WASHINGTON—From Bangor, Maine, to Key West, Fla., and from Los Angeles to Chicago to Fairbanks, Alaska, to Waikaloa, Hawaii, the Postal Workers (APWU) and tens of thousands of their allies are rallying today, March 20, against a Donald Trump regime scheme to privatize the Postal Service—a plan an investment bank’s study reveals would net Wall Street $81 billion while leaving customers facing huge price hikes.
The first step in the potential privatization plan occurred several weeks ago when Trump Postmaster General Louis DeJoy agreed to let multibillionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) twerps into USPS headquarters in D.C. to rummage through its computer files and other sensitive data as the first step towards selling off the Postal Service.
And if the 150 APWU-led “The U.S. Mail Is Not For Sale!” rallies and congressional pressure don’t stop Musk’s DOGE depredations at the Postal Service, “the moment” his raiders start snatching confidential personnel files and similar data from the USPS files, the union plans to sue to stop them.
“Privatization shifts workers’ dollars from the public good to the corporate sector investor class,” APWU President Mark Dimondstein said on March 10, announcing the upcoming events. “It’s not just us, but there’s a fast and furious effort” by Trump and his handler, Musk, “to hollow out the government for enriching billionaires and launching a coup.”
Just how much Wall Street would garner from privatizing the USPS—which would also endanger the jobs of its 640,000 unionized workers—was disclosed in a special study by Wells Fargo Securities, the bank’s investment arm, in late February.
Try $81 billion, just from selling off “excess” buildings and land.
“The USPS owns approximately 8,500 facilities,” including 7,200 post offices and 1,300 larger sorting centers,” the analysis explains. They sit on 20,700 acres of land. It says when Congress privatizes the USPS—by repealing the 1970 law which established its independence—the agency could sell the smaller post offices for $12 billion, the sorting centers for $34 billion and the land for $35 billion.
“We believe value can be harvested to help underpin the financial burden of separation, including long-term labor liabilities,” Wells Fargo said, a polite way of saying some of the money could be used to pay off long term, fired postal workers.
The remaining workers would be split, the analysis adds, between profitable parcel mail and unprofitable rural first-class mail delivery. It doesn’t say how often that delivery would occur. But it forecasts a 30%-140% rise in parcel postage prices. “Even if the status quo is kept, i.e. no privatization, the new Postmaster General would continue the recent push to raise prices,” Wells Fargo forecast.
Having signed the pact to let Musk and his DOGE devourers in, DeJoy, a Republican big giver for decades and former CEO of the package carrier XPO Logistics, is stepping down. Trump named him Postmaster General in mid-2020. DeJoy immediately started closing postal sorting centers, forcing Letter Carriers to drive hundreds of miles roundtrip just to pick up mail to deliver on their local routes.
He also yanked out the ubiquitous blue mailboxes from majority-minority “blue” central cities, raising questions about whether he did so to skew the 2020 presidential election by depressing the mail-in vote from voters of color. And DeJoy removed USPS sorting machines which handled first-class letters and election mail, replacing them with package sorters.
“It is no surprise DOGE has set its sights on the people’s Postal Service,” APWU’s Dimondstein said when the union announced the rallies.
“The APWU position is clear: There is no legitimate role for DOGE in the USPS or any other agency. The public Postal Service was created by Congress as an independent government agency with robust oversight” from its own Inspector General, its governing board and Congress.
“The union remains on full alert and will continue to monitor the situation. The moment there is any indication DOGE seeks access to personal and private information regarding employees, the APWU is prepared to take immediate legal action.”
Will meet sustained resistance
“Our collective bargaining agreement is between the APWU and the Postal Service. Any effort by DOGE, or any other entity, to weaken our union rights or target our contractual protections and working conditions, will be met with immediate and sustained resistance by Postal Workers.”
The other big postal union, the Letter Carriers, “have a message to deliver to the White House: Hands off the Postal Service,” union President Brian Renfroe said.
NALC started arbitration with DeJoy’s postal brass on March 17, after members overwhelmingly rejected a new contract proposal Renfroe had sent them. Its 1.3% annual raises were too small, even with added cost-of-living hikes.
“U.S. Letter Carriers deliver 44% of the world’s mail,” Renfroe continued. “No private shipper guarantees or offers this unmatched universal service,” as the Wells Fargo study envisions.
“Without our work, 51.5 million households and businesses in rural communities would have no guaranteed deliveries of medications, checks, ballots, and other essential mail and packages.
“The reported executive order” by Trump, privatizing the USPS and handing the remnants over to the Commerce Department, “jeopardizes the jobs of 640,000 postal employees,” including more than 73,000 veterans, he added. It “would affect 7.9 million people in the mailing industry.”
“Americans should see this reported executive order for what it is: A direct attack on USPS employees, our universal service, and every citizen who relies on the Postal Service,” said Renfroe.
“Americans can count on their Letter Carrier in every community. We are fighting like hell against any privatization efforts or reorganizational mandates. We will do everything in our power to ensure we continue upholding our universal service obligation that Americans depend on through a strong and public Postal Service.’
What Renfroe did not say is that a large share of both USPS workers and government workers are people of color, more than their proportion of the population. Federal, postal and state and local government jobs have, for years, been routes of upward mobility for women and minorities, since higher-level private sector jobs were largely closed, due to prejudice.
Postal Workers and members of the Government Employees (AFGE) jumped the gun, with an evening town hall in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nev., on March 19, AFGE reported. Speakers there not only trashed Musk and DOGE over the postal privatization, but also over his chainsaw against all federal workers, agencies and programs.
“This is the people’s postal service, emphasis on ‘service,’” APWU President Dimondstein added in a statement about the rallies. “If this administration succeeds in taking over the USPS, it will lead to higher prices and reduced service, especially in rural areas.” The USPS, now in its 250th year, is enshrined in the Constitution, the union noted. “It belongs to the people on Main Street, it shouldn’t be handed over to Wall Street, Dimondstein said. “The U.S. mail is not for sale.”
Locations of USPS rallies can be found here.
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