Historic Sanders Campaign Advanced Our Goals, Strengthens Our Movement

Building a political revolution isn’t easy. But the historic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie has advanced that goal, says APWU President Mark Dimondstein.

Sanders’ essential message – that Wall Street’s system is failing the 99% – inspired such an enthusiastic response that it put us in a much better to position to win the battles on issues the campaign championed, he added.

“The campaign uplifted working people. It gave them confidence in their own worth. It validated the belief that we deserve much more than the current political system offers,” Dimondstein said. “Whatever happens in the 2016 election, whoever is in the White House next year, we have to keep the movement going, particularly among young people.”

APWU members were among the multitudes who were motivated by Sanders’ call for a political revolution. In part, support from postal workers stems from Sanders’ unflinching commitment to the public Postal Service, Dimondstein said. He has been an outspoken opponent of plant closings and other cutbacks, and an advocate of expanded services, including postal banking.

But Sanders’ appeal to postal workers goes much deeper than postal issues. “His campaign zeroed in on key demands of working people – to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour, create jobs by rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, make public colleges tuition-free, stop climate change, end mass incarceration, stop bad trade deals, and drive money out of politics,” Dimondstein said.

“As a result of the campaign, the labor movement and our allies have a stronger foundation to win on these issues, which are important to us and to all working people.”

Never About Him

Sanders himself stressed that the campaign was never about him. It was always about

building a movement.

“Election days come and go, but political and social revolutions that attempt to transform our society never end. They continue every day, every week and every month in the fight to create a nation of social and economic justice,” Sanders said in June.

“That’s what the trade union movement is about. That’s what the civil rights movement is about… And that’s what this campaign has been about over the past year. That’s what the political revolution is about and that’s why the political revolution must continue into the future,” he said. 

At DNC Platform Committee, Dimondstein Offers Spirited Defense of Public Postal Service

APWU President Mark Dimondstein addressed the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Platform Committee on June 9, where he gave an impassioned defense of the public Postal Service and urged the committee to adopt specific pro-postal and pro-worker planks.

The invitation to address the session on Jobs and the Economy was made at the request of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign.

“The public Postal Service, run without tax dollars, is indeed a national treasure. Ecommerce makes it as crucial as ever,” Dimondstein told the panel.

“Yet its mission is being threatened by many corporate and Wall Street forces that seek to undermine it and privatize it.

“The 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (the PAEA), with its outrageous burden of pre-funding retiree health care 75 years into the future has led to degraded service, understaffing, closed post offices, slowed down mail, reduced hours of retail operations and driven away needed revenue,” he said.

Dimondstein called for the platform to endorse ending the pre-funding mandate; restoring overnight delivery of first class mail and periodicals within metropolitan areas and speeding up mail delivery overall; maintaining six-day and door-to-door delivery; restoring full hours of operation at retail facilities in rural communities, and appointing members to the USPS Board of Governors and the Postal Regulatory Commission who champion a strong public Postal Service. He urged the committee to endorse enhancing postal service by offering basic financial services, and promoting voting by mail.

“The Postal Service is vital to jobs and the economy, by providing service to individual and business customers and providing a foundation of decent unionized living-wage jobs, won through collective bargaining that lift-up our communities,” he said.

Collective bargaining is one way to reverse income inequality, which has been a central issue in the 2016 election, he noted. The platform should enthusiastically support unions, collective bargaining rights and promoting workers’ rights to organize unions free from company intimidation.

Give-and-Take with Panel

Dimondstein’s most spirited remarks before the panel came in response to a question posed by committee member Bonnie Schaeffer, who said young people today barely use the mail and suggested there isn’t much need for the Postal Service in the age of the Internet.

Young people use the Postal Service differently than earlier generations, Dimondstein countered. They may pay bills online, but they shop online, too. “If the ecommerce revolution does not have a public infrastructure to deliver that product, ecommerce dies,” he said.