It is Time to Raise Your Voice and Take Action

(This article appeared in the September/October 2025 issue of The American Postal Worker magazine)

The new postmaster general says he is in a listening mode to learn from all of us what the Postal Service needs to succeed.

What we need is to value our public institutions and commit to making sure that public goods and services are available to all. That includes the public Postal Service. Postal workers move the mail, including letters between loved ones, bills, Vote-by-Mail ballots, prescriptions, and care packages to our troops overseas. We also process money orders and passports, provide federal fingerprinting and ID services, stop fraud, and maintain the security of the mail and packages we deliver.

The Postal Service is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. We cannot allow private markets to enrich themselves off the backs of postal workers, customers, and the public. We are responsible for each other – and that includes taking care of our neighbors, whether they are rich or poor, rural, or urban, no matter their race or national origins.

We must fight against any attacks on our national treasure. It’s important for us to educate the public, plan town halls, write op-eds, and post on social media. When seeking a proclamation from your local government, make sure you give the public a list of the important services that the Postal Service will lose if it is privatized.

History has shown what public-private partnerships have done to public services. Remember Flint, MI, where a private contractor let lead into the drinking water unchecked, poisoning children and causing lifelong disabilities? Remember the DC transit system, where prices increased as bus workers with good-paying union jobs were laid off and denied full retirement? In the judicial system, private correctional facilities now profit off the backs of prisoners, while making billionaires much richer.

We must ensure that the private sector does not continue to steal our public services, and the Postal Service is our latest fight. The Postal Service provides a safety net for all people, and provides the right to communicate in an affordable way. These public goods and services give us a healthier, fairer, compassionate, and democratic nation. We must look after each other and refuse to leave our neighbors stranded. Our prompt service was stolen from the public when the USPS destroyed our network through the USPS consolidations and most of the Delivering for America plans.

The wealthy want to benefit from the public services that we provide. The sanctity of mail-in ballots does not discriminate; it is a secure democratic right. We fight for everyone’s right to have power over their public service just as hard as we would fight for ourselves. We must make sure that the public Postal Service is equally available to all. The Postal Service is a self-funded independent agency.

The Postal Service once provided a great public postal banking program for over 57 years, but the big banks lobbied away the rights of citizens by ending the program so they could take advantage of the underbanked and charge higher banking rates in predatory loans.

The private sector thrives on limiting competition. They strive to monopolize markets; that’s what Waste Management did, gobbling up all the small waste management companies. That is what FedEx, Amazon, and UPS do as well. Wells Fargo’s recent memo says it’s time for big companies to swoop in and gobble up the Postal Service’s more than $80 billion in annual revenue. But by letting the private companies take on the easy, less costly work, such as packages, where they can raise mail services up to 140% in costs to the public, profits will go into the pockets of the privatizers. We must stand up for our public Postal Service and take action now! ■