Postal Workers Rally to ‘Save America’s Postal Service’

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

UCS News Serivce

Postal workers and their supporters held rallies at nearly 500 locations nationwide on Sept. 27 to “Save America’s Postal Service.”

The rallies, which were held in every congressional district, were designed to tell the American people the real cause of the Postal Service’s financial crisis and to build support for H.R. 1351, which would restore financial stability to the USPS. They also opposed a bill that would strip union rights and dismantle collective bargaining agreements between USPS management and postal unions. Immediately following the rallies, three postal unions—the American Postal Workers Union, The National Association of Letter Carriers and the National Postal Mail Handlers Union - launched a new television ad campaign targeting unfair financial burdens imposed on the Postal Service by Congress. The ad exposes “the real reason the USPS is facing a crisis that is jeopardizing the nation’s mail system,” according to the unions. “The postal service is recording financial losses,” according to the ad, “but not for reasons you might think.”

The USPS carries an extraordinary financial burden that no other government agency or company bears, the ad notes. A 2006 law, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, requires the Postal Service to pre-fund the healthcare benefits of future retirees. It forces the agency to pre-fund a 75-year liability in just 10 years, and costs the USPS more than $5.5 billion annually.  This mandate, the unions say, is the reason the Postal Service is threatening to close thousands of post offices, eliminate hundreds of mail processing facilities, end Saturday mail delivery, and lay off 120,000 workers. In addition, the Postal Service is required to overpay billions more into federal accounts.

“Congress created this problem, and Congress can fix it,” the ad concludes. The ad will run until the end of November on CNN, MSNBC and FOX News.
From medical prescriptions to important financial documents, packages, catalogues and newspapers, the U.S. Postal Service is the center of a $1.2 trillion industry that employs 8 million people, including printers, mailers, publishers and other businesses that depend on the Postal Service.