal Service

March 29, 2025 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , ,
From big cities to small towns, postal workers organized hundreds of rallies across the country in the past week to defend a beloved public service—and the nation’s largest union employer—against privatization and DOGE attack. “Whose Postal Service?” workers chanted in New York: “The people’s Postal Service.” “U.S. Mail Is Not for Sale” was the rallying cry March 20 at 250 rallies organized by the Postal Workers (APWU). “Fight Like Hell” was the theme March 23 for another 210 rallies led by the Letter Carriers (NALC). A hundred people came out to the NALC rally in St. Petersburg, Florida, covering all four corners of the busiest intersection in town, said Roger Ezra Butterfield, a recently minted steward in APWU.

Postal Workers Rally Against Proposal To Privatize USPS

March 24, 2025 Hank Lee, WCNC. , , , , ,
Charlotte , NC - Charlotte postal workers held another rally Sunday, speaking out against a proposal to privatize the U.S. Postal Service. Sunday's rally was held at the post office in Ballantyne and led by the local branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Leaders said it's all about protecting rural communities that rely on the Postal Service.  Conversations about privatizing the USPS have been ongoing and floated by President Donald Trump previously. "The NALC and all postal employees what the postal workers to know, and the president to know, that the Postal Service is not for sale," NALC Branch President Sylvin Stevens said.

Organizing To Stop Stealth Privatization Of The US Postal Service

March 17, 2025 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
Beginning with the so-called Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which required the postal service to hold billions of dollars in reserve to fund retirement benefits for workers who have not yet been born, and then the sell-off of post offices, cuts to the workforce and price hikes, the ground for privatization of the US Postal Service, as was done in Canada and the United Kingdom, has been laid. Clearing the FOG speaks with Annie Norman, a leader of the Save the Post Office Coalition, about the current effort to begin privatizing the postal service in incremental steps. Norman also discusses the upcoming national days of action to protect our post offices and the People's Postal Agenda, a program to strengthen the postal service and add more services for people.

Postal Workers Brace For Trump’s Wrecking Ball

March 5, 2025 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , , ,
Is the nation’s biggest union workforce, at the Postal Service, President Trump’s next target? The Washington Post broke the news February 20 that Trump was on the verge of issuing an executive order to dissolve the independent leadership of USPS and move it into the executive branch under the Department of Commerce, now led by enthusiastic privatizer Howard Lutnick, a Wall Street banker. Trump confirmed the next day that he was “looking at” this option. The other shoe hasn’t dropped yet. But one immediate threat is that moving USPS into the executive branch could provide a rationale to cancel union contracts.

Consolidation Threatens To Rip ‘Service’ Out Of Postal Service

October 31, 2024 Alexandra Bradbury, Labor Notes. , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , , , ,
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. , , , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , , , ,
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. , ,
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.”
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