(Photo courtesy of Rep. Meng’s Office)
Oct. 9, 2018 By Tara Law
Queens postal workers condemned President Donald Trump’s proposal to privatize the U.S. Postal Service at a rally in Flushing on Monday.
Queens postal union members, U.S. Representative Grace Meng and local union presidents gathered in Flushing as part of the “U.S. Mail is Not for Sale” National Day of Action, a nation-wide protest. The Queens protesters, along with postal workers mobilizing across the country, took aim at President Trump’s proposal to privatize the agency.
The White House argues that the proposal, which was part of Trump’s “Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century” government reorganization plan from June, would cut costs and allow the agency to modernize.
The postal workers’ unions counter that privatizing U.S. mail would put postal workers’ jobs in jeopardy and drive up mail costs.
Gathered outside of Representative Meng’s office, Queens postal union leaders spoke about the potential impact of the proposal.
Tony Paolillo, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers Flushing Branch 294, called the Postal Service a “national treasure.”
“Service would be solely based on private gain, and would put millions of American jobs in jeopardy,” Paolillo said.
George Mangold, president of the New York State Association of Letter Carriers, noted that the Postal Service is part of the constitution. He called the agency a “service to the American people.”
“It was never meant to be a money making business,” Mangold said. “Privatization would destroy that service. The U.S. Mail is not for sale!”
Representative Meng had taken a stand against the president’s proposal in July, when she cosponsored a House resolution calling for Congress to block efforts to privatize the mail service.
On Monday, Meng said that the privatization would be “disastrous for our country.”
“The American people and small businesses rely heavily on the Postal Service and if the agency is privatized, we all stand to be socked with higher delivery costs and a reduction of service, particularity in areas where it’s not profitable for private companies to make deliveries,” Meng said. “Privatization may also put the jobs of our hard working postal employees on the chopping block.”
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7 Comments
Poorly regulated and poorly performing US Mail is trying to become private. But guess what, labor unions, who are threatened to lose all those cushy government jobs, are against it. Of course…
It’s the same unions who supported electing highly ineffective DeBlassio to office. Without the might of union employees voting for the guys like DeBlassio, God forbit we might actually elect someone competent.
God forbit Sunnyside post commenters learn how to spell
you should be required to put stamps on your email
They lose money because they have to pre pay their employees medical and retirement benefits.
They have to do this because all postal employees are given federal employee status.
The postal reformation act days that the postal service is to be self sustaining.
Thus they pre pay so the government won’t get stuck with the bill.
Without these payments they make a profit.
Easy solution, taker away their federal employee status and privatize their retirement.
Nip more pre payments and the postal service is in the black.
It’s already bankrupt you morons…
Not anyway near as bankrupt as the President making this inane proposal, one that would surely lead to drastic cuts in service & areas served as weell as rising prices.
And by bankrupt I not only mean morally, but also his penchant for bankrupting the companies under his control. Or in the case of the USA, selling us off to his lobbyist pals and Putin.
When you hear this Republican crew mention the word “privatize” it just means that their rich backers want to become even richer by skimming profits off our backs, whether it’s with public schools, medicare, the VA , or the Post Office. Privatization is just another word for them fleecing us even more.
Whatever you say Comrade.
Funny how you guys were for decades pro Russia and now all of a sudden you guys are supposedly anti Russia.