Thousands of US Postal Service workers have demonstrated across the USA calling on politicians to “Save America’s Postal Service”.
Members of the four USPS employee unions, the American Postal Workers Union, the NationalAssociation of Letter Carriers, the National Postal Mail Handlers Union and the National RuralLetter Carriers’ Association, held 90-minute rallies at 492 locations and thus covered everycongressional district.
Demonstrators also visited the home office of each member of the House of Representatives tothank those members who had signed on as co-sponsors of H.R. 1351, a bill that addresses thefinancial crisis facing the Postal Service, and to encourage those who have not signed asco-sponsors of H.R. 1351 to do so.
The bill focuses on changing a 2006 postal reform law that requires the USPS to pre-fund 75years’ worth of future retiree health benefits within just 10 years, the APWU explained. “No otherfederal agency or private enterprise is forced to pre-fund similar benefits like this, especiallyon such an aggressive schedule,” the union said.
“This postal-only mandate costs the USPS $5.5 billion per year. It accounts for 100 per centof the Postal Service’s $20 billion in losses over the past four years. It also accounts for 100percent of the rise in the Postal Service’s debt in recent years.”
Without the mandate, the USPS would have been profitable over the past four years, and ratherthan having to use up its $15 billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury to cover thepre-funding obligation, the Postal Service would have had significant borrowing authority to rideout the bad economy it now faces, according to the union.
The $47 billion the Postal Service has deposited so far into its retiree health fund over thepast four years instead could have been spent on operating costs, it added.
