Save the US Postal Service!
On
Feb. 12, 2015 the American Postal Workers Union and more than 60
national organizations came together in A Grand Alliance to Save Our
Public Postal Service!Read the Alliance Statement and view the list of 60-plus Alliance signatories.
In a two-minute video,<< https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o6vJw9mkzU>> actor-activist Danny Glover champions the need for a vibrant public Postal Service and asks the public to join with him in A Grand Alliance to save it.
Mission Statement: A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is a wonderful national treasure, enshrined in the Constitution and supported by the American people. Without any taxpayer funding, the USPS serves 150 million households and businesses each day, providing affordable, universal mail service to all – including rich and poor, rural and urban, without regard to age, nationality, race or gender. The U.S. Postal Service belongs to "We, the People."
But the USPS and postal jobs are threatened by narrow monied interests aimed at undermining postal services and dismantling this great public institution. Even some postal executives have been complicit in the drive toward the destruction of the Postal Service and ultimate privatization: They have slowed mail service, closed community based Post Offices and mail processing facilities, slashed hours of operations, tried ceaselessly to end six-day service as well as door to door delivery, and eliminated hundreds of thousands of living wage jobs.
Good postal jobs are vital to strong, healthy communities, and have provided equal opportunities and the foundation for financial stability for workers from all walks of life, including racial and ethnic minorities, women and veterans. Postal services are essential to commerce and bind together families, friends and loved ones. In the day of e-commerce, a public postal service is as relevant as ever.
Yet those corporate forces who want to privatize public services allege that curtailing postal services and eliminating jobs are necessary due to diminishing mail volume and "burdensome" union wages and benefits. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, a Congressionally-manufactured USPS "crisis" imposed an unfair crushing financial mandate on the Postal Service that no other government agency or private company is forced to bear. (The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 compels the USPS to pay approximately $5.5 billion per year to fund future retiree healthcare costs 75 years in advance.)
Without this unreasonable burden, the USPS would have enjoyed an operating surplus of $600 million in 2013 and over $1.4 Billion in 2014. The people of this country deserve great public postal services. We advocate expanded services, such as non-profit postal banking and other financial services. We call on the Postmaster General and Postal Board of Governors to strengthen and champion the institution.
The public good must not be sacrificed for the sake of private investment and profit. A strong public Postal Service is our democratic right. Join us in the fight to protect and enhance vibrant public postal services now – and for many generations to come.
Initial Signatories
A. Philip Randolph Institute
AFL-CIO
Alliance for Retired Americans
Amalgamated Transit Union
American Federation of Government Employees
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
American Federation of Teachers
American Postal Workers Union
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance
Black Women’s Roundtable
Campaign for America’s Future
Catholic Labor Network
Center for Community Change Action
Center for Effective Government
Center for Media and Democracy
Center for Rural Affairs
Center for Study of Responsive Law
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
Coalition of Labor Union Women
Color of Change
Communications Workers of America
Congressional Hispanic Caucus
Consumer Action
Democracy for America
Essential Information
Farm Aid
Gamaliel Network
Greenpeace USA
Healthcare-NOW!
Hightower Lowdown
In the Public Interest
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Interfaith Worker Justice
International Association of Fire Fighters
Jewish Labor Committee
Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare
Labor Council for Latin American Advancement
National Action Network
National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association
National Alliance of Postal and Federal Employees
National Association of Letter Carriers
National Association of Postal Supervisors
National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
National Consumers League
National Council of Churches
National Education Association
National Farmers Union
National People’s Action
National Postal Mail Handlers Union
National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association
9to5
People for the American Way
Pride at Work
Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
Public Citizen
Rainbow PUSH Coalition
Service Employees International Union
Social Security Works
United For A Fair Economy
USAction
VoteVets Action Fund
Working America
Please distribute and circulate widely.
