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Rallies coast-to-coast: ‘Save our post office’

Published Oct 6, 2011 9:17 PM

Postal workers and supporters in Philadelphia, Sept. 27.
WW photo: Joseph Piette

Thousands of union members and their supporters attended a total of 492 local rallies on Sept. 27. They all spoke in one voice and demanded, “Save the U.S. Postal Service.” The rallies were held in front of House and Senate offices in every congressional district across the U.S. The workers’ demonstrations urged lawmakers to save the USPS by supporting H.R. 1351, which would restore its financial stability.

In an impressive show of solidarity, the American Postal Workers Union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association joined forces with other labor unions and community members. They all opposed the most serious threat to USPS jobs since President Richard Nixon called out the National Guard against the postal strike of 1971.

The USPS is threatening to lay off as many as 200,000 workers, close up to 8,400 post offices, eliminate Saturday mail service and shut down 250 mail-processing facilities nationally. Postal officials also seek to drastically reduce medical and pension benefits for workers and retirees. The Postal Service has not received any taxpayer subsidies in 30 years.

The scheduled cutbacks would hit seniors and poor and rural communities the hardest. Post offices are being tagged for closing based on the amount of revenue they generate. Low-income and rural areas, which depend on neighborhood post offices more than wealthy urban areas, would suffer the most closings. The retrenchment would also negatively affect the $1.2 trillion U.S. mailing industry, with its 9 million jobs.

Postal management claims that these draconian cuts are necessary because of the decline of first-class mail due to the Internet and because of the struggling economy, which has depressed advertising mail volume.

Labor leaders contend that the Postal Service, as currently required by Congress, has tied up more than $100 billion in overfunded retirement and health benefit accounts that could be used to avert layoffs and cutbacks.

In 2006 Congress passed a bill which imposed a burden on the USPS that no other government agency or private company shares. It required the Postal Service to pay a 75-year liability in just 10 years to “pre-fund” health care benefits for future retirees. This impossible-to-meet mandate totals $5.5 billion a year.

In addition to overfunding pensions, the Postal Service previously exaggerated their retirees’ health liability by using a 7 percent rather than a 5 percent health care inflation rate. Correcting overpayments and transferring any surplus to the retiree health fund would fully fund the Postal Service’s retiree obligations and eliminate the need for further pre-funding.

Postal union leaders point out that the Postal Service would have made a profit of $611 million over the last four years if Congress had not saddled the agency with unfair financial burdens.

Increased exploitation of postal workers

How did the USPS make $611 million in revenue, despite the Great Recession and competition from email, Bluetooth and other technological advances?

The Postal Service workforce has declined nearly 25 percent since 2000, from 708,324 to 531,831 — a massive drop. Yet Total Factor Productivity, a measure of the Postal Service’s operational efficiency, improved 10 percent over the same period.

How can productivity go up with so many fewer workers? By using new technology and utilizing the old-fashioned means of forcing workers to work harder.

For instance, even though the USPS’s delivery network increases by an average 1 million addresses every year, since 2000 they have abolished 43,974 carrier jobs. In just the last two years, more than 12,000 delivery routes have been eliminated. Every station reduced the number of carrier routes, forcing postal workers to deliver mail to more addresses. In effect, each postal worker’s increased workload enabled the Postal Service to make $611 million more in revenue.

However, it’s not about just getting more profits out of workers. As in Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey and other states, corporations and their politicians in office aim to attack all government unions head-on.

On Sept. 21, conservative leaders in Co ngress were able to push an extremely anti-workers’-rights bill out of committee. If passed by Congress as a whole, it would grant a newly established control board the authority to carry out layoffs, in spite of any provisions in collective bargaining agreements that might limit them.

In addition, H.R. 2309 mandates layoffs of retirement-eligible employees with the longest service before ineligible employees. It would also empower a newly created “solvency authority” to unilaterally cut wages and abolish benefits.

Responding to attacks by congressional anti-worker politicians as well as by USPS executives, the postal unions organized the rallies on Sept. 27. Their goal was to pressure politicians in every congressional district to support H.R. 1351. The bill has the support of 217 members of Congress and would take the unfair $75 billion pre-funding burden off postal ledgers.

These rallies may not be the last. Some union members are agitating for more local protests as well as a national march on Washington to save the Postal Service.

Community groups as well as union activists promise to voice their opposition to postal cutbacks at a “discontinuance feasibility” meeting on the shutting down of the Port Authority Post Office in New York City on Oct. 5.

The movement to save postal jobs, postal unions and postal facilities is just getting started.

The writer recently retired from the USPS and is a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers.