Postal unions call National Day of Action to stop privatization

Postal Service employees and their customers will rally across the country Monday in opposition to President Trump’s proposal to privatize the U.S. mail.

The National Day of Action has support from all four postal unions, including the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) and the Postal Workers (APWU).

In the Twin Cities, union members and supporters will rally over the noon hour Oct. 8, outside the Minneapolis Post Office, 307 S. 4th Ave.

Trump announced his interest in turning over the USPS to private hands in June, and his administration later directed a task force to look into overhauling the mail.

That committee has yet to release its report, but the idea of privatization already has drawn formal – and bipartisan – resistance in Congress.

Last month, Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith joined 26 colleagues from both parties in co-sponsoring a resolution to keep the U.S. Postal Service under the control of the federal government.

“It is the sense of the Senate that Congress should take all appropriate measures to ensure that the United States Postal Service remains an independent establishment of the federal government and is not subject to privatization in whole or in part,” the resolution said.

A similar resolution in the House has drawn 197 co-sponsors, including four from Minnesota: Reps. Betty McCollum, Tim Walz, Rick Nolan and Collin Peterson.

Fully privatizing the Postal Service would require Congress to act, and the early, bipartisan support for the resolutions indicate Trump has a steep hill to climb if he pushes forward on the issue.

But postal unions aren’t taking any chances. They warn that privatization would increase prices for consumers, threaten service in rural parts of the country and undermine good jobs.

What’s more, privatization is a solution in search of a problem. The USPS is self-sufficient; taxpayers do not subsidize its operations.

“Privatizing the Postal Service is not in the public interest or the interest of postal workers and would be nothing more than a raid by corporate pirates on a national treasure,” the APWU said in a statement.

Filiberto Nolasco Gomez is a former union organizer and former editor of Minneapolis based Workday Minnesota, the first online labor news publication in the state. Filiberto focused on longform and investigative journalism. He has covered topics including prison labor, labor trafficking, and union fights in the Twin Cities.